Critical issues

WHAT CONSTITUTES A CRITICAL ISSUE? It is more than a question or a problem. It grows out of a problem which is recognized and brought to attention for consideration with statements of various points of assent and dissent. It involves debate and, inevitably, value judgments, opinions, and positions. In pupil personnel services there are many issues demanding the attention of today's educators. Some of these are defined and explored in the following pages. The treatment is selective: the four given consideration were chosen because they are commonly discussed, and points of view concerning them have emerged; they are broad issues containing numerous questions and problems. The issues to be discussed are (1) pupil services' responsibility for innovation, (2) extension of the school program to assume additional parental surrogate functions, (3) pupil services' responsibility for accounting and attendance services, and (4) the team concept in pupil services. Several other issues could be raised, but space limitations preclude discussion. One is the concern that certification and experience as a teacher should be a prerequisite to obtaining a license as a counselor, psychologist, or social worker-a prominent and frequent point of debate in the literature and at professional meetings. A second question often discussed among pupil services professionals concerns the problem-centered versus the developmental nature of pupil services work. These special services came into the schools as an attempt to achieve solutions to problems, yet today many personnel workers feel that their major contribution is in dealing with all children, emphasizing positive educational development and positive mental health rather than abnormalities, deviations, and problems. Even as they deal with the exceptional child, they emphasize the child's strengths, not his disabilities. A third question relates to the specialist versus the generalist debate. Some take the position that guidance, for example, is primarily a teacher's responsibility; others expound a specialist concept, claiming that the teacher's job is to teach and that guidance is most appropriately carried out by persons with special training and competency in guidance tasks. Other topics viewed as issues by some are considered by others as only local, specific problems of application. What is a concern to one person or group may not be to another; what may no longer be a debatable issue to professional trainers may still be a problem at the local school district level or to local teachers. There is a time factor in the determination of what is an issue, as well as a gap between what is felt and shown to be optimum and what is feasible in the local school district. An example is demonstrating the need for specialists, particularly now that every item of expense of the school is questioned by the

Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Pupil · Sociology · Work (physics · Child Therapy and Development · Education Methods and Practices · Educational and Psychological Assessments · Engineering · Psychology

• The Role of Schools in Mental Health

  Samuel M Wishik, Elsie R Broussard•American Journal of Public Health…•1963

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• The Fifth Mental Measurements Yearbook

  W D Wall, Oscar Krisen Buros•British Journal of Educational…•1960

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