COMPONENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM By Luis South

1. Multicultural focus (all-inclusive) *

2. Supplemental to ongoing academic program (proactive in scope)*

3. Education counselors apply teaching strategies first, secondarily we counsel *

4. As master communicators, education counselors are technologically literate and helpful to the development of a school and system-wide technology program *

5. Education counselors serve as a viable support to family units by referring parents to specialized agencies and communicating with others serving the family *

6. Embrace the history behind post WW II Japanese economy and work place development through the importation of W. Edwards Deming’s Total Quality Management approach to business. Educational systems can integrate Total Quality Management theory into school systems as a means to formally measure how well they are doing. Comparing schools and participating education systems in an international arena is then possible*

1. Discard the role of the dominant male

2. Acknowledge the significant scientific and technological developments in both Native American and the African experience prior to encountering Europeans; identify the positive impact each of these cultures have had on modern society in the Western Hemisphere.

3. Integrate common threads of history between countries in Latin America and the United States of America

1. Recognize needs among specific cultural groups of historical significance, especially those of African descent living in Spanish speaking countries

2. Empower students and families from poverty settings to be more hopeful and participative

3. Female abuse and exploitation will diminish if there is particular emphasis on protecting against bias within the education system (enact education laws focusing on improving equity re: employment opportunity and education of female students)

4. Recognize the movement within the United Nations to feed all school children throughout the world as beneficial and progressive to humanity.

5. Increase government supported student exchange programs between Latin America and the United States. Create multicultural student summer camps for greater language acquisition (English-Spanish). Use such a program to establish and then build upon in order to create intercultural year-round campuses.

By Luis South

Respect and homage to the presence of politicians, international ambassadors, educators and scholars. I come to you as an education counselor of elementary school children. I do not ask your philosophy of life or your religious beliefs. I do not make any demands regarding your political affiliations. All I propose is that, regardless of our potential differences, we come together in harmony to provide a better future for our children. That is our link. This is our opportunity to show ourselves as worthy, standing before humanity as true leaders. We can create the best of all possible circumstances for the children. