International Aid Agencies,Learner-centred Pedagogy and Political Democratisation: A critique

Recent pronouncements by international aid agencies on their interest in and preference for a learner-centred pedagogy so far appear not to have attracted much scholarly attention. This paper attempts to explain this interest. It argues that although the efficacy of the pedagogy is often couched in cognitive/educational terms, in essence, its efficacy lies in its political and ideological nature. The fact that the aid agencies' interest in the pedagogy became explicit soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall is in itself significant. The paper argues that aid agencies' apparent lack of interest in pedagogical issues before 1989 lay partially in the very central hypothesis of the modernisation theory of development which became enshrined in policies of aid agencies soon after the latter were created. The hypothesis, coupled with human capital theory, viewed education in technicist terms. However, the ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a development paradigm in the 1980s and 1990s elevated political democratisation as a prerequisite for economic development. Education, then, assumed a central role in the democratisation project. Given its democratic tendencies, learner-centred pedagogy was a natural choice for the development of democratic social relations in the schools of aid-receiving countries. Aid agencies, therefore, had to be explicit about their preference for the pedagogy. Thus, the pedagogy is an ideological outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of society and people. It is in this sense that it should be seen as representing a process of Westernisation disguised as quality and effective teaching.     

Systems Techniques Applied to Teaching Listening Skills

The application of systems techniques to counselor education is explored as one means of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of counselor education. The application of systems technology to counselor education is demonstrated by the use of the systems approach in the teaching of a basic counseling technique—the open-end lead. The “Open-end Lead Training Package” is presented to demonstrate the necessary developmental steps involved in the application of systems techniques to the teaching of a counseling skill. The developmental steps are (a) determine the training objective, (b) identify the tasks that will best meet the objective, (c) arrange the tasks in the most efficient and effective order, and (d) collect data that will verify or question the success of the training decisions that have been made. The strengths and weaknesses of systems techniques as applied to counselor education are discussed.     

A Developmental Rationale for Curriculum Order and Teaching Styles in Counselor Education Programs

Developmental models provide a useful theoretical foundation for conceptualizing the cognitive development of counseling students. When these models are used, a rationale emerges for teaching styles and course sequencing in counselor education programs.     

As if by Machinery: The Levelling of Educational Research

Much current educational research shows the influence of two powerful but potentially pernicious lines of thought. The first, which can be traced at least as far back as Francis Bacon, is the ambition to formulate precise techniques of research, or 'research methods', which can be applied reliably irrespective of the talent of the researcher. The second is the recognition that in the social sciences we—humankind—are ourselves the objects of our study. The first line of thought threatens to cut educational research free of the wider range of ideas and theories that should govern or at least inform it. The second tends to turn it into an absorption with self, particularly when allied to what its practitioners like to think of as the postmodern turn.     

The Effects of Mental Practice on Counseling Behaviors

Neophyte counselors trained in the use of their own imagery to practice counseling interviews were compared with a similar group not receiving the training. The mental practice was hypothesized to have experiential value for neophyte counselors resulting in positive effects upon selected behaviors commonly found with counseling experience. Results indicated that the ability to discriminate differing levels of empathic responses, the ability to evaluate accurately one's own performance, and the amount of preinterview confidence were significantly higher for the mental practice group. However, the communication of empathy and the subjective evaluations of the counselors during the interview did not prove significantly higher. This article discusses the potential value of mental practice as a supplementary experiential training technique and some considerations for its use and further study.     

Principals' Training in Counseling and Development: A National Survey

A national survey for all schools offering graduate training for school principals and for school counselors was conducted to determine the amount of preservice training principals receive related to school counseling and development. A questionnaire was mailed to the head of the administrator-training program at each of the 407 universities identified, and 376 responses were returned. Findings with respect to counseling and development courses required in administator-training programs, counseling and development courses available as electives, and counseling and development-oriented components in required administration courses are presented. Also, suggestions for counselor educators regarding methods of improving the counseling and development-related training received by educational administrators are offered.