Contents
Man is the highest creation of nature. But in order to fully enjoy its treasures, he must meet at least one requirement — to be healthy. The problem of mental health has attracted and continues to attract many researchers from various fields of science and practice: physicians, psychologists, educators, philosophers, and others. When dealing with the mental, mental development of a child, one should remember about his spiritual development, personality development, i.e. psychological health. The purpose of my activity is to promote the preservation of the psychological health of all participants in the educational process. This work is carried out in the course of psychological support of the educational process and includes psychological diagnostics, developmental activities, educational and preventive work, and counseling.
The system of work of the psychological service consists of four stages.
The first stage — «Zero» and «work with younger students»
This stage includes:
- Comprehensive diagnostics for determining the level of readiness of future first-graders for schooling
- Preparatory courses for future first-graders.
From the moment of entering school, the child’s success in learning depends not only on genetic data, but also on the child’s relationship with parents prior to learning, on the formation of the basic components of learning and development. Children entering school have different levels of training, which reduces the effectiveness of the teacher’s work. So at this stage I am doing:
- Preventive work
The main focus is on increasing the psychological and pedagogical competence of parents in terms of the formation of the basic components of development necessary for the child during the period of admission to school: general awareness, attention, memory, thinking, cognitive activity.
- Development activity
It is focused on the creation of socio-psychological conditions for the development of schoolchildren, and psycho-correctional — on the study in the process of such development of specific problems of learning, behavior or mental well-being. The choice of a specific form of work is determined by the results of the research.
- Psychocorrective work
I try to carry out psycho-corrective work on an individual basis or in small groups. I find it more efficient.
- Diagnostic work
Diagnostic work is also carried out in several areas, which should be listed separately. This is the diagnostics of the cognitive sphere of students (identification of the background level of mental development and the formation of prerequisites for participation in educational activities.), the diagnostics of the motivational sphere of students, the diagnostics of the emotional-volitional and personal spheres (the level of anxiety, activity).
Features of the emotional-volitional and personal sphere of the child to a fairly high degree affect the level of adaptation and the process of teaching the child at school. High anxiety in general is a characteristic of the psychological distress of the individual. As a rule, a large number of neuroses in children occurs in classes dominated by an authoritarian style of education. According to our data, 16% of schoolchildren have a high level of anxiety.
To prevent tobacco use in primary school, the Health Path program is being implemented. It represents a new area of pedagogical activity, in which modern pedagogy, practical psychology and the ideas of medical prevention are closely intertwined, and involves a combination of mastering knowledge by children with the formation of healthy attitudes and skills of responsible behavior. This training is aimed at the development of the personality of the child. The general target orientation for the harmonious development of the child is concretized in such learning tasks as the formation of a positive image of the child’s «I», the ability to self-regulate, responsible decision-making skills and effective communication, resistance to drug pressure from advertising campaigns of the media and peers.
The second stage — «work with teenagers»
Work at this stage includes:
- Control over the adaptation of fifth grade students and newly arrived children to the UVP.
- Psychological monitoring. To track the dynamics in the main school, a psychological and pedagogical portrait of the student is compiled based on the results
As for the work to preserve the mental health of adolescents, trainings are held here to remove aggressiveness and insecure behavior. For the most difficult adolescents with delinquent behavior, individual programs are being developed. These programs are implemented jointly with subject teachers, class teachers. Computer games are used to develop attention, imagination, thinking. I think that psychological games have a great psycho-prophylactic and developmental effect.
A psychological game is a game action that develops the ability for self-control in a social situation, criticality towards oneself and others, the ability to analyze one’s actions, unites the children’s team, creates a positive emotional mood, thereby preventing the occurrence of problems associated with the personal development of schoolchildren. The game is a means of comprehensive development of the pupil.
At the special course «Self-Improvement of the Personality», conducted in grades 8, a group of peers can become a condition for the development of the personality of each member of it. The child needs to be given a chance, the opportunity to fulfill himself, to make him feel that everything is fine with him and that they believe in him. Reliance on a subjectively successful (interesting, attractive, curious) area of knowledge or activity for the child has a progressive influence on the formation of his personality, allows him to develop his interests, self-confidence, and abilities. Here the guys master the methods of autogenic training, develop the ability to see the prospect of their future life, the ability to determine the goals of their life, the ratio of near and far perspectives. Classes are held in the form of training, psychological games, role-playing games, group mini-discussions.
The middle link is more autonomous and independent, so the direct appeal of the child himself takes place here.
The third stage — «Working with high school students»
The priority direction is career guidance for students in grades 9-11.
A factor traditionally associated in public opinion with adverse health outcomes for high school students is exam stress.
Particularly biased attention to this issue is associated with the introduction of a unified final exam. If you look at this problem more broadly, then any student’s call to the board, control work, testing is already a small exam stress. And although the control of knowledge is a very responsible procedure, it is not any answer in the lesson and not any exam that can cause harm to the health of the student, but only such a procedure for testing knowledge in which the necessary psychological, pedagogical and ethical standards and requirements are not observed, an atmosphere of fairness and goodwill, the individual characteristics of the respondent (examined) are not taken into account. But encountering bad examiners is no reason to cancel the exam procedure itself, just as the existence of bad, low-qualified teachers is no reason to close all schools.
In this regard, one of the areas of work “Psychological support of students during the exam. The main goal of this direction is to reduce stressful conditions; improvement of health-saving technologies during the preparation and passing of the final certification of students; providing effective assistance to participants in the educational process in preparing for exams. In the course of the work, a psychodiagnostic examination of school anxiety or stress is carried out. At the end of each lesson, students are offered practical recommendations (in written and oral form) and training exercises to relieve nervous and emotional stress during the examination period. When conducting classes, methodological materials from periodicals for psychologists, recommendations for the development of types of memory, attention, thinking, training exercises, relaxation exercises, and practical tasks for relieving nervous tension are used. Thanks to the acquired skills of self-regulation and the development of a behavioral strategy during the examination period, the student acquires technologies for maintaining his own health-saving environment in difficult life situations. Educational work is carried out within the framework of the months on the prevention of AIDS, drug addiction and smoking.
Fourth stage — «Working with parents»
Parent meetings… Their topics are multifaceted and limitless: «Health and bad habits», «The relationship between the atmosphere in the family and the level of mental development of the child», «Formation of personal hygiene skills in the family», etc. All this is aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle. Assistance to children and prevention of ill-treatment is carried out in a family context and, above all, in the form of conversations and remedial classes with parents to overcome the difficulties of family upbringing, change attitudes towards the child so that they do not feel powerless and alone.
There are periods in the life of parents when they feel powerless, are in a state of crisis or emotional stress. At such moments, their anger at children is often expressed in shouting or punishment. Of course, there is nothing good in this, but there is also no reason to conclude that they cannot be good parents. If they are aware of their actions, they have a chance to change their behavior. Parents often feel ashamed of their words and actions.
Working with teachers: who should take the first step? In general, I noticed that the activity of a teacher (at least in our school) does not depend on the length of teaching work and experience. To a greater extent, this is due to the personal characteristics of the teacher.
Teachers know and feel their students very well. Most teachers have a developed professional observation «pedagogical vigilance», which allows you to notice and take into account the slightest nuances of the mood and behavior of the student. I am deeply convinced that it is possible to maintain the mental and psychological health of a child only if there is a favorable psychological climate in the pedagogical team and if each teacher understands his problems and seeks to find and eliminate their causes.
All of the above are effective forms for maintaining the mental and psychological health of participants in the educational process.