Psychological and pedagogical support for the development of creative abilities
Psychological and pedagogical support is a holistic, systematically organized activity, during which socio-psychological and pedagogical conditions are created for the successful learning and psychological development of each child in the school environment.
M.R. Bityanova
Psychological and pedagogical support is a special type of assistance to a child that ensures his development in the educational process.
EM. Alexandrovskaya
psychological service at school
The psychological service at school is the main link organizing psychological support for subjects of the educational process. By definition I.V. Dubrovina, “The psychological service of education is an integral phenomenon, representing the unity of its four components, or aspects – scientific, applied, practical and organizational.”
Scientific aspect
The scientific aspect involves conducting scientific research on the problems of methodology and theory of practical educational psychology. The main task is the substantiation and development of diagnostic, correctional, preventive and developmental programs, methods and techniques for the professional application of psychological knowledge in specific educational conditions.
applied aspect
The applied aspect involves the use of psychological knowledge by educational workers: educators, teachers, methodologists, who either independently or in collaboration with psychologists use the latest psychological data when compiling curricula, plans, creation of textbooks, development of didactic and methodological materials, construction of training and education programs.
practical aspect
The practical aspect is provided directly by practical psychologists in kindergartens, schools and other educational institutions. Their task is to work with children, groups and classes, educators, teachers, parents to solve certain specific problems. Their task does not include the creation of new methods or the study of psychological patterns, but they are obliged to professionally and competently use everything that science has today.
organizational aspect
The organizational aspect includes the creation of an effective structure for the educational psychological service, which ensures the interaction of all levels of the service on substantive and organizational issues.
goals and objectives of psychological service
The main goal of the educational psychological service is the psychological health of preschool and school-age children. Psychological health presupposes mental health, the basis of which is the full mental development of the child at all stages of childhood.
The main tasks of the educational psychological service:
implementation of development opportunities and reserves of each age in working with children;
development of children’s individual characteristics - interests, abilities, inclinations, feelings, relationships, hobbies, life plans, etc.;
creating a psychological climate favorable for the development of the child (in kindergarten, boarding school, school, etc.), which is determined primarily by the organization of productive communication between children and adults and peers;
providing timely psychological assistance and support to both children and their parents, educators, and teachers.
The main areas of work of the psychological service in the process of psychological and pedagogical support are:
psychological education;
psychological prevention;
psychological counseling;
psychological diagnostics;
psychological correction.
Psychological education is the familiarization of adults (educators, teachers, parents) and children with psychological knowledge. The main meaning of psychological education is as follows:
acquaint educators, teachers and parents with the basic patterns and conditions for the favorable mental development of a child;
popularize and explain the results of the latest psychological research;
to create a need for psychological knowledge, a desire to use it in working with a child or in the interests of developing one’s own personality;
introduce students to the basics of self-knowledge and self-education;
achieve an understanding of the need for practical psychology and the work of a psychologist in an educational institution.
Psychological prevention – special type activities of a psychologist aimed at preserving, strengthening and developing the psychological health of children at all stages of preschool and school childhood. Psychological prevention involves:
responsibility for compliance in the educational institution with the psychological conditions necessary for the full mental development and formation of the child’s personality at each age stage;
timely identification of such characteristics of the child that can lead to certain difficulties, deviations in his intellectual and emotional development, in his behavior and relationships;
prevention of possible complications in connection with the transition of children to the next age level.
consulting schoolchildren on issues related to learning, development, personal self-determination, relationships with adults and peers;
consulting administration and teachers on issues of development, training, upbringing and education of children and adolescents;
consulting parents and family members on issues of upbringing, family and interpersonal interactions.
Main diagnostic tasks:
drawing up a psychological and pedagogical portrait of a child;
identifying ways and forms of providing assistance to children experiencing difficulties in learning, communication and psychological well-being;
selection of forms and means of psychological and pedagogical support for children in accordance with their inherent characteristics of learning and communication.
correction of interpersonal relationships in teams;
assistance in overcoming maladaptive periods in children’s lives;
formation of social and behavioral skills;
accompanying children included in the special psychological attention group;
correction of mental processes.
psychological-pedagogical and social characteristic educational space (class, school, direction of the learning process, etc.);
psychological and pedagogical competence of teachers;
level of development of parents and their requests for the child’s education (requirements for the educational process);
style of relationships in the “teacher-student-parent” system;
organizational and methodological capabilities of the school in terms of implementing the development of creative abilities of schoolchildren;
the willingness of the administration, teaching staff and school specialists to take responsibility for the results of the psychological and pedagogical support of the child during his education and the development of his abilities.
The main goal of art therapy is to harmonize the development of personality through the development of the ability of self-expression and self-knowledge.
Objectives of art therapy:
Provide a socially acceptable outlet for aggression and other negative feelings.
Obtain material for interpretation and diagnostic conclusions.
Process thoughts and feelings that are usually suppressed.
Develop a sense of internal control.
Concentrate on sensations and feelings.
Help overcome communication barriers and psychological defenses.
Develop creativity and increase self-esteem.
Main types:
Music therapy
Bibliotherapy
Dance therapy
Projective drawing
Writing stories
Fairy tale therapy
Puppet therapy
Music therapy is a method that uses music as a means of correction. Numerous methods of music therapy provide for both the holistic and isolated use of music as the main and leading factor of influence (listening to musical works, individual and group music playing), and the addition of musical accompaniment to other correctional techniques to enhance their impact. Music therapy is actively used in the correction of emotional deviations, fears, movement and speech disorders, behavioral deviations and communication difficulties. Right choice music program is a key factor in music therapy. Back in 1916 V.M. Bekhterev wrote: “A piece of music, whose state coincides with the mood of the listener, makes a strong impression. A work that is disharmonious with the mood may not only not be liked, but even irritate.” Among musical instruments we can single out the leader in terms of impact on humans – this is an organ.
Music as a rhythmic stimulus stimulates the physiological processes of the body. It is known that the rhythm of the march, designed to accompany detachments of troops on long campaigns, is slightly slower than the rhythm of the calm work of the human heart. With this rhythm of music, you can walk for a very long time without feeling very tired. At the same time, the marches that sound during parade processions are more energetic. This slightly increases the normal rhythm of the human heart at rest. Therefore, such marches have an invigorating, mobilizing effect. The three-quarter waltz rhythm has been shown to have a calming effect. Musical intonation has no less powerful influence than rhythm. Music uses as its basis both primary vocal reactions (crying, laughing, screaming), the mechanism of which is an unconditioned reflex, and conditioned intonations that later developed on their basis, in which there is more socially generalized meaning. This combination of different intonation bases provides the greatest expressiveness.
In the 70-80s, several monographs devoted to music therapy were published, each containing chapters on the use of music for therapeutic purposes in children suffering from neuroses (K. Schwabe, 1974), early childhood autism (P. O. Benenzon, 1973), as well as research on the objectification of the influence of music on children (U. Grews, G. Grews, Z. Müller, 1971). In 1982, the book “Music Therapy for Children” by J. Brückner, I. Mederake and K. Ulbrich was published in Berlin, which examined in great detail all possible types of children’s music therapy, including pantomime and various methods of drawing to music.
One of the techniques described in this book is to teach children to recognize emotions. It consists of four music lessons with gradually increasing complexity of tasks.
At the first lesson, children receive 6 cards depicting a child's face with different facial expressions: joy, anger, sadness, surprise, attention, thoughtfulness. The authors of the methodology called them “mood maps.” After listening to a piece of music, children must pick up one of the cards. If all the raised cards coincide in mood with the mood of the music, then the emotions depicted on them are not named.
In the next three lessons, children, on the contrary, learn to verbally describe the feelings evoked by contrasting pieces of music and correlate them with “mood maps.” The technique is designed for school-age children, but can be adapted for older preschoolers.
Bibliotherapy is a special corrective effect on a person by reading specially selected literature in order to normalize or optimize his mental state. “The method of bibliotherapy is a complex combination of bibliology, psychology, psychotherapy, and psychocorrection,” wrote V. M. Myasishchev. The corrective effect of reading is manifested in the fact that certain images and associated feelings, desires, thoughts, assimilated with the help of a book, make up for the lack of one’s own images and ideas, replace disturbing thoughts and feelings or direct them in a new direction, towards new goals. In this way, you can weaken or strengthen the effect on a person’s feelings to restore his mental balance.
The bibliotherapy technique can be divided into several stages:
1. Self-training for a psychocorrector.
It includes compiling your own bibliotherapeutic recipe, i.e. lists of references and special familiarization with books from a correctional point of view. To begin with, take several genres of 2-3 titles each.
2. Orientation in the possibilities of bibliotherapy and its genres.
During the next conversation, a series of questions are asked. For example, “Name your five favorite books”; “Which books made the greatest impression on you in life? Why?"; “Which ones had the greatest influence on you?”; “Which authors do you think are most like you?”; “Which book characters are most like you?”
3. Making a list.
Next comes compiling a list of references, large and small. Even if bibliotherapy is used as an auxiliary method, the presence of such lists allows you to adjust other methods of influence.
4. Development of a reading system.
Genres, priority areas and number of books are determined. When recommending books for bibliotherapeutic purposes, the following three principles must be taken into account:
degree of accessibility of presentation (degree of complexity of the proposed book);
the hero of the book should be “up to par” for a child;
maximum similarity of the situation in the book with the situation in which the person finds himself.
Calm. A person can be calmed by specially selected journalistic, fiction. Reading such literature brings the client into a state of peace and tranquility.
Pleasure. People with problems feel separated from the world by their problem and limited in getting pleasure from the world. Reading a good book, especially if the book is quite complex or fast-paced, gives the client the extra pleasure they need.
A person’s feeling of self-confidence and faith in their capabilities arises when reading biography, autobiography, memoirs, letters of prominent people and reading books where characters with a difficult fate nevertheless emerge with dignity from a rather difficult life situation.
Most literary genres can cause high mental activity, which stimulates normal and protective mental reactions, suppressing negative ones, which contributes to the disappearance of traumatic experiences.
Dance therapy is used when working with people who have emotional disorders, communication disorders, and interpersonal interactions.
In the history of the development of dance therapy, K. Rudestam identifies a number of key events. The first is related to the need for physical and mental rehabilitation of veterans who returned from the fields of the Second World War. Dance therapy became an auxiliary method of rehabilitation for people with disabilities, many of whom either could not speak at all or were not inclined to have verbal influence applied to them. After the dance class, they noted that they experienced feelings of relief and spiritual harmony.
Another factor contributing to the growing popularity of dance therapy was the human relations training movement that emerged in the 60s, which became the basis for the development of new experimental approaches to working with groups and to the development of the personalities of their participants.
The goal of dance therapy is development, body awareness, creation of a positive body image, development of communication skills, exploration of feelings and gaining experience in working in a group.
Dance therapy is aimed at solving the following problems:
Deepening awareness of your own body and the possibilities of its use.
Strengthening self-esteem.
Development of social skills, creation of conditions for creative interaction.
Increased physical activity.
Communication training and organization of communication.
Liberation, search for ways of development.
Projective drawing. Drawing is a creative act that allows a person to feel and understand himself, to freely express his thoughts and feelings, to free himself from conflicts and strong feelings, to be himself, to freely express dreams and hopes. Some scientists tend to consider drawing as one of the ways to carry out a program for improving the body. Drawing develops motor coordination. Its advantage is that it requires the coordinated participation of many mental functions. According to experts, drawing is involved in the coordination of interhemispheric relationships, since in the process of drawing concrete-imaginative thinking, associated mainly with the work of the right hemisphere of the brain, and abstract-logical thinking, for which the left hemisphere is responsible, are coordinated. It is directly related to the most important functions (vision, motor coordination, speech, thinking) and contributes to the development of each of them, and also connects them with each other. By drawing, the child gives vent to his feelings, desires, dreams, and rebuilds his relationships in various situations. Thus, drawing acts as a way to comprehend one’s capabilities and the surrounding reality. Drawing is widely used to relieve mental tension, stressful conditions, correct neuroses and fears, and develop creative abilities.
The topics proposed for drawing can be very diverse and relate to both individual and group problems. Typically a drawing topic covers:
1. My own past and present (“My main problem in communicating with children”; “Situations in life in which I feel insecure”; “Me and the children”; “My usual day”, etc.).
2. Future or abstract concepts (“Who would I like to be”; “Three wishes”; “Loneliness”; “Island of Happiness”; “Love”; “Hate”; “Fear”; “Envy”, etc.) .
3. Relationships in the group (“What the group gave me, and I gave it”; “What I expected and what I received from studying in the group”; “What I don’t like or who I don’t like in the group”, etc.) .
The following techniques are used in projective drawing (classification by S. Kratochvil):
1. Free drawing (everyone draws what they want). Drawings are done individually, and discussion takes place in a group. The topic is either set or chosen by group members independently. 30 minutes are allocated for drawing, then the drawings are hung up and the discussion begins. First, the group members speak about the drawing, and then the author. Discrepancies in the interpretation of the figure are discussed.
2. Communicative drawing. The group is divided into pairs, each pair has their own sheet of paper, each pair draws together on a certain topic, and, as a rule, verbal contacts are excluded; they communicate using images, lines, and colors. After finishing the drawing process, there is a discussion about the drawing process. In this case, it is not the artistic merits of the created work that are discussed, but those thoughts and feelings about the drawing process that arose among the members of the dyads, and their attitude towards each other in the drawing process.
3. Collaborative drawing: several people (or the whole group) silently draw on one sheet of paper (for example, the group, its development, mood, atmosphere in the group, etc.). At the end of the drawing, the participation of each group member, the nature of his contribution and the features of interaction with other participants in the drawing process are discussed.
4. Additional drawing: the drawing is sent in a circle - one begins to draw, the other continues, adding something, etc.
There are 5 types of tasks used in drawing practice:
1. Subject-thematic.
2. Figurative and symbolic.
3. Exercises to develop figurative perception, imagination, symbolic function.
4. Games and exercises with visual material.
5. Tasks for joint activities.
Subject-thematic tasks are drawing on a given topic, where the subject of the image is a person and his relationship with the objective world and the people around him. An example of such tasks could be drawings on the topic: “My family”, “I’m at school”, “I’m at home”, “Who I am now”, “Me in the future”, “My favorite activity”, “What I love”, “My best deed”, “My world”, etc.
Figurative-symbolic tasks represent the child’s depiction of abstract concepts in the form of images created by the child’s imagination, such as good, evil, happiness; depiction of emotional states and feelings: joy, anger, surprise, etc.
Exercises to develop figurative perception, imagination, symbolic function. In these tasks, children are asked, based on a series of stimuli, to recreate, reproduce a complete object and make it meaningful (drawing with dots, “magic” spots, “funny blots”, etc.). Such exercises are based on the well-known principle of projection used in the Rorschach technique.
Games and exercises with visual material. This type of work involves experimenting with paints, pencils, paper, plasticine, chalk, etc. in order to study their physical properties and expressive capabilities. The effect of the exercises is to stimulate the need for visual activity and interest in it, reduce emotional tension, create a sense of personal security, increase self-confidence, generate interest in research activities, and stimulate cognitive needs.
Typical activities for this type of activity include finger painting, clay manipulation (painting with clay on glass or plastic), experimenting with color, layering patches of color on top of each other, etc.
Collaborative activity assignments may include all of the above assignments. This type of task is aimed both at solving the problem of optimizing communication and relationships with peers, and at optimizing child-parent relationships. Tasks can be offered to the child on literary verbal material, such as composing fairy tales and stories.
In accordance with the main stages of development of children's visual activity, E. Kramer (1975) identifies four types of images that are significant for drawing therapy:
1. Doodles - shapeless, chaotic lines, primitive, unfinished forms.
2. Schemes and half-schemes, which are conventional stereotypical images.
3. Pictograms, i.e. schemes enriched with the expression of the child’s individuality, his position in relation to the world. Pictograms, although they express the child’s affective attitude to the world, are not yet open enough for communication with the world; for their understanding, they require explanations and interpretation of the drawing by the author himself.
4. Artistic images that have aesthetic value, objectifying affect in a form understandable to the viewer without additional explanations from the author.
Writing stories is used to revive feelings, verbalize images, associations, symbols, in order to transform internal anxiety into a concrete image and be inspired in creativity. The process of writing stories, essays, and diary entries contributes to liberation from many experiences and awareness, resolution of internal conflict. This method can be used both in individual and group work.
The method of writing stories has been successfully used in working with children. Thus, P. M. Stirtzinger (1983) proposed a method of “common story writing” for children and adults. He used this method to help the child find adequate ways to resolve conflicts that cause behavioral problems in the child at home and at school.
The method is implemented as follows: first, a child tells a story, then it is continued by an adult, who introduces “healthier” ways of adaptation and conflict resolution into the story than those outlined by the child. This method helps children understand the good and bad sides of themselves, recognize their anger and express it safely.
The “general story writing” method can also be used for group activities with children. With this method, one child suggests the beginning of the story, the second continues, the third comes up with the climax of the story, and the fourth comes up with the denouement. After the story is compiled, the children discuss it, and adults offer them alternative ways conflict resolution.
Fairy tale therapy is a method that uses the fairy tale form to integrate personality, develop creative abilities, expand consciousness, and improve interactions with the outside world. Famous foreign and domestic psychologists turned to fairy tales in their work: E. Fromm, E. Bern, E. Gardner, A. Meneghetti, M. Osorina, E. Lisina, E. Petrova, R. Azovtseva, T. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva and etc.
The texts of fairy tales evoke intense emotional resonance in both children and adults. The images of fairy tales simultaneously address two mental levels: the level of consciousness and subconscious, which provides special opportunities for communication. This is especially important for correctional work, when it is necessary to create an effective communication situation in a difficult emotional situation.
The following corrective functions of a fairy tale are distinguished: psychological preparation for intense emotional situations; symbolic response to physiological and emotional stress; accepting one’s physical activity in symbolic form.
Possibility of working with a fairy tale:
1. Using a fairy tale as a metaphor. The text and images of fairy tales evoke free associations that relate to personal life person, and then these metaphors and associations can be discussed.
2. Drawing based on a fairy tale. Free associations appear in the drawing, and further analysis of the resulting graphic material is possible.
3. Discussion of the behavior and motives of the character’s actions, which serves as a reason for discussing the values of human behavior, reveals a system of assessments of a person in the categories: good - bad.
4. Playing episodes of a fairy tale. Playing back episodes allows a child or adult to experience some emotionally significant situations and play out emotions.
5. Using a fairy tale as a moral parable. A hint using a metaphor for an option to resolve the situation.
6. Creative work based on a fairy tale (adding, rewriting, working with a fairy tale).
Basic techniques for working with a fairy tale
1. Analysis of fairy tales. The goal is awareness and interpretation of what is behind each fairy-tale situation, plot design, and characters’ behavior.
For example, a well-known fairy tale is selected for analysis. At the same time, the child is asked to answer a number of questions: “What do you think this fairy tale is about?”; “Which of the characters did you like best and why?”; “Why did the hero commit certain actions?”; “What would happen to the heroes if they did not commit those actions that are described in the fairy tale?”, “What would happen if there were only good or bad heroes in the fairy tale?”, as well as other questions.
This form of work is used for children aged 5 years and older, adolescents and adults.
2. Telling tales. The technique helps to work through such issues as the development of fantasy, imagination, and the ability to decenter. The procedure is as follows: a child or group of children is asked to tell a story in the first or third person. You can invite your child to tell a fairy tale on behalf of others characters, participating or not participating in the fairy tale. For example, how a fox, Baba Yaga or Vasilisa the Wise would tell a fairy tale about Kolobok. “Let's try to tell the story of Kolobok through the eyes of Baba Yaga, the fox, Vasilisa the Wise, or the stump on which Kolobok sat.”
3. Rewriting fairy tales. Rewriting and adding copyright and folk tales It makes sense when a child, teenager or adult does not like the plot, a certain turn of events, situations, the end of a fairy tale, etc. This is an important diagnostic material. By rewriting a fairy tale, adding his own ending or inserting the characters he needs, the client himself chooses the turn that best suits his internal state and finds the option for resolving situations that allows him to free himself from internal tension - this is the psychocorrectional meaning of rewriting a fairy tale.
4. Staging fairy tales with the help of dolls. Working with a doll, the child sees that his every action is immediately reflected in the behavior of the doll. This helps him independently correct his movements and make the doll’s behavior as expressive as possible. Working with dolls allows you to improve and express through a doll those emotions that a child, for some reason, usually cannot allow himself to express.
5. Writing fairy tales. Every fairy tale has certain patterns of plot development. Main character appears in the house (in the family), grows up, and under certain circumstances leaves the house, going on travels. During his travels, he gains and loses friends, overcomes obstacles, fights and defeats evil, and returns home having achieved his goal. Thus, fairy tales give not just a biography of the hero, but figurative form tells about the main stages of formation and development of personality.
The events of a fairy tale evoke emotions in a person, the characters and their relationships with each other are projected onto everyday life, the situation seems similar and recognizable. The fairy tale reminds us of important social and moral norms of life in relationships between people, of what is good and what is bad. It makes it possible to react to significant emotions, identify internal conflicts and difficulties.
Puppet therapy as a method is based on the process of identifying a child with his favorite cartoon character, fairy tale, and favorite toy. This private method art therapy.
As the main method of correctional influence, a doll is used as an intermediate object of interaction between a child and an adult (psychologist, teacher, parent).
Puppet therapy is widely used to resolve conflicts, improve adaptation, corrective work with fears, stuttering, behavioral disorders, as well as to work with children who have emotional trauma. The favorite toy “participates” in the production of a play, the plot of which is traumatic for the child, ends up in scary story and copes with it successfully.
The puppet therapy process takes place in two stages:
1. Making dolls.
2. Using dolls to respond to significant emotional states. The process of making dolls is also corrective. By being carried away by the process of making dolls, children become calmer and more balanced. During work, they develop arbitrariness of mental processes, acquire skills of concentration, perseverance, and develop imagination.
In doll therapy, the following types of dolls are used: marionette dolls, finger puppets, shadow dolls, rope dolls, plane dolls, glove dolls, and costume dolls.
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"Practical psychology in education"
M. R. BITYANOVA
Organization of psychological work at school
B 66 Bityanova M.R. Organization of psychological work at school. – M.: Perfection, 1998. – 298 p. (Practical psychology in education). Second edition, revised. In the book of candidate of psychological sciences, associate professor M.R. Bityanova outlines the author’s holistic model of organizing psychological services in schools. The publication introduces the reader to the scheme for planning the work of a school psychologist during the school year, provides the author's options for the content of the main directions of his work: diagnostic, correctional and developmental, advisory, etc. Particular attention is paid to the issues of interaction between the psychologist and teachers, the children's community, and school administration. The book will be of interest to school psychologists, teachers, heads of educational organizations and methodologists. Published with the participation of LLC "Humanitarian Book" and JSC "Econompress" ISBN 5-89441-015-0 © M.R. Bityanova, 1997. © "Perfection", 1998.
PREFACE
Dear school psychologist! With this book we open the series “Practical Psychology in Education”, in which we intend to present to your attention the experience we have accumulated in practical psychological work in school. Our first book in this series is of a scientific and practical nature. This is a certain theory of school practice, containing answers to three fundamentally important, “painful” questions of school practical psychology: Why? What? How? Why do we need a psychologist at school, what is the meaning and tasks of his activities? What exactly can and should he do within the framework of these goals and objectives? How, by what means can he realize his activities? We tried to build some kind of holistic model of the work of a school psychologist, in which all directions, all types of his activities would be connected into a system by a common idea and would meaningfully set specific methods and techniques for current daily work. We tried to find a place for a school psychologist in the general educational system of the school. A place that would correspond to his original noble role and professional capabilities, but would not turn him into a main figure, would not enslave him with inflated demands and expectations. In this book, we paid a lot of attention to the issues of professional interaction between a school psychologist and teachers and administration, schoolchildren and their parents. Our second book, which is already being prepared for publication, will be purely practical. It contains a system of school psychological work in the primary grades - from the moment of admission to the transition to the secondary level, it sets out in detail all the work technologies we offer - diagnostic, correctional and developmental, advisory, etc. And after it we plan to release books dedicated to issues of constructing a system of psychological activity in parallels of middle and senior management. The first book presented to your attention is a monograph - it was conceived and written by one author. It’s me – M.R. Bityanova. But throughout most of this book I will say “we.” And this is not a tribute to the usual scientific style. Many of my colleagues and students took part, often without knowing it, in developing the model and creating the basis for this book. practical psychologists Yakutia, Stavropol, Syzran, Tula, Bryansk and many other cities with which I was lucky enough to work and communicate. I am very grateful to those with whom I began my practical activities at school and continue to collaborate - T. V. Azarova, T. V. Zemskikh, N. Borisova: my graduate students and course students. Special thanks to my husband and colleague, A.F. Shadura, a patient listener and strict editor. In the book I use your experience, your findings, which is why I speak from our common “we”. At lectures, conferences, and in private scientific conversations, I am often asked: “How, in fact, does your approach differ from many that already exist?” And although you, dear psychologist, have just begun to get acquainted with the book, ahead of events, I will answer. In theoretical terms, there are a lot of differences, and you cannot help but notice them when getting acquainted with the concept itself. You may like my theoretical approach, it may be close in terms of value and meaning, or it may seem alien and far-fetched. And from the point of view of practice... it is no different from those approaches that also work. And if you, the reader, have something to compare with, choose an approach in accordance with your professional and personal preferences. I wish you success and satisfaction from your work. Sincerely, M. R. Bityanova P.S. The author expresses sincere gratitude to the staff of the psychological, medical and social center "Interaction" and its director E.V. Burmistrova for her assistance and assistance in preparing this book.
INTRODUCTION
Many specialists who connected their professional destiny with school activities remember the time when the first sprouts of psychological knowledge began to make their way on the fertile soil of secondary education. This happened relatively recently - a decade ago - and gave rise to many hopes for serious changes both in the system of education and upbringing of children, and in psychology itself. When active social support The Institute of School Practical Psychology began rapid and intensive development: more and more new legions of hastily retrained, quickly baked psychologists poured into the system public education. Centers for training and scientific support of personnel have emerged in all major regions. No less important is the fact that a certain social stereotype of a school psychologist began to form. That is, its role and significance have become entrenched in certain social ideas and attitudes and have become part of the national consciousness. Today we can confidently say that purely empirically, by trial and error, with minimal scientific and theoretical support, the country has developed its own Russian system school psychological practice. It developed... and found itself in a situation of deep crisis.
The manifestations of the crisis are many-sided and, it seems, obvious. This includes the departure of professional psychologists from school, who just yesterday were ready to work almost entirely on enthusiasm; this is the lack of understanding by many teachers and school administrators of the role and significance of school psychological work; this is the lack of state socio-economic support. The crisis manifests itself in attempts to create new, related professions. Yes, they appeared social educators, educational psychologists and even social educational psychologists. Opinions began to be heard in the press and from high stands that a school psychologist (a “pure” psychologist) is, in principle, not needed; it is much more important to introduce rates for social workers (let us note in parentheses that the institution of social workers in schools is going through no less difficult times of crisis, and social workers are mainly engaged in the distribution of material assistance and free meals for children). As a result, many people, most of whom sacrificed their basic education for the sake of the psychological profession, found themselves financially unprotected, theoretically and methodologically helpless in the sea of socio-psychological problems that they have to face every day in interaction with schoolchildren, their parents and teachers. What are the most important reasons for this situation? There are many of them, they have both socio-economic and scientific roots, and in general can be conditionally divided into two groups: “external” in relation to school psychological practice and “own, internal” crisis phenomena. Among the external reasons, we will name, first of all, the following: the main “consumers” of the results of school psychological activities currently do not have an adequate and clear system of expectations regarding the capabilities and tasks of a school psychologist. Thus, a typical situation is their broad interpretation: shifting responsibility for pedagogical marriage onto the psychologist, transferring methodological functions to him, delegating administrative and managerial responsibilities, etc.; and refusal to cooperate due to the belittlement of his professional capabilities. The experience of communicating with teachers and school administrators in various regions of Russia shows that the overwhelming majority of them are not ready for equal cooperation with psychologists, even if they sincerely declare this on a conscious level. Let us note that such unconscious rejection of the school psychologist is clearly visible in more high floors public education system, which is expressed, in particular, in conceptual approaches to the tariffs of school psychologists, regulatory framework, streamlining their work, etc. In pedagogical publications, complaints appeared that school psychologists did not live up to the hopes of teachers and were unable to solve pressing problems facing modern education. Such complaints have a certain basis; this will be discussed below. I would just like to note that such pedagogical sentiments are most often not associated with an understanding of the real complexities of school psychology. They are the result of a failed, fortunately, attempt to shift responsibility for the pressing problems of school education and upbringing onto her fragile shoulders. Other external reasons can be mentioned, but it seems more important to discuss the difficulties that have clearly emerged within the system of school psychological activity itself. They, in our opinion, are largely responsible for the crisis. Let us dwell on a number of the most important points. First. Today's institute of domestic school psychology functions without a developed methodological basis for its activities. Ideally, such a conceptual model should not only be worked out in detail, it should be unified and form the basis for the work of all existing psychological services in the public education system. What will it give? First of all, it will allow you to compare the results obtained in different schools and different regions of the country. School psychologists will understand each other better. There will be certainty in drawing up programs for training and advanced training of specialists for schools. The model of activity of a school psychologist should fully and convincingly answer the question of why a school psychologist exists and what exactly he should do at school, clearly identify the “ecological niche” of such a specialist in school, create a picture of a holistic vision of school psychology as a special type of scientific and practical activities. We take the liberty of asserting that such a model does not exist today. In various author’s concepts, methodological or individual substantive aspects have been worked out to varying degrees, but so far no holistic approach has been proposed that organically links theoretical basis with the content and organizational and methodological components of the activities of a practicing school psychologist. That is, the Institute of School Psychology functions without a clear answer to the questions: Why? What? How? In addition, the place and role of its activities in the unified educational system of a particular institution is not indicated. The principles on which the relationship between the psychologist and the school administration, the psychologist and teachers, as well as parents and the schoolchildren themselves should be built have not been defined. These principles should determine, for example, what nature the psychologist’s recommendations to teachers are - recommendatory or mandatory, for what reason and in what form the psychologist can contact parents, how the days and times of examinations of schoolchildren are determined - based on “gaps” in the lesson schedule or in in accordance with a pre-drawn plan. Also fundamentally important is the question of how a psychologist’s work plan is drawn up - either spontaneously, in accordance with the current requests of teachers and parents, or in accordance with an activity strategy previously developed by the psychologist. Second. School psychological practice in most cases exists separately from other social and psychological services of the public education and health care systems. Hence the unlawful expansion of the functions of a psychologist working in a school. Obviously, his work will become much more effective if school practical activities are considered as a link, and the primary one, of a multi-level system of psychological support for education with its own tasks and responsibilities, its own limitations and even professional taboos (18). It is no secret that not all socio-psychological problems that exist in the school system can be solved by a school psychologist, both due to ethical issues and because of their complexity. The school practitioner must be sure that he has someone and where to send the child and his parents, or a teacher, limiting himself to those available to him. professional actions(psychological support, primary assistance in adaptation, etc.). To develop a model of a multi-level psychological support service for school education, distribute functions between its levels, and prescribe a system of inter-level connections - such work, although not directly related to school psychological activities, must necessarily be carried out to solve the internal problems of the latter. Finally, third. The existing tradition of training practical psychologists cannot be considered as satisfactory. And the point here, it seems, is not only in the accepted terms of training, about which enough has been said. The point is in the content of the courses, in the ideas of their creators, what and how specialists of this kind should be taught. The reason for poor training lies, in our opinion, in an attempt to train practitioners using lightweight academic programs, imposing on them theoretical principles that are often unnecessary and not even applicable in real work. The solution is seen in the development of a new theory - a theory of practice based on effective methods and the approaches of practical activity itself, generalizing and analytically processing its positive experience. Thus, we have not only identified the most important, from our point of view, internal causes of the crisis, but also outlined in the most general form ways to eliminate them. In this work, we will dwell in detail only on those issues that are directly related to the activities of the school psychologist. However, their discussion, in our opinion, allows us to take a fresh look at the problem of creating an integral psychological service for public education, and at training personnel to work within such a service.
SECTION 1. MODEL OF ACTIVITY OF A SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
CHAPTER 1. THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT
Understanding school psychological activity begins with answering the most important question: what is the work of a school psychologist in general? There are many types of professional psychological activities. You can teach psychology or, which is very close, engage in psychological education. There is psychological research work, there is applied psychological activity, or, as F. E. Vasilyuk says, “alien” practice in various fields social life - business, medicine, pedagogy, etc. (9) The peculiarity of this latter activity is that its goals, objectives and values are set by the social system, for whom the psychologist “works”. Finally, there is one more type of practical activity - a psychologist’s “own” practice, represented today by a wide variety of types of psychological services. In these services, the psychologist himself forms the goals and values of his professional activity, carries out the necessary professional actions himself, and bears responsibility for the results of his work. Which of these activities is the work of a school psychologist? Obviously this is a practice, but what kind? Someone else's or your own? In our opinion, in most of the currently existing domestic approaches, school activities are programmed as “alien practice”, as the application of theoretical and methodological scientific achievements of psychology to pedagogical practice. School psychology exists in the same form in reality. School psychologists are engaged in the substantiation of pedagogical programs and methods of communication, diagnosing readiness for learning and mastering various specialized programs, identifying the level of mental development of the child, providing career guidance, etc. Moreover, their activities in most cases are organized according to the specific requests of teachers and administration, determined by the tasks pedagogical process. Considering the fact that a particular child or schoolchild is not always the goal of pedagogical activity, but is present in it as a means or as a condition, he may “drop out” of psychological practice or also be present in it in the background. Specific example- admission to first grade. Is the goal of a psychological-pedagogical examination of a future first-grader always to study his psychological characteristics in order to take them into account as much as possible in his education? Not always. More often it is focused on selecting students with suitable properties: who will be easy to teach and educate. Is a teacher’s request to see a psychologist always determined by the desire to help himself and the child establish mutual understanding and solve educational problems? The answer to you, dear readers, is known. We believe that it would be much more productive to build school psychological activities as “our own” practice. That is, as such professional activity, which is guided by the actual psychological goals and objectives, is regulated by its own values, its own attitudes towards the child, forms and methods of working with him. Such a fundamental internal restructuring of ideas about the profession significantly affects the entire system of the psychologist’s work, since “it changes both his attitude towards people, and his attitude towards himself and other specialists participating in the work and, most importantly, the very style and type of his professional vision of reality " (8). Let us add that this will make it possible to radically change the very system of school psychological work, or rather, to create one, defining its content and organizational foundations. School psychological work, as a form of professional practical activity, needs its own theory, which could help it answer the questions: Why? What? How? Why is school practical psychology needed and what goals does the psychologist want to achieve? Who is the main object of professional efforts? What exactly should a psychologist do, what are the boundaries of his professional competence? How to organize your activities in such a way as not to become an “errand girl” or a “whipping boy” in the school educational system? As an analysis of the real state of affairs in this area shows, existing academic knowledge can do little to help in finding such answers. A practicing psychologist needs a special theory, a theory that could serve as a guide to action, a means of understanding the meaning of his actions (12,13). We are talking about creating a special, using the definition of L. S. Vygotsky, psychotechnical theory, theory of practice. Without pretending to create a theoretical basis for school psychological practice in its complete and perfect form, we note that it was the psychotechnical principle that laid the basis for our model. We consider our model as a reflection of a certain system of theoretical ideas about the goals, objectives and content of the activities of a school psychologist, and this system is a product of practical professional activity, its generalization and comprehension. It does not “close” the practice, but is an open and self-developing collection of living experience. This system grew out of practice, is focused on practice both as its ultimate goal and as the source of its own development.
