RURAL COUNSELING SERVICES

In 1962, in his book, Toward a Psychology of Being, Abraham H. Maslow wrote that the symptoms of struggle, conflict, guilt, bad conscience, anxiety, depression, frustration, tension, shame, self-punishment and feelings of inferiority or unworthiness were automatically regarded as sick and undesirable, and they should get “cured” as soon as possible. Furthermore, he wrote all of these symptoms are found in healthy people.

That was thirty-five years ago, but if you’re attending college hoping to become a counselor, or if you’re already a counselor today, those are precisely the major human needs that you still will face or are facing. The behavioral trials seeking solutions to alleviate self and social negative encounters are demanding major attention today.

Self and social negative behaviors are, or seem to have increased in our societal “patterns of existence” today. If these negative behaviors have increased, the question is why? Is it the social direction of our society? Is it the behavioral actions of the parents? Is it the poor quality of instruction of the educational public institutions? Could it be that all three social components mentioned have factors of failure within their systems of becoming?

If such are the social negative encounters today, solutions for the symptoms that have caused these negative encounters are needed. Expectations of such solutions for all symptoms not socially accepted are in many instances, directed toward the counselor. Pending on school systems social and academical settings, expectations will vary.

The writer, being a retired counselor, writes of his observations related to rural school systems. The following are his solutions that are not necessarily researched, but solutions implemented he found served his student-population’s needs. Therefore, if you find them useful, implement them,  that’s the purpose of this counselor’s writings.

Furthermore, the enclosed research has no scientific design knowledge; it’s a three-year study conducted to seek awareness of the need, the writer feels, for “alternative education.” This counselor feels “alternative education” is a dire need in our national and local educational systems.

Many night hours were spent compiling the statistics used during the three-years of the study. The results of the study confirm to this counselor what he observed during the time he provided counseling services in our public education al systems. Alternative education is a dire need whereby other means, other than total academics, should be provided to serve all the mental abilities of all student levels existing in attendance of public education.

Publication is hereby sought seeking awareness of needed future development for public educational systems. May this book serve the state and national educational agencies, school administrators, teachers, counselors, parents and future student- bodies.

The Chama Valley School Board and the Chama Valley District Superintendent providing acceptance of the three-year study are hereby commended for their awareness of the need for implementation of such needed school services. It is hoped that this school system will become an example for other school systems that are facing the same concerns.