APPENDICES
2.2 The state of School Psychological Services
2.2.1 A historical overview of guidance and counselling
2.2.1.1 Guidance and Counselling in the United States of America
It is important to trace the roots of Guidance and Counselling in schools and how it influenced educational reforms in South Africa. According to Gysbers (1994, p. 55), “modern Guidance and Counselling in the USA was born during the early 1900s at the height of the Progressive Movement – a product of the Industrial Revolution – which sought to change negative social conditions associated with industrial growth”. The Guidance and Counselling movement began then with more emphasis on vocational or career guidance. Secondary school Guidance and Counselling also began in the early 1900s when its primary emphasis was on guidance activities that would help better citizens. Frank Parsons was regarded as the father of the guidance movement because he influenced the early growth of the profession by establishing a vocational bureau in Boston in 1908 – the purpose of which was to place school leavers and drop-outs in suitable employment. His scientific approach to choosing an occupation is summarized in the following paragraph:
“No step in life, unless it may be the choice of a husband or wife, is more important than the choice of a vocation. The wise selection of the business, profession, trade, or occupation to which one’s life is to be devoted and the development of full efficiency in the chosen field are matters of deepest movement to young men and to the public.
These vital problems should be resolved in a careful, scientific way, with due regard to each person’s aptitudes, abilities, ambitions, resources, and limitations”. (Gysbers
& Henderson 2006, p. 4)
Guidance was meant to make the transition of young people from school to work more efficient, successful and less stressful, and also prepare youngsters to meet the demands and rigours of a competitive and materialistic society (Gysbers & Henderson 2006). The 1920s saw a shift in
guidance, in theory and practice, with less emphasis on guidance for vocation and more on education as guidance. The forerunners of the time, including people like John Brewer, were increasingly more educationally oriented. Brewer pushed for the establishment of secondary school guidance. With the advent of Seven Cardinal Principles in 1917 and the National Education Association’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, less attention was being focused on the social, industrial, and national-political aspects of individuals and more attention given to the personal, educational, and statistically measurable aspects of individuals. Within the school setting, there was an apparent displacement of the traditional vocational, socioeconomic and political concerns from the culture at large to the student of the educational subculture whose vocational socialization problems were reinterpreted as educational and psychological problems of personal adjustment (Gysbers & Henderson 2006).
According to Gladding (2000) Brewer believed that both guidance and education meant assisting young people in living. His ideas did not gain wide acceptance at the time, but under the name Life Skills training they have become increasingly popular. A new model of vocational guidance emerged, one that was clinical in nature and began to emphasize a more personal, diagnostic, and clinical orientation to the student, with increasing emphasis on psychological measurement.
Counselling became of primary concern. Vocational guidance became problem oriented, centering on adjustable psychological and personal problems (Gysbers & Henderson 2006).
Guidance became more firmly incorporated into schools in the 1930s and its proponents felt that educators were in a unique and better position to deliver guidance. Personal counselling - the goal of which was student adjustment through personal contact between counsellor and student -
became part of guidance. Carl Rogers’ publication of Counselling and Psychotherapy in 1942 had a ‘steamroller impact’ on Guidance and Counselling in the schools and precipitated the new field of counselling psychology. Through the George-Barden Act of 1946, school guidance received material, leadership, and financial support (Gysbers & Henderson 2006). According to Chuenyane (1990), Guidance came into being as a result of the cold war between the East and the West. The launching of the Sputnick by Russia in 1957 jolted the U.S. Government to focus particular attention on guidance services in the schools. With the shortage of engineers, and trained personnel in general, the country embraced guidance as the solution to their national problems. The National Defence Education Act of 1958 ensured the strengthening of the guidance services by providing funding for the training of school counsellors. Training programmes were established together with in-service training programmes for secondary school teachers and counsellors (Chuenyane, 1990). It was in the 1960s when guidance became known as Learner Personnel Services and included Psychological Services, health, social work and attendance. Guidance was seen as one of the services that sought to facilitate learner learning through an interdisciplinary approach.
In the 1970s guidance was reoriented from a crisis-oriented service to a comprehensive programme. This was done not only to make guidance accountable but developmental too. A comprehensive guidance programme included student competencies, its activities conducted on a regular and planned basis to assist students, and included services such as assessment, information, consultation, counselling, referral, placement, evaluation and follow-up. Also it involved a team of all staff members with professionally certified school counsellors at the helm (Gysbers & Henderson, 2006).
Guidance in American schools is being provided to learners in all educational levels, from kindergarten through to higher education. Hence, all schools have school counsellors or guidance counsellors ensuring the effective implementation of guidance and counselling services.