We called our theoretical approach the “paradigm of accompaniment,” thereby wanting to emphasize its activity-based orientation, its orientation not toward an object, but toward working with an object. Why do we emphasize this last point? Academic science is a theory of an “object”, which can be considered a child, his thinking, attitudes, etc., and psychotechnical science is a theory of psychological “work-with-an-object” (9,11,10). In our case - with the child, his thinking, attitudes and so on. Why did this seem so important to us? First of all, because a fundamentally different view of the child is given within the framework of psychological activity. In fact, he is not an object in the classical sense of the word, but a subject. Nothing can be changed in his inner world apart from his own will, his own desire. The psychologist does not influence him with his own specific methods and techniques, but interacts with him, offering various ways to solve certain tasks or problems. In addition, the goal of the work is not to “look” into his inner world, to find out how it works, his relationship with the world and himself, but to organize cooperation with the child, aimed at his self-knowledge, search for ways self-government of the inner world and system of relationships. Accompaniment for us is a certain ideology of work; it is the very first and most important answer to the question of why a school psychologist is needed. However, before we dwell in detail on the content of this concept in our concept, let us consider the overall situation in domestic psychological school practice from the point of view of the goals and ideology that are embedded in various existing approaches. We can talk, in our opinion, about three main ideas underlying various models of school psychological activity. The first idea: the essence of psychological activity is in the scientific and methodological guidance of the educational process at school. The idea, frankly speaking, is not new, it has been known to the domestic school since the times of pedology and is very attractive in its own way. Especially for teachers. It is widespread to a large extent in the pedagogical environment, in the concepts of authors focused on working with teachers and pedagogical methods (14, 20, 29, 42). This is a “foreign” practice for a psychologist. Its goal can be stated in different words, for example, as scientific psychological and pedagogical support for the educational process (45), but in any case these are the goals of “alien” practice, a different professional perception of the world (primarily the child), which is often poorly compatible with psychological worldview. Within the framework of models built on this idea, the school psychologist is almost the ideologist of the entire educational system, its creator, implementer and, apparently subsequently, a “scapegoat.” Let's leave aside the purely emotional aspect: pride is undoubtedly gratified by the thought that without the participation of a psychologist it is simply impossible to change anything constructively in a modern school, and without him, certified teachers are not able to organize the educational process “as the free personal development of each student to the best of his individual ability.” abilities, interests and inclinations” (42, p. 30). Let us ask ourselves a more important question: is it permissible to so arbitrarily interpret the functions of a specialist who has a very specific education, stable attitudes and professional positions, developed by the very history of the development of his profession, in order to transfer to him the responsibilities of a completely different specialist, a different system of knowledge - namely pedagogy ? Can, is capable and should a psychologist deal with conceptual problems of teaching and upbringing, act as an expert in assessing the pedagogical activities of certain teachers, plan and control the educational process? Of course, in most cases, a competent psychologist with a basic education is capable and, if desired, can engage in conceptual activities, be a co-author of the pedagogical model on which a given school operates, take part in planning the educational process, and develop, together with teachers, the foundations of new subject programs . A psychologist is able and has the right to participate in the development and implementation of educational programs or, again turning to the views of L. M. Friedman, to take special care to improve the psychological and pedagogical culture of teachers, their professional improvement, and the development of their moral and professional self-awareness. However, in our opinion, this cannot be considered as his main goals and objectives and cannot be included in his job responsibilities. This approach not only deprives the psychologist of an independent field of application of forces adequate to his professional training and professional expectations, but also emasculates the very idea of school psychological practice as a special independent form of activity within the framework of the process of teaching and educating schoolchildren. It distorts the principles of relationships between teachers and psychologists, makes the former dependent, belittling their professional capabilities, on the one hand, and removing them from the lion's share responsibility for one’s actions – on the other. Idea two: the purpose of a school psychologist’s activity is to help children experiencing various difficulties of a psychological or socio-psychological nature, to identify and prevent these difficulties. This is undoubtedly “our own” practice, understandable and close to the heart of anyone. professional psychologist . The idea is also not new and is also very attractive to people of a certain professional orientation (let’s say, “purely psychological”) (14.45). Within the framework of such models, the functions of a teacher and a psychologist are quite clearly separated. Moreover, their activities often turn out to be independent of each other. The teacher teaches. And the psychologist slowly looks at the children, reveals something, somehow works with the children, meets with the parents. The teacher receives crumbs of information at teacher councils, brief conversations during breaks, rumors coming from parents and colleagues. But this difficulty is more likely an organizational one. Another thing is more significant: psychologically healthy schoolchildren fall outside the scope of assistance models, who receive their share of the psychologist’s attention only if they begin to demonstrate some undesirable manifestations in behavior, learning or, say, well-being. In addition, psychologists working in line with such models often have a specific view of children: their psychological world becomes interesting to a specialist primarily only from the point of view of the presence of violations that need to be corrected and corrected. It is they who, as a rule, have the opinion that all children today need the help of a psychologist, that there are no “normal” children... The possible negative consequences of such professional attitudes are obvious. Finally, the third idea: the essence of school psychological activity is to accompany the child throughout the entire school education. The concept of accompaniment was not invented yesterday either, but has gained particular popularity in recent years (4). Many authors use words of the Russian language that are close in meaning - for example, assistance (34, 35, 38). The attractiveness of the idea is clear: it really makes it possible to organize school psychological activities as “your own” practice, with your own internal goals and values, but at the same time it allows you to organically weave this practice into the fabric of the educational pedagogical system. Allows you to make it an independent, but not alien part of this system. It becomes possible to combine the goals of psychological and pedagogical practice and focus them on the main thing - the child’s personality. However, unfortunately, we have to admit that this idea has not been fully implemented in the approaches known to us. More precisely, it was not possible to use the powerful conceptual, substantive and organizational potential that is inherent in this essentially psychotechnical ideology. We tried to do this within the framework of our model, to the presentation of which we now proceed. First of all, what does it mean to “accompany”? In the Russian language dictionary we read: to accompany means to go, to travel with someone as a companion or guide (39). That is, accompanying a child along his life path means moving with him, next to him, sometimes a little ahead, if you need to explain possible ways . The adult carefully looks and listens to his young companion, his desires, needs, records achievements and difficulties that arise, helps with advice and his own example to navigate the world around the Road, understand and accept himself. But at the same time he does not try to control or impose his own paths and guidelines. And only when the child gets lost or asks for help does she help him get back on his path. Neither the child himself nor his experienced companion can significantly influence what happens around the Road. An adult is also unable to show the child the path that must be taken. Choosing a Road is the right and responsibility of every individual, but if at crossroads and forks with a child there is someone who is able to facilitate the choice process and make it more conscious, this is a great success. It is precisely this accompaniment of the student at all stages of his school education that is seen as the main goal of school psychological practice. And before we give a working scientific definition of the support paradigm, let us allow ourselves one more reasoning. A child’s school life takes place in a complexly organized environment, varied in form and orientation. By its nature, this Environment is social, since it represents a system of various relationships of the child with peers and schoolchildren of other ages, teachers, parents (their own and classmates), and other adults participating in the school process. In terms of its content, it can be intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, everyday, etc. Getting into the school world, a child finds himself faced with many different choices concerning all aspects of life in it: how to study and how to build his relationships with teachers, how to communicate with peers, how to relate to certain requirements and standards, and much more. We can say that the school environment offers the student a choice of many roads and paths along which he can go and develop. The adults around him are offered help, who, due to their social, professional or personal position, can provide the student with a variety of support. First of all, he is a Teacher, Parent and Psychologist. The role of the Teacher comes down, in the most general form, to a clear and consistent orientation of the student towards certain paths of development, primarily intellectual and ethical (“every person should know this and that, be able to behave in such and such a way.” "). It is the teacher who sets most of the parameters and properties of the school Environment, creating and implementing (often unconsciously) the concepts of teaching and upbringing, standards for assessing behavior and educational success, communication style and much more. In this system, the parent plays the role of a carrier and translator of certain microcultural values - religious, ethical, etc., but at the same time, his influence is not of a formative, but of a regulating nature. That is, the parent, in our opinion, interferes to a lesser extent in the child’s choice of specific goals and objectives of school life, but strives to cut off and close those development paths, the movement along which is undesirable, harmful and even dangerous for the child both from a physical and legal point of view, and from the point of view of family, cultural, religious, national traditions. Finally, in the system we have set, the role of the school psychologist is clearly defined. His task is to create conditions for the child’s productive movement along the paths that he himself has chosen in accordance with the requirements of the Teacher and Family (and sometimes in opposition to them), to help him make conscious personal choices in this complex world, to constructively resolve inevitable conflicts, to master the most individually significant and valuable methods of knowledge, communication, understanding oneself and others. That is, the activity of a psychologist is largely determined by the social, family and pedagogical system in which the child actually finds himself and which is significantly limited by the framework of the school Environment. However, within this framework, he can define his own goals and objectives. From our point of view, this predetermination and limitation of the professional capabilities and, accordingly, the professional responsibilities of a school psychologist is fundamentally important, since it allows him to clearly understand his place in the life of the school, and in the life of a particular child and his family, to build a system of his activities, not scattering himself, not trying to “be everything,” because in the vast majority of cases this makes him “nothing” professionally. So, support is a system of professional activity of a psychologist aimed at creating socio-psychological conditions for the successful learning and psychological development of a child in situations of school interaction. The object of school psychological practice is the learning and psychological development of a child in a situation of school interaction, the subject is the socio-psychological conditions of successful learning and development. The method and ideology of the work of a school psychologist is accompaniment. And this means the following for us. Firstly, following the natural development of the child at a given age and sociocultural stage of ontogenesis. Accompanying a child is based on the personal achievements that the child actually has. It is in the logic of its development, and does not artificially set goals and objectives for it from the outside. This provision is very important when determining the content of the work of a school psychologist. He does not deal with what teachers consider important or is “supposed” from the point of view of big science, but with what a particular child or group needs. Thus, as the most important axiological principle in our model of school psychological practice, we include the unconditional value of the inner world of each student, the priority of the needs, goals, and values of his development. Secondly, creating conditions for children to independently creatively master the system of relationships with the world and themselves, as well as for each child to make personally significant life choices. The child's inner world is autonomous and independent. An adult can play an important role in the formation and development of this unique world. However, an adult (in this case, a psychologist) should not turn into an external psychological “crutch” for his pupil, on which he can rely every time in a situation of choice and thereby avoid responsibility for the decision made. In the process of accompaniment, an adult, creating situations of choices (intellectual, ethical, aesthetic) encourages the child to find independent decisions, helps him take responsibility for his own life. Thirdly, the idea of support consistently implements the principle of the secondary nature of its forms and content in relation to the social and educational environment of the child’s life. Psychological support provided by a school psychologist does not aim to actively influence the social conditions in which the child lives, and the system of education and upbringing that the parents have chosen for him. The goal of support is both more realistic and pragmatic - to create, within the framework of the social and pedagogical Environment objectively given to the child, conditions for his maximum personal development and learning in a given situation. At first glance, the first and third provisions are in contradiction: on the one hand, we affirm the value and priority of development tasks solved by the child himself, his right to be who he is, and on the other hand, we emphasize both his dependence and the secondary nature of activity psychologist in relation to the content and forms of education offered to the child by a particular school, chosen for him by his parents. Let’s not argue – there really is a contradiction here. However, it is a reflection of the real objective contradiction within which the entire process of the child’s personal development unfolds. It can also be said that the existence of such a contradiction objectively requires the participation of a psychologist in this development precisely in the form of accompaniment, and not guidance or assistance. The school environment is a complexly organized system within which the child solves several fundamentally important problems. First of all, educational goals. The school environment, its social, pedagogical, and material characteristics significantly determine the educational opportunities of the child and provide guidelines in education. The child faces the challenge of making the most of these opportunities. Next are the tasks of socialization. In this case, by the concept of socialization, which unexpectedly became disgraced in certain scientific circles, we understand the process of assimilation and personal acceptance by a child of certain norms, rules and requirements imposed on him by society. The school environment is one of the leading transmitters of these norms and requirements; it also sanctions their implementation - punishes and encourages certain actions, deeds, decisions of the child and adolescent. At the same time, the same school environment provides children with opportunities for social development and social cognition - the formation of various skills and abilities, increasing socio-psychological competence, etc. In the process of schooling, a student will have to, on the one hand, learn the norms and requirements of society, and on the other hand, take advantage of those teaching and development opportunities that are provided to him. Finally, an objectively significant part of childhood, adolescence, that is, most of the child’s life is spent at school, occupied by various types of intra-school interaction. Naturally, in the process of these interactions - in the educational process and outside it - the student solves the problems of his psychological and personal development. In relation to this development, the school environment also acts as both an opportunity and a limitation, since it sets certain requirements for the child’s personal manifestations. In the process of solving these three tasks by a schoolchild - education, socialization and psychological development - small and serious contradictions and conflicts constantly arise. Thus, the demands of the educational environment may conflict with the child’s capabilities. What to do in this situation? Who to adapt to whom? “Correct” the child, adjusting him to the given requirements or change something in the learning conditions? We believe that priority should be given to the child, his current and potential capabilities. And the task of psychological and pedagogical support will be to create conditions for the most successful learning of this particular student. But on the other hand, the flexibility and adaptability of the educational environment cannot be endless. In order to preserve her original goals and guidelines, she is forced to make certain demands on the child both in terms of his skills, the presence of certain intellectual prerequisites, and in terms of educational motivation, focus in acquiring knowledge, etc. If these requirements are reasonable, justified by logic the educational process itself, the task of the psychologist will be to adapt the child to them. The same can be said with regard to the socializing environment. It should also be able to adapt to each individual child, but not indefinitely. There are a number of requirements, norms, and strict rules that a child must learn, accept, and implement in his behavior and communication.
It is impossible to propose one general algorithm for resolving such conflicts. In each individual case, it must be decided taking into account the priority of the child’s inner world and the importance of some necessary and sufficient system of requirements imposed on him by the educational and regulatory environment. The guarantee of a fair and productive solution is psychological and pedagogical support, during which teachers, psychologists, parents and other adults surrounding the child find the best combination of adaptations school environment to him and him to the school environment. Finally, fourthly, psychological support of a child at school is mainly carried out by pedagogical means, through a teacher and traditional school forms of educational and educational interaction. At the very least, we postulate the advantage of such hidden forms of influence compared to the direct intervention of a psychologist in the life of a child, his intra-school and intra-family relationships. This defines the role of the teacher in our model of psychological practice in a special way. He turns out to be the psychologist’s ally in developing a strategy for accompanying each child and its main implementer. The psychologist helps the teacher “tune” the learning process and communication to specific students. The affirmation of the idea of support as the basis of school psychological practice, the postulation of its object and subject in the form described above has a number of important consequences, on which our entire model of school psychological work is based. These consequences relate to the goals, objectives and directions of this activity, the principles of its organization, the content of the work, the professional position of the psychologist in relations with various participants in the educational school process, as well as approaches to assessing the effectiveness of his activities. Let us briefly dwell on each of these consequences. Conceptual implications of the idea of accompaniment We consider support as a process, as a holistic activity of a practical school psychologist, within which three mandatory interrelated components can be distinguished: 1. Systematic monitoring of the psychological and pedagogical status of the child and the dynamics of his mental development in the process of schooling. It is assumed that from the first minutes of a child’s stay at school, information about various aspects of his mental life and the dynamics of development begins to be carefully and confidentially collected and accumulated, which is necessary to create conditions for successful learning and personal growth of each student. To obtain and analyze information of this kind, methods of pedagogical and psychological diagnostics are used. At the same time, the psychologist has clear ideas about what exactly he should know about the child, at what stages of education diagnostic intervention is really necessary and by what minimal means it can be carried out. He also takes into account that in the process of collecting and using such psychological and pedagogical information, many serious ethical and even legal issues arise. 2. Creation of socio-psychological conditions for the development of students’ personality and their successful learning. Based on psychodiagnostic data, individual and group programs for the child’s psychological development are developed, and the conditions for his successful education are determined. The implementation of this point assumes that the educational process in an educational institution is built according to flexible schemes and can change and transform depending on the psychological characteristics of those children who came to study at this institution. In addition, a certain flexibility is required from each teacher, since his approaches and requirements for children should also not be frozen, should not proceed from some abstract idea of \u200b\u200bthe ideal, but focus on specific children, with their real capabilities and needs. 3. Creation of special socio-psychological conditions to provide assistance to children with problems in psychological development and learning. This area of activity is aimed at those schoolchildren who have identified certain problems with mastering educational material, socially accepted forms of behavior, communicating with adults and peers, mental well-being, etc. To provide psychological and pedagogical assistance to such children, a system of actions and specific activities must be thought out that allow them to overcome or compensate for the problems that have arisen. In accordance with these main components of the support process, our model is filled with specific forms and content of work. First of all, several important areas of practical activity of a school psychologist are identified within the framework of the support process: school applied psychodiagnostics, developmental and psychocorrectional activities, counseling and education of teachers, schoolchildren and their parents, social dispatch activities. There is nothing new in the directions themselves, formulated in general terms. However, each direction acquires its own specificity, receives specific forms and content, being included in a single process of support (see Chapter 2 of the First Section). Content implications of the idea of accompaniment Within the framework of this ideology, it becomes possible to reasonably and clearly approach the selection of the content of specific forms of work and, most importantly, to define the concept of the socio-psychological status of the student. That is, we get the opportunity to answer the question of what exactly needs to be known about the student in order to organize the conditions for his successful learning and development. In its most general form, the socio-psychological status of a schoolchild is a system of psychological characteristics of a child or adolescent. This system includes those parameters of his mental life, knowledge of which is necessary to create favorable socio-psychological conditions for learning and development. In general, these parameters can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the characteristics of the student. First of all, the characteristics of his mental organization, interests, communication style, attitude to the world, and more. They need to be known and taken into account when building the learning and interaction process. The second consists of various problems or difficulties that arise for the student in various areas of his school life and internal psychological well-being in school situations. They need to be found and corrected (developed, compensated). Both need to be identified in the process of work to determine optimal forms accompaniment (see the Second section of the book). Organizational implications of the idea of accompaniment In organizational matters, the psychotechnical potential of the idea of support is especially clearly manifested, since it becomes possible to build the current work of a psychologist as a logically thought-out, meaningful process, covering all areas and all participants in intra-school interaction (see Chapter 3 of the First Section and the Third Section). This process is based on a number of important organizational principles regarding the construction of school psychological practice. These include the systematic nature of the daily activities of a school psychologist, the organizational consolidation (in the long-term and current work plans of the school teaching staff) of various forms of cooperation between a teacher and a psychologist in creating conditions for the successful learning and development of schoolchildren, the approval of the most important forms of psychological work as an official element of educational -educational process at the level of planning, implementation and monitoring of results, etc. Functional-role consequences of the idea of support A psychologist working in line with this model gets the opportunity to make a professional determination regarding all participants in the school system of relations and build successful relationships with them. In traditional terms, the psychologist gains an understanding of who is and who is not the object of his practice. True, within the framework of our approach it would be more appropriate to talk about, say, a client of school psychological practice. The client of a school psychologist is either a specific student or a group of schoolchildren. As for adult participants in the educational process - teachers, administration, exempt educators, parents - we consider them as subjects of support, participating in this process together with a psychologist on the principles of cooperation, personal and professional responsibility. We consider a psychologist as part of the school system of teaching and raising children. Along with him, specialists from various humanitarian professions (teachers, medical workers , social teachers and educators, social workers) and, of course, his parents. In solving the problems of a particular student or in determining the optimal conditions for his learning and development, all interested adults jointly develop a unified approach, a unified strategy for psychological and pedagogical support (see the Fourth section of the book). The client position of a teacher or parent in a relationship with a school psychologist is not only not productive from the point of view of the results of working with a child, but is also harmful for both participants in unequal communication. She puts the psychologist in the position of the All-School Psychotherapist, depriving him of the most important means of help (often such help is impossible without the active participation of parents and teachers). Practice shows that the logical outcome of this type of relationship is the stable client position of the school psychologist himself, which allows him to relieve at least part of the exorbitant burden of various school responsibilities. The psychologist begins to complain about misunderstanding, lack of support, he “gives up” in front of the volume of various functions that are gradually being transferred to him. The psychologist accuses teachers of passivity and disinterest in the mental well-being of children, parents of indifference and detachment, and the administration of inability to take advantage of his professional potential. Internally, he begins to feel lonely at school. With this feeling of resentment and incomprehension, many specialists leave school, the education system in general... This situation is no less humiliating and dangerous for a teacher. A teacher, shifting his responsibilities to a psychologist, entrusting his “pedagogical marriage” to him, really loses his dominant position in the school system. Along with it, he also loses the feeling of being needed, loses that unique contact with children, those intangible threads of influence, which for the most part make up the psychological attractiveness of his profession. A teacher becomes a functionary in a school - a position that is unproductive and unsatisfying. We understand well that it is the teacher who was, is and will be the main school figure, the main conductor of various influences and influences on schoolchildren, the most important guarantor of their intellectual and personal growth in the school environment. A psychologist will cope with his difficult professional task only if he can establish strong professional contact with school teachers, true cooperation, which allows creating comfortable and productive learning and developmental conditions for children. Accompaniment as a central theoretical principle also allows us to determine the problem of professional responsibilities and “taboo” of a school psychologist. First of all, the specialist’s sphere of activity is limited (or better yet, framed) by the system of intra-school relations and interactions between the child and the adolescent. The family appears as a sphere of professional activity of a psychologist only in connection with the child’s school problems, and most often it is represented by only one of its aspects: child-parent relationships. The direct sphere of activity of a psychologist cannot be various forms of diagnosing the general or special abilities of children, unless this is provided for by the logic of the educational work of a given school. The same, in our opinion, applies to professionally oriented diagnostics and career guidance work in general. The point is not that such activities should be excluded from school psychological practice - they should be specifically stipulated in the psychologist’s contract and (or) additionally paid. Certain restrictions also exist in areas of work with teachers and teaching staff. We are talking about solving problems that are not directly related to schoolchildren, their education and upbringing. For example, solving personal socio-psychological problems of teachers and conducting group training work with the teaching staff. Conducting such work directly by a school psychologist is associated with serious ethical problems and can lead to conflict situations. We also note the opportunity to more clearly raise the question of assessing the effectiveness of a school psychologist. We believe that the success of a psychologist’s professional actions in school in most cases cannot be directly measured in any units of real changes in the student’s behavior or learning. We strive to protect the psychologist from attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of his professional steps and methods of work in this way and define the psychological support of schoolchildren as the goal of his practical activity. Support is an activity aimed at creating a system of socio-psychological conditions that contribute to the successful learning and development of each child in a specific school environment. Accordingly, the activity of a psychologist within the framework of support involves: an analysis of the school environment carried out jointly with teachers from the point of view of the opportunities that it provides for the learning and development of the student, and the requirements that it places on his psychological capabilities and level of development; definition psychological criteria effective training and development of schoolchildren; development and implementation of certain activities, forms and methods of work, which are considered as conditions for the successful learning and development of schoolchildren; bringing these created conditions into some system of constant work that gives maximum results. It is by these parameters that it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the work of a school psychologist. The conditions themselves may not immediately lead to real changes, and may not affect the behavior or learning of individual students at all. It seems to us that such cases in themselves cannot be considered as the result of insufficient psychological work. When discussing some of the most important principles that we put into the concept of support, we also mentioned the focus on providing schoolchildren with the opportunity to make independent personal choices. For all its apparent abstraction, this humanistic principle has a concrete technological meaning. The task of the psychologist is to create conditions in which the child could see, experience, and try on various options behavior, solutions to one’s problems, various ways of self-realization and assertion of oneself in the world. Showing alternative paths and teaching them to use them is the meaning of the professional accompanying activities of a school psychologist. Whether the child will take advantage of this new knowledge and apply it in life depends on him. From him and from his parents, if they are still primarily responsible for his life. Thus, support seems to us to be an extremely promising theoretical principle both from the point of view of understanding the goals and objectives of school psychological practice, and from the point of view of developing a specific model of the psychologist’s activity, which can be introduced and successfully implemented not in a single author’s performance, but as a mass technology of work . We will try to show this in our work.
CHAPTER 2. MAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITY OF A SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
Direction one: school applied psychodiagnostics Diagnostic work is a traditional part of the work of a school psychologist, historically the first form of school psychological practice. Today it still takes up the lion's share of a specialist's working time. The reasons for this situation are obvious. First, diagnostics is what the school psychologist has been taught the most and best, no matter what type of education he has received. Secondly, this is the most “presentable” type of psychological activity (something that can be shown, what can be used to report to the authorities) and the most understandable to the “customers” - teachers and parents. Finally, diagnostics take so much time and effort from the psychologist to conduct, process and comprehend the results, because in most existing forms it is not suitable for use in a school situation, either technically or essentially. Take this moment: how the identified psychological characteristics of a schoolchild affect the effectiveness educational activities and what pedagogical techniques will help to work with these features? Simply put, what to do with the test results? For example, a school psychologist needs to know what features of a child’s psyche prevent him from successfully mastering material in natural science subjects, and psychological aids offer him, using abstract neutral material, to study concentration and attention span, verbal and non-verbal intelligence, etc. In order to such a study made sense, its results must be translated into the language of educational skills and abilities, methods of presenting educational material, language pedagogical requirements to the student's knowledge. In most cases, both school and academic research psychologists find it difficult to carry out such work. Whether this is due to the American example or our own pedological past, modern school psychologists and their closest colleagues - teachers, in the vast majority of cases, are distinguished by an unusually reverent and respectful attitude towards psychodiagnostics and its results. Strict people have always enjoyed special respect Scientific research, with tricky keys, lie scales, profiles, etc. - that is, tests. As a matter of fact, the main request to the psychologist is related to testing of schoolchildren. Teachers believe that by asking children five to six dozen questions and translating their answers into numbers and scores, the psychologist will tell them something about the students that will immediately explain everything about them and even change them. At least, working with them will become much easier after this. If this does not happen, they immediately become disappointed in psychologists and their science. Thus, one Moscow psychological center, at the request of the school, conducted a survey of the interpersonal relationships of 8th grade students, which, according to the school, lay the reason for their uncontrollability. When psychologists, after an examination, suggested starting work not with teenagers, but with teachers, the school refused, asking for a detailed report on the diagnosis. This happened at the end of the school year, and at the beginning of the next, the school director refused to cooperate with the center at all, saying: “You spent a month examining the children, removing them from lessons, but nothing has changed.” Is psychodiagnostics really that important in school in the complex forms in which it exists today? Let me give you an example from personal practice. At one time, when theoretical knowledge about children and the skills of studying them were my main professional knowledge, I was very proud of my “diagnostic instinct” - the ability, using several specially selected methods for a given case, to give a detailed and close to the real characteristics of the person being tested. Once I had the opportunity to demonstrate my art. My colleague, who tested a child unfamiliar to me but known to him using a number of methods, brought me the results and asked me to give some diagnostic conclusion. I tried to make it as complete as possible, and my colleague admired it. He said that according to the test, I said everything that he observes and feels in this child. The praise seemed very dubious to me, and I thought about the significance of my art in those situations when there is an opportunity to see a child, communicate with him, observe his manifestations and reactions. School psychological practice is precisely one of these situations. Where the psychologist cannot observe himself, he can use the eyes and analytical abilities of a teacher or educator. And only there and then, when observation is impossible, is it legitimate to turn to complex forms of diagnostic work.
So, school diagnostic activities differ from traditional research diagnostics. It should take less time, be simple and accessible in processing and analysis, its results should be “translated” into pedagogical language. And the most important difference is in the goals and objectives of diagnostic work. School psychodiagnostics aims to provide information support for the support process. Psychodiagnostic data is necessary: to compile a socio-psychological portrait of a schoolchild (describe his school status) to determine ways and forms of providing assistance to children experiencing difficulties in learning, communication and mental well-being to select means and forms of psychological support for schoolchildren in accordance with their inherent learning characteristics and communication However, diagnostics and its data cannot and should not become an end in itself. In recent years, works have appeared in the domestic literature that competently and constructively define the specifics of school psychodiagnostic activities (27,32). Analysis of these ideas and our own approach allows us to set the principles for the construction and organization of the psychodiagnostic activity of a school psychologist as follows. The first is the compliance of the chosen diagnostic approach and specific methodology with the goals of school psychological activity (the goals and objectives of effective support). For us, this means that the technique used should identify precisely those psychological characteristics of the student, knowledge of which is necessary for his successful learning and development in the school environment. This requirement is fundamentally important, but not easy. How to determine which features are significant and necessarily diagnosed during the learning process? We believe that in this case, the concept of the psychological and pedagogical status of the child can provide invaluable assistance, allowing one to determine the importance of certain mental properties and qualities of the student. It includes the psychological characteristics of behavior, educational activities, communication, as well as the personal characteristics of the student, which significantly influence the process of learning and development at various age stages. The task of the diagnostic activity of a school psychologist is their timely study. Thanks to the consistent implementation of this principle within the framework of our model, it is possible to limit the amount of diagnostic work as much as possible and subordinate it to the task. Diagnostics is becoming a truly applied school form of activity. We dwell on this point in such detail because we know well and own experience and from communication with colleagues, how easily diagnostic activity at school can become dominant, self-sufficient. Secondly, the survey results must either be immediately formulated in a “pedagogical” language, or be easily translatable into such a language. That is, based on the diagnostic results, a psychologist or the teacher himself can judge the causes of a child’s educational or behavioral difficulties and create conditions for the successful acquisition of knowledge and effective communication. The implementation of this principle is also difficult, since most of the methods offered today on the “school psychological market” do not meet its requirements. A pleasant exception is the STUR and its most successful modifications (33), such an attempt was made in relation to the Eysenck Adolescent Personality Questionnaire (23); some motivational questionnaires and anxiety questionnaires can also be mentioned. Most methods are so indirectly related to the child’s real life activities that their results are practically useless from the point of view of support tasks. Third, the predictive nature of the methods used, that is, the ability to make predictions based on them certain features development of the child at further stages of education, prevent potential violations and difficulties. The most important question for a school practitioner, psychologist or teacher is how to plan the learning process based on diagnostic data so that it does not lead to various problems? Today we are practically unable to answer this question. Existing research methods capture the phenomenon of the current psychological state (today, at the time of the examination). A notable exception is the procedures used to determine a child's readiness for school. Many of them make it possible to predict a child’s learning in the first grade (albeit, under other favorable conditions - contact with classmates, a teacher, a favorable family climate, etc.). Here we, unfortunately, have to make a reservation: our diagnostics, even the notorious diagnostics of psychological readiness for school, will give truly valuable prognostic results if the school programs that will teach children in primary school are built on the same scientific principles , as the study conducted. That is, if these programs require from the child exactly those intellectual, regulatory, social and other skills that we studied and in exactly the same volume. Is this true in reality? Apparently not. So far, all attempts to find out on what psychological and pedagogical principles textbooks and procedures for teaching children in primary school are based, and what requirements they make for the child’s readiness level, have remained unsuccessful. And the first studies conducted in this area show that the success of a child’s adaptation to school largely depends not on his “theoretical” readiness, but on the extent to which his psychological qualities, skills and characteristics meet the requirements of a specific program and a specific teacher. Fourth, the high developmental potential of the method, that is, the possibility of obtaining a developmental effect in the process of the survey itself and building various developmental programs on its basis. In school practice, a psychologist in most cases is not interested in conducting a “pure” diagnosis that excludes the influence of contact with an adult on the results shown by the child. On the contrary, if a child suspected of mental decline during testing demonstrates interest, sustained attention, and the ability to accept the help of an adult and use it in the course of work, this is an invaluable fact for us. It is much more important than an accurate scale assessment of his intelligence. In addition, it is great if the technique can be used and modified for correctional and developmental work. And here again, SHTUR (33) demonstrates good capabilities. Fifth, the cost-effectiveness of the procedure. A good school methodology is a short, multifunctional procedure, available in both individual and group versions, easy to process and unambiguous (if possible) in assessing the data obtained. However, the latter may be due to the presence of age standards, which does not always speak in favor of the technique. With regard to the age standards applied by the authors to their methods, two fundamental questions always arise: how were they obtained and is it necessary that non-compliance with the age norm for this indicator should lead to various psychological problems in the learning and development of the child? Rare methods can boast that they are ready to adequately answer these questions (for example, the famous Wechsler method). We tried to take into account the above-mentioned goals, objectives and specifics of school applied psychodiagnostics when developing a system of diagnostic activities. First of all, within the framework of this system, three main diagnostic schemes are distinguished: a diagnostic minimum, primary differentiation of the norm and pathology of mental development, and an in-depth psychodiagnostic examination. Each scheme is aimed at solving its own support problems and has its own “resolving” ability. At the same time, they are organically interconnected with each other and in real school practice they are used in a certain system and sequence. We will turn to the analysis of school diagnostics as a single process, giving a general description of each scheme. The first psychodiagnostic scheme is the diagnostic minimum. It is a comprehensive psychological and pedagogical examination of all schoolchildren of a certain level. The scheme is focused on identifying the socio-psychological characteristics of the status of schoolchildren, which significantly influence the effectiveness of their learning and development. The implementation of the scheme allows, firstly, to identify a group of schoolchildren experiencing pronounced difficulties in learning, behavior and mental well-being in the school environment, and secondly, to identify those specific features cognitive, emotional-volitional and personal spheres of all schoolchildren of the examined parallel, knowledge of which is necessary for successful support. The first include, for example, high level personal or school anxiety, poor development of certain cognitive processes and skills (voluntary attention, formation of the most important mental actions, etc.), signs of social maladaptation in behavior and communication, etc. (this will be discussed in detail below). The second includes mental performance and the pace of mental activity, features of the student’s system of relationships to the world and to himself, etc. The diagnostic minimum is the main psychodiagnostic scheme within the framework of our model of school activity, which is determined by a number of its features and capabilities. First of all, the diagnostic minimum is of a differential nature - it allows us to conditionally divide the entire examined group of children into two subgroups - “psychologically well-off” children who have their own characteristics of mental and personal development, which have not currently led to pronounced problems in learning, interaction and well-being in school environment, and children “with learning and development problems” (what we mean by problems in this case will be discussed below, in the chapter devoted to the content of psychodiagnostics in school). This fact is fundamentally important from the point of view of the sequence of further professional actions of a psychologist in relation to a particular child. Further, this diagnostic scheme allows us to cover all schoolchildren of a certain parallel. Its timing is associated with the most difficult periods of a child’s school life: entry into school (grade 1), transition to secondary education (grades 3-5), the most acute period of adolescence (grade 8), preparation for leaving the school environment (grade 10). -Grade 11). This fact makes the information obtained during the survey the most significant. It is also important that the diagnostic minimum is a longitudinal examination: it allows you to track the dynamics of the development and condition of the student according to certain fixed status characteristics throughout the entire process of schooling. Let's also note organizational features this diagnostic scheme. The minimum is planned by a psychologist and the school administration at the beginning of the year as part of the school curriculum, carried out by teachers and a psychologist, and consists mostly of expert surveys of teachers and parents. Express diagnostic examination of children and adolescents themselves is kept to a minimum and is carried out using complex techniques. An exception is the examination of children entering school, in which most of the information is obtained by examining the future students themselves. Finally, the diagnostic minimum serves the most important mechanism , which triggers the implementation of two other psychodiagnostic schemes for children with certain types of learning and development problems. If problems are identified that indicate possible mental development disorders, Scheme 2 is implemented - differentiation of norm and pathology; in the case of learning and development problems unfolding against the background of intact intelligence - Scheme 3 - an in-depth examination of the student’s personality. The second diagnostic scheme is the primary differentiation of normal and pathological mental development of a schoolchild. Let us note that we are talking specifically about primary differentiation. The school psychologist is not authorized by us to establish the type of violation identified, or to make a pathopsychological or psychiatric diagnosis. The task of a school psychologist is to answer the question as accurately as possible whether the problems of a given child are related to disorders of his mental development that are clinical in nature. If the answer is positive (here we again involuntarily touch upon the procedural aspects of the activity), the school psychologist performs a dispatch function, forwarding the request to the right specialist. In addition, the implementation of this scheme applies, first of all, to requests related to alleged mental development disorders of the child, and concerns, accordingly, schoolchildren of primary school age and partly early adolescence. As for other mental development disorders, the main form of work of a school psychologist will be the control room in combination with counseling and psychological support for teachers and parents. A narrowly defined professional task allows us to limit the scope of diagnostic activity in this direction. Obviously, a school psychologist can limit himself to carrying out express methods that have a differentiating nature - dividing the norm of mental development, mental retardation and mental retardation. Today, when parents have the opportunity to choose a school for their child regardless of his level of psychological readiness and the presence of intellectual problems of varying degrees of complexity, the importance of such diagnostics seems to be increasing. However, it seems to us that in this situation it is necessary to very clearly define the tasks of such differential diagnosis. Since this child will still need to be taught, is it really important to know exactly the nature of his intellectual defect? Apparently, only if this helps in determining ways and means of pedagogical and psychological assistance. This, in our opinion, should form the basis of the diagnostics carried out - not making a specific diagnosis, but determining the most effective methods of providing assistance and accompanying him in the process of schooling. The third diagnostic scheme is an in-depth psychological examination of the child. It represents the activity of a school psychologist in relation to children: with an alleged internal psychological conflict, in order to understand the causes and find a solution to which it is necessary to obtain additional psychological information; with characteristics and problems in the cognitive sphere (within the age norm of mental development). This scheme, as a rule, is launched either based on the results of an express diagnosis in relation to children from the “psychologically disadvantaged” group, or at the request of parents or teachers. Such diagnostic activity is in most cases individual in nature, is implemented using rather complex techniques and requires significant time expenditure for both the psychologist and the student. Hence, there are high requirements for the selection of test and other diagnostic procedures and for the very justification of the need for such an examination. As for the procedures, they should be as multifunctional as possible and strictly follow the purpose of the work - identifying the zone and content of the conflict, searching for the personal characteristics of the student that provoke internal and external conflicts, or the characteristics of his cognitive activity. This formulation of the question seems to us particularly important, not only from the point of view of saving time. The tasks of a school psychologist cannot and should not include a study of the student’s personality that goes beyond the scope of support tasks. If the child is a successful student and his psychological status is within the criteria for school well-being, conducting any additional examinations (and any examination in itself is powerful psychological impact) seems unethical. Within the framework of this model, the implementation of an in-depth examination scheme is preceded by the mandatory formulation of a hypothesis about possible reasons existing problems of the child. In most cases, such a hypothesis can be put forward on the basis of data from the diagnostic minimum, conversations with parents and teachers, and interviews with the student himself. The hypothesis put forward greatly facilitates the examination, since it allows us to limit ourselves to testing certain assumptions, which reduces the number of diagnostic procedures and makes the psychologist’s work more meaningful. As we noted above, the diagnostic work of a psychologist in a school can be presented as a single process. Two main situations can “start” diagnostic work: conducting a routine examination according to the diagnostic minimum scheme and a request from parents or teachers (much less often from the student himself). Further work can be presented in the form of a diagram (see Diagram 1 on p. 42). Scheme 1. The process of diagnostic work of a school psychologist That is, based on the results of the diagnostic minimum, groups of “psychologically well-off” schoolchildren and schoolchildren with learning and development problems are identified. Also, based on the results of checking the validity of the teacher’s or parent’s request, the child either belongs to the “problem” category, or the psychologist’s work is focused on counseling the authors of the request themselves and solving their problems. Further, for each student from the “problem” group, a hypothesis is put forward about the origin and causes of existing psychological difficulties. In accordance with the hypothesis put forward, a certain type of further diagnostic examination is implemented. Schoolchildren who are characterized by diagnostic results as “psychologically well” are not examined until the next scheduled examination. The exception is situations of a reasonable request on their part or on the part of parents and teachers. In general, any psychodiagnostic activity within the framework of the support paradigm is an element holistic process and acquires meaning and value only in connection with other elements, most often in connection with correctional and developmental activities. Direction two: psychocorrectional and developmental work with schoolchildren In this work we will limit ourselves to a very simple working definition of psychocorrectional and developmental work. The developmental activities of a school psychologist are focused on creating socio-psychological conditions for the holistic psychological development of schoolchildren, and psychocorrectional activities are aimed at solving specific problems of learning, behavior or mental well-being in the process of such development. The choice of a specific form is determined by the results of psychodiagnostics.
INTRODUCTION
Many specialists who connected their professional destiny with school activities remember the time when the first sprouts of psychological knowledge began to make their way on the fertile soil of secondary education. This happened relatively recently - a decade ago - and gave rise to many hopes for serious changes both in the system of education and upbringing of children, and in psychology itself. With active social support, the Institute of School Practical Psychology began rapid and intensive development: more and more legions of hastily retrained, quickly trained psychologists poured into the public education system. Centers for training and scientific support of personnel have emerged in all major regions. No less important is the fact that a certain social stereotype of a school psychologist began to form. That is, its role and significance have become entrenched in certain social ideas and attitudes and have become part of the national consciousness. Today we can confidently say that purely empirically, by trial and error, with minimal scientific and theoretical support, the country has developed its own Russian system of school psychological practice. It developed... and found itself in a situation of deep crisis.
The manifestations of the crisis are many-sided and, it seems, obvious. This includes the departure of professional psychologists from school, who just yesterday were ready to work almost entirely on enthusiasm; this is the lack of understanding by many teachers and school administrators of the role and significance of school psychological work; this is the lack of state socio-economic support. The crisis manifests itself in attempts to create new, related professions. Thus, social pedagogues, educational psychologists and even social educational psychologists appeared. In the press and from high stands, opinions began to be heard that a school psychologist (a “pure” psychologist) in principle is not needed, it is much more important to introduce rates for social workers (we note in parentheses that the institute of social workers in schools is going through no less difficult, crisis times , and social workers are mainly engaged in the distribution of material assistance and free meals for children). As a result, many people, most of whom sacrificed their basic education for the sake of the psychological profession, found themselves financially unprotected, theoretically and methodologically helpless in the sea of socio-psychological problems that they have to face every day in interaction with schoolchildren, their parents and teachers.
What are the most important reasons for this situation? There are many of them, they have both socio-economic and scientific roots, and in general can be conditionally divided into two groups: “external” in relation to school psychological practice and “own, internal” crisis phenomena. Among the external reasons, we will name, first of all, the following: the main “consumers” of the results of school psychological activities currently do not have an adequate and clear system of expectations regarding the capabilities and tasks of a school psychologist. Thus, a typical situation is their broad interpretation: shifting responsibility for pedagogical marriage onto the psychologist, transferring methodological functions to him, delegating administrative and managerial responsibilities, etc.; and refusal to cooperate due to the belittlement of his professional capabilities. The experience of communicating with teachers and school administrators in various regions of Russia shows that the overwhelming majority of them are not ready for equal cooperation with psychologists, even if they sincerely declare this on a conscious level. Let us note that such an unconscious rejection of the school psychologist is clearly visible at higher levels of the public education system, which is expressed, in particular, in conceptual approaches to the tariffs of school psychologists, the regulatory framework that regulates their work, etc. Complaints have appeared in pedagogical publications about the fact that school psychologists did not live up to the hopes of teachers and turned out to be unable to solve pressing problems facing modern education. Such complaints have a certain basis; this will be discussed below. I would just like to note that such pedagogical sentiments are most often not associated with an understanding of the real complexities of school psychology. They are the result of a failed, fortunately, attempt to shift responsibility for the pressing problems of school education and upbringing onto her fragile shoulders.
Other external reasons can be mentioned, but it seems more important to discuss the difficulties that have clearly emerged within the system of school psychological activity itself. They, in our opinion, are largely responsible for the crisis. Let us dwell on a number of the most important points.
First. Today's institute of domestic school psychology functions without a developed methodological basis for its activities. Ideally, such a conceptual model should not only be worked out in detail, it should be unified and form the basis for the work of all existing psychological services in the public education system. What will it give? First of all, it will allow you to compare the results obtained in different schools and different regions of the country. School psychologists will understand each other better. There will be certainty in drawing up programs for training and advanced training of specialists for schools.
The model of activity of a school psychologist should fully and convincingly answer the question of why a school psychologist exists and what exactly he should do at school, clearly identify the “ecological niche” of such a specialist in school, and create a picture of a holistic vision of school psychology as a special type of scientific and practical activity. We take the liberty of asserting that such a model does not exist today. In various author's concepts, methodological or individual substantive aspects have been worked out to one degree or another, but so far no holistic approach has been proposed that organically links the theoretical foundations with the substantive, organizational and methodological components of the activities of a practicing school psychologist. That is, the Institute of School Psychology functions without a clear answer to the questions: Why? What? How? In addition, the place and role of its activities in the unified educational system of a particular institution is not indicated. The principles on which the relationship between the psychologist and the school administration, the psychologist and teachers, as well as parents and the schoolchildren themselves should be built have not been defined. These principles should determine, for example, what nature the psychologist’s recommendations to teachers are - recommendatory or mandatory, for what reason and in what form the psychologist can contact parents, how the days and times of examinations of schoolchildren are determined - based on “gaps” in the lesson schedule or in in accordance with a pre-drawn plan. Also fundamentally important is the question of how a psychologist’s work plan is drawn up - either spontaneously, in accordance with the current requests of teachers and parents, or in accordance with an activity strategy previously developed by the psychologist.
Second. School psychological practice in most cases exists separately from other social and psychological services of the public education and health care systems. Hence the unlawful expansion of the functions of a psychologist working in a school. Obviously, his work will become much more effective if school practical activities are considered as a link, and the primary one, of a multi-level system of psychological support for education with its own tasks and responsibilities, its own limitations and even professional taboos. It is no secret that not all socio-psychological problems that exist in the school system can be solved by a school psychologist, both due to ethical issues and because of their complexity. The school practitioner must be sure that he has someone and where to refer the child and his parents, or a teacher, limiting himself to professional actions available to him (psychological support, primary assistance in adaptation, etc.).
To develop a model of a multi-level psychological support service for school education, distribute functions between its levels, and prescribe a system of inter-level connections - such work, although not directly related to school psychological activities, must necessarily be carried out to solve the internal problems of the latter.
Finally, third. The existing tradition of training practical psychologists cannot be considered as satisfactory. And the point here, it seems, is not only in the accepted terms of training, about which enough has been said. The point is in the content of the courses, in the ideas of their creators, what and how specialists of this kind should be taught. The reason for poor training lies, in our opinion, in an attempt to train practitioners using lightweight academic programs, imposing on them theoretical principles that are often unnecessary and not even applicable in real work. The solution is seen in the development of a new theory - a theory of practice, based on effective methods and approaches of practical activity itself, generalizing and analytically processing its positive experience.
Thus, we have not only identified the most important, from our point of view, internal causes of the crisis, but also outlined in the most general form ways to eliminate them. In this work, we will dwell in detail only on those issues that are directly related to the activities of the school psychologist. However, their discussion, in our opinion, allows us to take a fresh look at the problem of creating an integral psychological service for public education, and at training personnel to work within such a service.
The method of sociometry, which allows one to study emotional connections in a group of people, has long become a classic tool of a professional psychologist.
This paper describes its adaptation for studying relationships in the classroom, describes in detail the procedures for conducting and processing the results, and provides an algorithm for analyzing the data obtained.
Organization of psychological work at school
The publication introduces the reader to the scheme for planning the work of a school psychologist during the school year, provides the author’s options for the content of the main directions of his work: diagnostic, correctional and developmental, advisory, etc.
Particular attention is paid to the interaction of the psychologist with teachers, the children's community, and school administration. The book will be of interest to school psychologists, teachers, heads of educational organizations and methodologists.
Workshop on psychological games with children and adolescents
The book is a methodological manual containing about 30 scenarios of psychological games for schoolchildren and adults.
The five chapters of the book sequentially present types of “big” games: game “shells”, games-living, games-dramas, business games and psychological “actions”.
In addition, technologies for conducting such games are described, detailed recommendations on their creation are presented auxiliary materials for presenter and specific game material. All games included in the manual are author's developments, created according to original plots using the author's methodological tools.
Psychologist's work in primary school
The book outlines the system of work of a school psychologist with children 7-10 years old.
Specific diagnostic, correctional, developmental and advisory methods and technologies are provided. The author's approach to organizing the work of a psychologist during the academic year, based on the idea of psychological and pedagogical support, is proposed.
Working with a child in an educational environment: solving problems and development problems
Developmental work is one of the most important and sought-after areas of work of an educational psychologist with children and adolescents. The scientific and methodological manual outlines an approach to building a developmental system in an educational institution within the framework of the model of psychological and pedagogical support for schoolchildren.
The emphasis is on its individual forms - a game, a lesson, a training, a psychological action, etc. Specific recommendations for staging these forms are given, and scenarios for educational games, lessons and events are given. The book contains a lot of practical material.
Social Psychology
The manual examines the most important socio-psychological problems that are directly related to the practice of communicating with children and schoolchildren of various ages.
Social-psychological knowledge and skills in social-psychological analysis of a situation are of enormous importance for a teacher or school psychologist.
On the one hand, they help an adult to better understand himself, his inner world, to realize the socio-psychological aspects of his “I”: social attitudes, stereotypes, strategies of behavior and interaction, communication style, the ability to listen effectively and adequately understand other people.
On the other hand, they allow you to better understand children, create a situation of communication with him that would most fruitfully reflect on their internal mental state, give children a sense of social security, and contribute to their creative development.
