5.1 Qualified and unqualified psychologist

Professional position and professional consciousness of a psychologist

World of Psychology

© Andreeva Alla Damirovna (2017), Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Senior Researcher, Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (Moscow, Russia).

The problem of the demand for teacher-psychologists in the modern education system is considered. The relevance of the study is due to significant changes in the status and functionality of an educational psychologist, breaking the stereotype that has developed regarding his professional activities. There is also a loss of the ideological essence of the profession of a school psychologist, its focus on protecting the interests of the child and the development of his individuality. The organizational and substantive aspects of the functioning of the school related to the reform of Russian education and enshrined in the new law on education are analyzed. The transfer of the activities of a psychologist from an educational institution to centers of psychological, pedagogical, medical and social assistance significantly limits the professional field of an educational psychologist. A high level of heterogeneity of the student population is shown in terms of readiness for learning, neuropsychological status, and sociocultural development. The author argues that this situation necessitates constant psychological and pedagogical support of the educational process. The attitude of students' parents to the professional position of an educational psychologist as a representative of the education system is discussed. The dominance of a low level of trust in such specialists has been revealed. The contradiction between the objective necessity of having a teacher-psychologist at school and the requirements of the new law on education is shown. The conflictual nature of the professional position of a psychologist working in the education system is analyzed. The author points out that the professional position of a psychologist in the context of optimizing education loses the humanistic meaning originally inherent in it.

Key words : educational psychologist; education system; professional position; mental development of children; school; family.

Introduction

The educational psychological service in our country appeared back in the 80s of the last century. It was then that a new specialist came to schools and kindergartens - an educational psychologist. Over the past thirty years, it has firmly taken its place in the structure of educational institutions, the content, goals and objectives of its work have been determined. The main purpose of the activity of an educational psychologist is to ensure compliance with psychological and pedagogical conditions that are most favorable for the mental and personal development of each child at all stages of his childhood [Practical psychology..., 2004; Psychological service..., 2009]. Undoubtedly, the arrival of a psychologist at school as a full member of the teaching staff fundamentally changed the child’s educational environment. The professional position of an educational psychologist is determined by the focus of all his activities on protecting the interests of the child as a growing person, developing personality and individuality. Representing and protecting the interests of the child, he actively interacts not only with children, but also with teachers and parents, and helps improve the psychological culture of all participants in the educational process [Dubrovina, 2014; Practical psychology..., 2004].

The activities of educational psychologists are extremely diverse - this includes psychological education, psychological prevention, psychological counseling, diagnostic and correctional work. Some of them give preference to the type of activity in which they feel most competent, others ensure the implementation of the educational concept of their institution, and others are actively involved in all spheres of life of the school or kindergarten.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that psychological services are in demand in domestic education; it has indeed become “one of the most essential components of the country’s holistic education system” [Practical Psychology..., 2004, p. 31]. However, the reform of Russian education, which began with the adoption of the new Federal State Educational Standard (FSES) in 2010 and enshrined in the Russian Federation Law “On Education,” fundamentally changed the status of the psychologist, practically removing him from the educational space. The psychological and social development of students was for the first time included in the targets of educational programs themselves as meta-subject and personal learning outcomes, and thus this task was transferred directly to those who create and implement curricula and manuals, that is, textbook authors and teachers. The new law on education, in an effort to optimize the use of human and financial resources of the education system, transfers the main activities of the psychological service to the centers of psychological, pedagogical, medical and social assistance (hereinafter referred to as the Center), preserving the right of educational institutions to have a full-time teacher-psychologist ( Art. 42). Working at the Center to a certain extent limits the initiative of a psychologist in determining priority types of psychological work for himself or an educational institution, since an employee of the Center works at the request of a client, be it a private individual, an educational institution, or executive authorities. At the same time, as shown by the analysis of regulatory documents regulating the activities of the educational psychological service, the psychologist retained all his main professional functions of providing the necessary assistance to all participants in the educational process who need it.

