Abstract:
What are you going to do after graduation is a question that the writer has asked doctoral students working in counseling and guidance. A common answer voices the desire to do something in teacher training. It seemed obvious that many in the field of Counseling and Guidance felt that their basic orientation of working with people had significant worth for teachers working with children.With the training in Counseling and Guidance the writer had received while still a teacher, he decided that a project utilizing a guidance-centered orientation of working with children would be not only worthwhile to the children involved but would be valuable learning for the experimenter. It would give an avenue of experience and a fund of resources from which to draw in the future when working with teachers and children as a Guidance Specialist.It was the experimenter's goal to provide an environment where new attitudes, values, and feelings toward the self and others could be experienced. It was believed that new ways of perceiving and behaving could be learned as the result of developmental kinds of Interpersonal experiences.To give structure and method to such goals, the experimenter drew heavily upon sociometrics: sociograms, Ohio Social Acceptance Scale, Bogardus Social Distance Scale, inventories, check sheets, open-ended sentences, and autobiographies. These were sources of information that helped him see what was not obvious. Sociometric seating, meetings with groups and individuals in conference and counseling relationships were included. Classroom atmosphere, activities, and discussions were channeled to meet and deal with problems and needs as they were perceived.Helping children to like themselves and deal effectively with others is a goal too often set aside for spelling or "new" math. It was hoped that this project could help some toward achieving this goal. Two specific goals emerged as the experimenter formulated this project. These goals were: that the teacher's influence and classroom atmosphere would help the children to gain a better opinion of themselves.... hence better feelings about the self or improved self-acceptance, and that the teacher's influence and classroom atmosphere would help the children to become more accepting of each other....hence better group-acceptance.