1 page
"Practical psychology in education"
M. R. BITYANOVA
Organization
psychological work
PUBLISHING HOUSE
PERFECTION
In the book of a candidate of psychological sciences, before
cent M.R. Bityanova presents a holistic author
what model of organizing psychological services
At school. The publication introduces the reader to the plan
nization of the work of a school psychologist during
solid filling of the main directions of its development
bots: diagnostic, correctional and developmental,
advisory, etc. Particular attention is paid to
issues of interaction between psychologist and teachers
children's community, school administration
The book will be of interest to school psychologists, pe-
dagogs, heads of educational organizations
tions and methodologists.
ISBN 5-89441-007-Х
M.R. Bityanova, 1997.
"Perfection", 1997.
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1. OPERATION MODEL
SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
CHAPTER 1. THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL-EDUCATORY-
CZECH ESCORTS
CHAPTER 2. MAIN DIRECTIONS
CHAPTER 3. ORGANIZATION OF ACTIVITIES
SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
CHAPTER 1. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL
STUDENT STATUS AND ITS CONTENT
AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF SCHOOL
TRAINING
ACTIVITIES OF A SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
CHAPTER 3. ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL CONSILIUM
CORRECTIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL
ACTIVITIES OF A SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
ADVISORY ACTIVITIES
SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST
SECTION 3. SCHOOL PLANNING
PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTIVITY
CHAPTER 1. CRITICAL TECHNOLOGIES
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL
ESCORTS:
CHAPTER 2. PLANNING APPROACHES
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL
ESCORT AT SCHOOL
CHAPTER 3. WORK PLAN
PSYCHOLOGIST DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR
SECTION 4. PSYCHOLOGIST AT SCHOOL -
INTERACTION PROBLEMS
CHAPTER I. PSYCHOLOGIST AT SCHOOL:
PROBLEMS OF BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
CHAPTER 2. PSYCHOLOGIST AND SCHOOL:
PROBLEMS OF SUBMISSION
CHAPTER 3, SCHOOL AND PSYCHOLOGIST:
THERE IS SAFETY IN NUMBERS
CHAPTER 4. PSYCHOLOGIST AT SCHOOL: PROBLEM
PROFESSIONAL READINESS
AFTERWORD
LITERATURE
PREFACE
Dear school psychologist!
With this book we open the series
in education>, in which we intend to present to your
We would like to bring to your attention the experience we have accumulated in practical psychological
what work at school.
Our first book in this series is scientific and practical
character. This is a certain theory of school practice, containing
asking for answers to three fundamentally important questions:
millet of school practical psychology: Why? What? How?
Why do we need a psychologist at school, what is its purpose and tasks?
activities? What exactly can and should he do within the framework?
what are these goals and objectives? How, by what means can he
implement your activities?
We tried to build some holistic model
work of a school psychologist, in which all directions, all
the types of his activities would be linked into a system by a common idea
and would meaningfully ask specific methods and techniques
current daily work. We tried to find a place
school psychologist in the general educational system
schools. A place that matches its original
noble role, professional opportunities, but not
would turn him into the main figure, would not enslave him over-
specific requirements and expectations.
We paid a lot of attention in this book to issues of professional
professional interaction between a school psychologist and pedagogical
gami and administration, schoolchildren and their parents.
Our second book, which is already being prepared for publication, will be
purely practical. It contains a system of school psycho-
Togical work in parallel primary classes - from the moment
that of admission and before the transition to middle management, set out in detail
all the operating technologies we offer are diagnostic
Coy, correctional and developmental, advisory, etc.
And after it, we plan to release books dedicated to it!
issues of constructing a system of psychological activity]
ity in the parallels of middle and senior management.
The first book presented to your attention is
This is a monograph - it was conceived and written by one author. It's me -
M. R. Bityanova. But throughout almost the entire book
I'll speak. And this is not a tribute to the usual scientific article)
liu. In developing the model and creating the basis for this npi book
took part, often without knowing it, many of my KOJ
laid down and students, practical psychologists of Yakutia, Stavropol;
Many specialists who have connected their professional
fate with school activities, I remember the time when per-
new shoots of psychological knowledge began to push their way through
gu on the fertile soil of secondary education. Happened
this is relatively recent - a decade ago - and gave rise to
there are many hopes for serious changes both in the education system
teaching and raising children, and in psychology itself. When ac-
social support institute of school practical
psychology began a rapid and intensive development: everything is new
great legions of hastily retrained, quickly baked
psychologists joined the public education system. In all
training and scientific support centers have emerged in large regions
personnel support. No less important is the fact that it began to take shape
a certain social stereotype of a school psychologist, then
there is its role and meaning entrenched in some social
ideas and attitudes, became part of the domestic community
knowledge. Today we can confidently say that
purely empirically, by trial and error, with minimal
little scientific and theoretical support has developed in the country
our own, Russian system of school psychological practice.
It developed... and found itself in a situation of deep crisis.
The manifestations of the crisis are many-sided and, it seems,
are visible. This includes the departure of professional psychologists from school, and
yesterday ready to work practically on the same enthusiasm, this
and misunderstanding by many teachers and school administrators
tors of the role and significance of school psychological work, this
and lack of state socio-economic support
live The crisis manifests itself in attempts to create new, related
"Professions. Thus, social pedagogues, psychological teachers appeared
VDlogs and even social educational psychologists. In print and from
Syzran, Tula, Bryansk and many other cities with which
I was lucky enough to work and communicate.
I am very grateful to those with whom I started my practice!
activities at school and continue to cooperate, - T. V. Azar
howl, T.V. Zemskikh, N. Borisova; to my graduate students and course students!
Special thanks to my husband and colleague, A.F. Shadura, who endured(
to a new listener and a strict editor. In the book I use va1
experience, your findings, that’s why I’m speaking from our common
At lectures, conferences, in private scientific conversations
often asked:
from many that already exist?> And although, you, dear crazy
log, we just started getting acquainted with the book, ahead of events
I will answer. In theoretical terms, there are a lot of differences, and you
You won’t be able to notice them as you become familiar with the concept itself. M
you may like the theoretical approach and be closer
in terms of value, meaning, and perhaps it will seem alien1
and far-fetched. But from the point of view of practice... it has nothing to do with it.D
depends on those approaches that also work. And if you
reader, there is something to compare with - choose an approach according to
dealing with your professional and personal passions
yami. I wish you success and satisfaction from your work
nicknames of the psychological-medical-social center "Interaction
and its director E.V. Burmistrova for assistance and assistance
preparation of this book.
INTRODUCTION
M. Bityanova
from high stands, opinions began to be heard that the school psychologist (
psychologist) is not needed in principle, it is significantly important1
introduce rates for social workers (note in parentheses, h
and the institute of social workers at school is not experiencing
difficult, crisis times, and social workers
occupied mainly by the distribution of material assistance and b
paid meals for children). As a result, many people
di of which the majority sacrificed their bases!
education for the sake of the psychological profession, turned out to be i
materially unprotected, theoretically and methodologically 6eci
powerful in a sea of socio-psychological problems, with
which they have to face every day in interaction
vii with schoolchildren, their parents and teachers.
What are the most important reasons for this situation? I
many, they have both socio-economic and scientific
ny roots, and in general can be conditionally divided into d
groups: in relation to school psychological
what practice and crisis events;
nia. Among the external reasons, we will name, first of all, the following
schuyu: the main results of school PS
has not developed any chological activity to date
an adequate and clear system of expectations regarding possible
responsibilities and tasks of a school psychologist. So, it is typical
as a situation of their broad interpretation - translation)
giving the psychologist responsibility for pedagogical work
transferring methodological functions to him, delegating a
ministerial and managerial duties and so on
refusal to cooperate due to belittling of his professional
regional opportunities. Experience of communication with teachers and IUKOJ
local administrations of various regions of Russia show
It means that the overwhelming majority of them are not ready!
to equal cooperation with psychologists, even ecj
sincerely declare this on a conscious level. Mark
what is unconscious rejection of school psychologist
is clearly visible on higher floors of the system
we are of public education, which is expressed, in particular,
conceptual approaches to tariffs for school psychotherapy
gov, the regulatory framework that regulates their work, etc.
pedagogical publications complained that schools
These psychologists did not live up to the teachers’ hopes and turned out to be
Introduction
capable of solving current problems facing society
temporary education. Such complaints are supported by
fight on a certain ground, this will be discussed below. I wanted
just to note that such pedagogical sentiments are not
are associated, most often, with an understanding of the real difficulties
school psychology. They are the result of a failed
fortunately, attempts were made to shift onto her fragile shoulders
Chi responsibility for the pressing problems of the school itself
training and education.
Other external reasons can be named, but
it becomes more important to discuss the difficulties clearly indicated by
that began within the school psychological system itself
activities. They are, in our opinion, to a large extent
responsible for the crisis. Let's look at a number
the most important points.
First. Today's institute of national school
psychology functions without a developed methodology
the logical basis of its activities. Ideally, such a concept
The real model must not only be worked out in detail;
on, it must be unified and form the basis
work of all existing psychological services of the system
public education. What will it give? First of all, it will allow
compare the results obtained in different
schools and different regions of the country. School psychologists
will understand each other better. There will be certainty
in drawing up training and advanced training programs -
tions of specialists for the school.
The model of activity of a school psychologist should be fully and
convincingly answer the question why school exists
a psychologist and what exactly he should do at school,
clearly identify such a specialist in
school, create a picture of a holistic vision of school psycho-
logy as a special type of scientific and practical activity. We
we take the liberty of asserting that such a model today
neither the methodological nor individual contents have been worked out
ny aspects, but a holistic approach has not yet been proposed,
organically linking theoretical foundations with content
nal and organizational-methodological components of the activity
qualities of a school psychologist-practitioner. That is, the institute of school-
M. BITYANOEL
psychology functions without a clear answer to questions
prosy: Why? What? How? In addition, the place i is not indicated
the role of his activities in a unified educational system
instead of this or that institution. Principles not defined, H(
which should be built between the psychologist i
school administration, psychologist and teachers, as well as
parents and students themselves. These principles should
determine, for example, what nature the recommendations are!
for what reason and in what form can a psychopath appeal?
log to parents, how days and times are determined)
examinations of schoolchildren - based on the schedule
lessons or in accordance with a pre-made plan
nom. Also of fundamental importance is the question of
how a psychologist’s work plan is drawn up - or spontaneously, i
in accordance with the current requests of teachers and parents
or in accordance with a strategy previously developed by a psychologist
activity tag.
Second. School psychological practice in greater
In most cases, it exists separately from other socio-psychic
chological services of the public education and health system
defense Hence the illegal expansion of the function!
psychologist working at the school. Obviously th
his work will become much more effective if he is in school!
practical activities will be considered as a link, with
than the primary, multi-level system of psychological under
support of education with its tasks and responsibilities
its limitations and even professional taboos (17)
It is no secret that not all socio-psychological pro
problems existing in the school system can be solved
we through the efforts of a school psychologist, both due to ethical issues
tov, and because of their complexity. School practitioner before
must be sure that he has someone and where to send the child
and his parents or teacher, limiting himself to what is available!
himself through professional actions (psychologically
support, primary assistance in adaptation, etc.).
Develop a model of multi-level psychological service
how to support school education, distribute the functions
tions between its levels, prescribe a system of inter-level communication
connections - such work, although it does not have direct
Introduction
application to school psychological activities, with the need
Diligence must be carried out to resolve the internal
them the last problems.
Finally, third. The established tradition of preparing practical
psychological psychologists cannot be considered as satisfactory
worthy. And the point here, it seems, is not only a matter of
established terms of study, about which enough has been said. It's a matter of co-
maintaining courses, in the view of their creators, why and how
We need to train specialists of this kind. The reason for the weak support
cooking lies, in our opinion, in an attempt to train practitioners
under facilitated academic programs, imposing on them
theoretical principles, often unnecessary and not even applicable
nimnye in real work. The solution seems to be the development of a new
theory - theory of practice based on effective
methods and approaches of practical activity itself, generalized
learning and analytically processing her positive experience.
Thus, we not only identified the most important, with
our point of view, the internal causes of the crisis, but also the intention
formulated in the most general form the ways of their elimination. In this job
We will dwell in detail only on those issues that
are associated with the activities of school psycho-
ha. However, their discussion, in our opinion, allows for a new