Changing the administrative status of psychologists working in education breaks the established stereotypes of their professional activities. It is legitimate to raise the question to what extent does such legislative regulation of the functioning of the educational psychological service meet the needs of the participants in the educational process themselves - teachers, parents and children?

Does a modern school need a teacher-psychologist?

Optimization of education, the economic basis of which was per capita financing, confronted the administration of educational institutions with the need to select priority areas of the educational process and their staffing. A significant part of schools have taken the path of abolishing psychological service units, reducing the positions of educational psychologists, speech therapists, and speech pathologists, and redistributing the salary fund in favor of subject teachers. If necessary, the school can contact the center for psychological, pedagogical, medical and social assistance and invite a psychologist to solve a specific problem. However, such a request costs money, so the administration suggests that parents of a “problem” child contact the Center on their own. Some school directors are still convinced that each educational institution needs its own psychological service, and they try to retain specialists who help children learn, and this position has very serious grounds.

It is obvious that in the context of optimizing education, the idea of ​​psychological support for students with different educational needs has played a very modest role. Meanwhile, the complex combination of modern civilizational, environmental, medical, social and economic factors, their mutual influence on the development of children leads to a high degree of heterogeneity in the student population of mass Russian schools. Taking into account the presence in a public school of a significant number of children with various developmental disabilities, it can be assumed that not all of them will achieve the results of mastering the educational program of primary education set by the Federal State Educational Standard and will be ready to study in secondary school. These children need constant psychological and pedagogical support, and not one-time or cyclical classes to overcome one or another learning difficulty. However, in accordance with Art. 42 of the current Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”, a psychologist is included in the educational process only when the learning difficulties experienced by a child become obvious, that is, when all pedagogical means of helping him have already been exhausted. Along with the time lost for full-fledged correctional and developmental work, the effectiveness of psychological assistance also decreases.

The psychological appearance of a modern child entering school is determined not only by the civilizational conditions in which he spent his preschool childhood, but also by a whole complex of psychophysiological and neuropsychological characteristics. Recently, experts in the field of education are increasingly speaking openly about a noticeable increase in the number of children experiencing difficulties in learning in public schools. For example, according to psychophysiologists, more than 60% of first-graders have age-related immaturity of the most important cognitive functions (such as organization of activity, motor and speech development, visual and visual-spatial perception), as well as integrative functions (visual-motor and auditory-motor coordination etc.), which serve as the basis for the formation of basic educational skills (competencies) - writing, reading, arithmetic [Bezrukikh, 2009]. This is also evidenced by the analytical documents of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, the results of psychodiagnostic examinations conducted by psychological, medical and social centers in various regions of our country. Thus, according to a survey of schools and kindergartens in St. Petersburg, more than 40% of children have various deviations in the maturation and functioning of the nervous system, in Nizhny Novgorod - 60%, in Tver - 48% of those surveyed. In Moscow, among low-performing schoolchildren, about 50% lag behind the norm in their mental development.

According to various sources, the number of underperforming students in today's schools exceeds 30% of the total number of students and ranges from 15% to 40% in primary grades. It should be noted that these problems are specific not only to our country, they are global in nature, and learning disabilities are even included in the international classification of diseases DSMIV. According to the American Center for Children with Anomalies NICHCY, this concept includes difficulties in reading, writing, impressive and expressive speech, thinking and mathematics. In elementary school, these difficulties manifest themselves primarily in violations of writing, reading and counting, that is, the types of activities most in demand by the social situation of the child’s development [Potanina, 2012]. The most significant factor in the occurrence of school difficulties among students in public schools is considered to be the morphofunctional immaturity of the structures of the brain and its regulatory systems. It is also noted that in children with learning difficulties, the morpho-functional immaturity of brain structures persists throughout the first three years of education, being an obstacle to the effective functioning of the child’s cognitive processes, and therefore to his educational success. As a result, about 40% of primary school graduates have persistent (that is, uncorrected) learning difficulties [Bezrukikh, 2009]. This means that during their studies in the lower grades they were never able to fully master basic school skills, did not fully learn to read, write and count, and therefore are not ready to study in secondary school.

Learning difficulties and poor performance of students can be caused by a number of reasons, both external (sociocultural conditions of life and development of the child, environmental and pedagogical factors) and internal (genetic influences, perinatal pathology, health status, brain dysfunction, degree of maturity of structural and functional systems brain, immaturity of higher mental functions) or their various combinations. The successes of modern medicine also contribute to this problem, making it possible to maintain unsuccessful pregnancies and care for children born with a low level of vitality. Without discussing this complex ethical issue within the framework of this article, we are only stating the increase in the number of children who find it difficult to study in modern public schools, which is objectively recorded by specialists - doctors, psychologists, and teachers.

Our poorly developed idea of ​​inclusive education also made a certain contribution to the current situation. The noble goal of providing all children with equal conditions for developing their abilities and obtaining an education, and instilling public tolerance towards people with physical or intellectual disabilities requires serious material and personnel support. It is not enough to simply build ramps and make the physical space of the school accessible. Every child with developmental problems needs special, personally addressed help from an adult - a teacher, psychologist, tutor (teacher accompanying the process of individual education at school), which the school in its current state cannot provide.

In the wake of the development of inclusive education, classes of correctional and developmental education were eliminated, and the number of correctional schools was reduced. Today, a significant number of children with mild developmental defects enter public school. Teachers, for the most part, are not ready to work professionally with such students, and often simply do not have the opportunity to provide an individual approach to them. Meanwhile, an analysis of the effectiveness of the system of correctional and developmental education (CDE) in various models of educational institutions in the named regions showed that targeted work made it possible to actively integrate up to 85% of preschool children and from 65 to 82% of primary school age students into mass forms of education [Sirotyuk, 2003].

Psychological support for mastering any curriculum consists of constant correctional and developmental work with children experiencing difficulties in mastering it, preventive and advisory work with all participants in the educational process. Individual, one-time appeals to the Centers cannot solve a problem that is systemic in nature, affecting not only pedagogical, but also personal, social, and medical aspects of educational activities. Today's reorientation of the activities of a teacher-psychologist to work with the content of educational material, to help the teacher in organizing the educational process, to the development of appropriate diagnostic complexes is due to a misunderstanding of who exactly the Federal State Educational Standard is addressed to. The text of the document clearly states that it is the basis for the activities of only governing and regulatory bodies and subjects of the education system, as well as authors and developers of educational programs and manuals. The new Russian education standard, which implements a competency-based approach to learning, sets targets that schools should strive for, thereby leaving room for arbitrary interpretation of the role of the psychologist in implementing the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard.

Does a modern family need a school psychologist?

The current Law of the Russian Federation “On Education” establishes the priority responsibility of the family for raising children, preparing them for life in a new, rapidly changing world (Article 44), calling on parents to actively participate in shaping the educational environment of their child and to become full participants in the educational process.

However, our study of the content and structure of parents’ social ideas about the meaning and quality of school education, its significance for the child’s future life achievements, the role and place of education in the development of the cultural level of a modern person clearly showed that the population is only approximately aware of the direction and meaning of the ongoing optimization of education [ Andreeva, 2015; Andreeva, 2016]. Parents' social ideas about education are frankly functional in nature: they see the main meaning of education not in the cultural development of the child, but in the acquisition of a future profession, preferably in a higher educational institution. Accordingly, the greatest value for modern parents is not the personal qualities of the teacher, but only his ability to teach, explain, help in mastering new things, that is, his professional level. The low value in the eyes of parents of such professionally significant qualities of a teacher’s personality, such as wisdom, justice, and honesty, indicates a predominant attitude towards him as a function, that is, not as a teacher in the broad sense of the word, but as a teacher, a transmitter of knowledge. Parents act as consumers of school services to educate their children and are convinced that the quality of the service provided is more important than the student’s own efforts.

In general, the content and structure of modern parents’ social ideas about school education suggest that it is the new model of interaction between school and family, which gives the family priority in responsibility for the upbringing and education of children, that has become the reason for the decline in the traditional value of the school as a social institution. The school has lost its status as a carrier and conductor of culture and has turned into an institution providing educational services, the quality of which is measured by the specific educational achievements of the child.

How do parents imagine the role of a psychologist in an educational institution, what kind of help do they expect from him and what help are they ready to accept themselves? To obtain relevant information, we conducted a content analysis of materials from parent Internet forums for 2010-2016. Communication on forums helps parents find solutions to a variety of problems, allows them to see the similarities of the difficulties they are experiencing, and provides serious psychological support in conditions of instability and uncertainty of modern life. Unlike questionnaires and surveys, content analysis of the content of text arrays of Internet forums allows us to obtain respondents’ judgments that are sufficiently free from self-censorship and social desirability.

The geography of the forums covered the main large cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, Voronezh, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Arkhangelsk. The statements of parents of preschool children (133 people, 200 statements) and schoolchildren (146 people, 220 statements) related to the development, upbringing, education and training of children were analyzed. Analysis of the statements made it possible to identify several categories of judgments that reflect certain positions of parents in relation to the psychologist of the educational institution (data are presented in the table).

Table Parents' judgments reflecting their attitude towards the psychologist of an educational institution (in percentage)

The table shows that in the judgments of parents of both preschoolers and schoolchildren, the leading position in relation to the psychologist is occupied by fear of the possible discovery of their own psychological problems or parental incompetence (“they will say that I myself am to blame for the child’s problems”, “it turns out that I I do everything wrong." It is noteworthy that parents take this position precisely in relation to the psychologist working in the educational institution that their child attends. If a problem arises that requires qualified psychological help, many of them express their readiness to contact a counseling center or other service independent of educational structures. Apparently, the reason for this lies in the perception of a psychologist in an educational institution as a teacher, a representative of the system, and not a specialist capable of skillfully solving complex socio-psychological problems.

Among the judgments of parents and preschoolers and schoolchildren, the category “distrust in the professionalism of a psychologist” occupies a significant place. Parents contrast the professional activities of a psychologist with confidence in their parental competence, knowledge of the characteristics and needs of their child (“I know better what my child needs”).

The next most important place is occupied by the category of judgments associated with the fear of the psychologist identifying any family problems (“I don’t want them to get into my family”, “they will find out from the child what and how it is at home”). We attribute this to the widespread discussion in the media of the need to introduce the institution of juvenile justice in Russia. Despite the fact that the law has not yet been adopted, society has a fairly stable idea of ​​juvenile justice as a repressive system towards the family. This is largely facilitated by the vagueness and vagueness of the criteria for family dysfunction, the possibility of their arbitrary interpretation by social service workers, and insufficiently informative media reports about the intervention of guardianship authorities in families. Parents express fears that a psychologist, using various professional techniques and methods, will be able to obtain information about the family from the child, which will be used by social security authorities against the family itself.

Meanwhile, the activities of a psychologist in an educational institution in Russia are regulated by the principle of voluntary parental consent to any type of work with a child, including developmental activities. Article 44.6 of the Law on Education of the Russian Federation gives parents the right to give consent to conduct psychological and psychological-pedagogical examinations of the child or to refuse them. The discrepancy between normative guidelines (“a teacher-psychologist is obliged to create conditions...” and “a psychologist of an educational institution has no right <...> without parental consent”) creates dissonance in the attitude towards a teacher-psychologist of an educational institution as a potentially useful specialist, but his potential is very low. and is one-sidedly in demand in the education system.

Statements by parents about trusting the psychologist as a professional are much less common, and parents of preschoolers are significantly more likely to talk about the effectiveness and usefulness of developmental activities (p ≤ 0.05), share positive experiences with each other, and emphasize the need for psychological preparation of the child for school. Parents of older schoolchildren no longer see the potential in these activities that can affect the child’s academic performance, therefore, in order to achieve faster results, the student will prefer to hire a tutor and thereby make up for the gap in their studies. It can be assumed that for these parents the very idea of ​​cognitive development becomes irrelevant; it is replaced by the idea of ​​the value of knowledge and learning, which has clear criteria and social perspectives.

Another area of ​​activity of a psychologist in an educational institution, which is positively assessed by parents of children of different ages, is psychological education. Parents' interest in psychological knowledge indicates a desire for productive interaction with the child, a desire to know and understand the age-related characteristics of children's development, and to use psychologically competent methods of educational influence on the child. Of course, raising the psychological literacy of parents should become one of the priority areas of work for a teacher-psychologist.

Thus, despite parents’ understanding of the content of a psychologist’s professional activity and some positive trends in their attitude towards the psychologist of an educational institution, a wary, distrustful attitude towards him turns out to be dominant (differences are significant at p ≤ 0.001). By joining the education system, a psychologist, like a teacher, becomes for parents, first of all, a part of this system, a representative of a social institution that implements the specific tasks of training and educating the younger generation and imposes quite stringent requirements on the child and his family. Considering an educational psychologist as a representative of the education system, parents do not have confidence in the confidentiality of information received from them or from the child in the process of psychological work, or in the protection of the child’s inner world from outside interference.

conclusions

The new law “On Education of the Russian Federation” defines the scope of activity of psychological services as work at the request of a client in specialized centers of psychological, pedagogical, medical and social assistance. However, the contradiction between the objective need to have a teacher-psychologist at school and the new legislative requirements, legal ambiguity and conflict status of a psychologist working in the education system lead to the fact that the professional position of a psychologist in the context of optimizing education loses its initially inherent humanistic meaning. Whether an educational psychologist working on “neutral territory” will be in demand by the education system, or how effective the assistance provided by a psychologist will be in solving problems related to the educational process, only time will tell.

Literature

1. Andreeva A.D. Social model of interaction between family and school in the context of Russian education reform / A.D. Andreeva // Family, marriage and parenthood in modern Russia. Issue 2. - Moscow: Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2020. - P. 347-355.
2. Andreeva A.D. Social ideas of parents about responsibility for children’s education / A.D. Andreeva // Current issues of promising scientific research: a collection of scientific papers based on the materials of the International Scientific and Practical Conference on May 31, 2020. Part 1. - Smolensk: Novalenso, 2020. - P. 83-99.
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© Andreyeva Alla Damirovna (2017), PhD in Psychology, senior research scientist, Psychological Institute of Russian Academy of Education (Moscow, Russia)

The problem of demand for teacher-psychologist by system of modern education is considered. The relevance of the study is determined by significant changes in the status and functions of psychologist in education, breaking the stereotype existing about his / her professional activities. The loss of the emotional essence of the profession of a school psychologist is also mentioned, its focus on the interests of the child, development of the child's personality. Organizational and conceptual aspects of the school relating to the reform of Russian education and enshrining in the new law on education are analyzed. The transfer of the work of psychologist from educational institutions into centers of psycho-pedagogical, medical and social support significantly limits the vocational field of psychologist. The high level of heterogeneity of pupils in the parameters of willingness to learn, neuropsychological status, social and cultural development is shown. The author argues that this situation calls for continuous psycho-pedagogical support of the educational process. The attitude of students' parents to the professional position of the psychologist as a representative of the education system is discussed. Domination of the low level of trust in such professionals is revealed. The contradiction between the objective necessity of the presence of the school psychologist and the requirements of the new law on education is shown. The tendency to conflict of professional position of psychologist working in the education system is examined. The author indicates that the professional position of the psychologist in the conditions of optimizing the education loses the humanistic sense initially built in it.

Key words : teacher-psychologist; educational system; professional position; mental development of children; school; family.

References

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