Orwell: 1984 and Counselor Educators

In 1949, Eric Blair, the English Socialist, wrote his powerful novel, 1984, under the pen name of George Orwell. The novel depicted a world in the year 1984 where the masses would be controlled by technology masterfully manipulated by “Big Brother.” The Ministry of Truth would provide such slogans as “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.” The old languages of the world would be replaced by the official language of 1984, Newspeak. This article discusses how close we are, in 1984, to an Orwellian world and what the role of counselor educators is in combating an Orwellian philosophy. How can we use the knowledge, skills, and technologies we possess to assist ourselves and our fellow human beings in reaching higher levels of personal, intellectual, and social development and awareness? What changes are needed in counselor education to prepare counselors for the rest of this century and the first quarter of the 21st century?     

SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE TAYLOR MANIFEST ANXIETY SCALE

A study comparing the performance of males and females on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale extended the previous findings of a differential response pattern for males and females to a Canadian high school population. An item analysis identified 12 of the 50 items as being responsible for the higher female scores. The scores for Canadian high school students in this study were found to fall midway between those of university students and those of psychiatric patients tested in previous studies.     

The Readiness of Primary Schools to Teach the National Curriculum in Art and Design

This paper summarises the findings of the research and development project, ‘Supporting Primary Art’ which was established at the Centre for the Study of the Arts in Primary Education at the Rolle Faculty of Education of the University of Plymouth in October 1992 with support and funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian and Paul Hamlyn Foundations. It is the intention of the project to investigate the response of teachers in primary schools to the introduction of the national curriculum in art and, on the basis of the understandings gained, to develop and evaluate appropriate forms of in-service training and support materials to address those difficulties and concerns identified by teachers in meeting the overall requirements of the Statutory Orders for Art. The project has in mind the significant advantage to the development of art and design education in our schools that is presented by the introduction of the national curriculum in art and the opportunities here to reinforce and extend the richness and quality of the teaching of art to a wider cohort of schools. We hope that this report will help LEAs and those involved in the initial, postgraduate and in-service training of teachers in their work in preparing students and supporting teachers to understand, teach and deliver the national curriculum in art.