ERIC Identifier: ED328829
Publication Date: 1991-01-31
Author: Ellis, Thomas I.
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Personnel Services
Ann Arbor MI.
Guidance--The Heart of Education: Three Exemplary Approaches.
During the 1980s, when "A Nation At Risk" (1983) set the tone for public
discourse on education and when politicians throughout the country were
clamoring for educational reform, school districts came under great pressure
to raise academic standards, lengthen the school day, implement state-mandated
basic curricula, and otherwise become more accountable to taxpayers. But
by and large, the advocates of "educational excellence" at that time paid
virtually no attention to addressing the urgent personal or emotional needs
of our students.
Fortunately, a new school of thought is emerging among educators and
counselors. Unlike the reform movement of the past decade, this new movement
takes full account of students' personal needs in formulating educational
goals. Proponents of this school of thought recognize the close relationship
between students' academic development and their personal growth; accordingly,
they are seeking to place guidance at the heart of the educational process.
The three exemplary guidance programs presented here represent three different,
but compatible approaches to this goal.
Norm Gysbers' Comprehensive Guidance Program Model, and Robert Myrick's
Teacher Advisor Program are both based on the idea that guidance is an
integral part of a school's educational mission rather than an "ancillary"
service peripheral to the curriculum. This idea in turn presupposes an
enlightened humanistic conception of education, which recognizes and validates
the intrinsic dignity of every student, and which attends empathetically
to students' personal and developmental needs. This conception forms the
basis of William Purkey's Invitational Learning Model, a new paradigm for
schooling that seeks to reconstitute the entire school setting--people,
places, policies, programs, and processes--so that every aspect of the
school serves to "invite" students to learn by respecting them, encouraging
them, and validating their unique importance and possibilities.
THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDANCE PROGRAM MODEL
Since 1971, Norman C. Gysbers and his associates at the University of
Missouri-Columbia have been developing, field-testing, refining, and implementing
the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model, an innovative, program-based
organizational plan that has been adopted by school districts throughout
The foundation for the Model--the theoretical basis for identifying
the guidance, knowledge, skills, and attitudes (competencies) that students
need is called Life Career Development, defined as self-development over
a person's life span through the integration of roles, settings, and events
in a person's life. Accordingly, this Model emphasizes three domains of
human growth and development:
*Self-knowledge and interpersonal skills. Helping students to develop
awareness and acceptance of themselves and others, and to develop personal
standards and a sense of purpose in life.
*Life roles, settings, and events. Emphasizing knowledge and understanding
of the interrelatedness of various life roles.
*Life career planning. Appraising personal values as they relate to
prospective life career plans and decisions.
The Comprehensive Guidance Program Model consists of three structural
foundations and four interactive program components. The structural foundations--definition,
rationale, and assumptions--emphasize the centrality of guidance to the
total education program, and define the relationship between guidance and
other aspects of the curriculum. The four program components delineate
the major activities, and the roles and responsibilities of personnel involved
in the guidance program:
*Guidance curriculum, or structured classroom activities, organized
around the three domains of student competencies;
*Individual planning, including activities designed to assist students
in monitoring and understanding their own growth and development;
*Responsive services, such as information seeking, crisis counseling,
and teacher/parent/specialist consultation; and
*System support, activities geared toward program management and operations.
One principal rationale behind the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model
is to enable counselors to regain control of their time on the job by allocating
100 percent of their time to the four program components discussed above--guidance
curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support.
The Comprehensive Guidance Program Model is oriented above all toward student
development; it is a programmatic framework which allows counselors to
devote their primary attention to guidance activities and structured group
experiences for all students.
THE TEACHER ADVISOR PROGRAM
The assumption behind Robert D. Myrick's Teacher Advisor Program (TAP)
is that each student needs a friendly adult in the school who knows and
cares about him or her in a personal way. The advisors help their advisees
deal with the problems of growing up and getting the most out of school.
A teacher-advisor is usually responsible for an advisee's cumulative folder,
work folders, teacher-student conferences, parent conferences, group guidance
experiences and follow-up on academic progress reports. Advisors also consult
with other teachers, school counselors, and support personnel about their
TAP is designed to provide an opportunity for all the students in a
school to participate in a small and cohesive group of 15 to 25 peers led
by a sensitive and caring teacher who promotes and monitors individual
students' educational and developmental experiences as they progress through
school. Teacher-advisors meet with their advisees on a regular basis through
a "homeroom" or "homebase" group. This becomes, in effect, the students'
home within the school, where they have a supportive teacher and group
of peers with whom they can explore personal interests, goals, and concerns.
The guidance curriculum varies from one school to another, but it generally
addresses personal, social, and academic concerns. Some of the personal
and social skills addressed include getting acquainted, self-esteem, and
time management. Academic topics might include policies and procedures
from the school handbook and computing grade point averages. Career and
educational planning topics include career exploration and choices, employability
skills and the job market.
Since many high school teachers have never had a guidance course and
many are unsure of how to lead a group discussion with adolescents, teachers
may need special preparation in how to work with their students and how
to build guidance units for their groups. Counselors can therefore assist
teachers in developing guidance units, or they can work together as a team
in developing and delivering a guidance curriculum, with counselors taking
over homebase groups on occasion. It is important, therefore, to establish
a cooperative and supportive relationship between teachers and counselors
so that they can define their respective roles and differentiate responsibilities.
To enlist the support of a school's faculty for TAP and developmental
guidance, it is essential that all teachers understand the philosophy of
TAP and commit adequate time to it. Counselors should therefore provide
a developmental guidance curriculum guide to establish guidance objectives
and provide activities, but allow teachers to choose or discard suggested
activities according to their needs. Since most teachers need more training
in how to help students solve personal problems or get them working cooperatively
in small groups, counselors also may need to assist teachers in developing
guidance and interpersonal skills. Administrative support and periodic
evaluation are also essential.
INVITATIONAL LEARNING FOR COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT
The Invitational Learning concept, developed by William W. Purkey, offers
a blueprint of what counselors, teachers, principals, supervisors, superintendents,
and others can do to enrich the physical and psychological environments
of institutions and encourage the development of the people who live and
Invitational Learning is based on four value-based assumptions regarding
the nature of people and their potential and the nature of professional
*Respect: People are able, valuable, and responsible and should be treated
*Trust: Education should be a collaborative, cooperative activity where
process is as important as product;
*Optimism: People possess untapped potential in all areas of human endeavor;
*Intentionality: Human potential can best be realized by places, policies,
programs, and processes that are specifically designed to invite development,
and by people who are intentionally inviting with themselves and others,
personally and professionally.
In a school or any other organization, everything is connected to everything
else. And so, in applying Invitational Learning, everything counts in creating
an environment that invites individuals to reach their potential:
*Places. Creating an attractive and inviting physical setting is the
easiest way to begin the process of incorporating the Invitational Learning
concept into a school or other organization.
*Policies. Professional counselors can assist schools in developing
policies that encourage student responsibility and participation rather
than those that create pervasive anxiety, mistrust, and mindless conformity.
*Programs. Programs that incorporate the assumptions of Invitational
Learning include incentive programs such as peer counseling for dropout
prevention, faculty mentoring, and other collaborative programs where students,
teachers, and counselors all gain by helping and encouraging one another.
*Processes. How we teach or counsel and how we act while doing these
things are far more important in the long run than what students or clients
learn. Educators and counselors in successful schools establish behavioral
norms of collegiality, professional development, mutual assistance, and
ongoing discussion of instruction and curricular improvements among themselves,
and they cultivate attitudes of respect for all students and attention
to their needs in all of their interactions.
*People. The daily interaction between teachers and students, counselors
and clients, and professionals amongst themselves, ultimately determines
the success or failure of Invitational Learning. Counselors and teachers
who wish to employ Invitational Learning therefore need a sound knowledge
of human development.
The goal of Invitational Learning is thus to provide an optimally inviting
total environment, both for professional helpers themselves and for those
with whom they work. In this respect, it is fully compatible with both
the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model and the Teacher Advisor Program.
All three approaches affirm the centrality of developmental guidance to
the educational process, and all are predicated on mutual respect and human
dignity--for counselors, teachers, and students alike.
Gysbers, N. C. (1990). Comprehensive guidance programs that work. Ann
Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services
Myrick, R. D. (1990). The teacher advisor program: An innovative approach
to school guidance. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, ERIC Counseling
and Personnel Services Clearinghouse.
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at
Risk. Washington, DC: Author.
Purkey, W. W., & Schmidt, J. J. (1990). Invitational learning for
counseling and development. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan,
ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse.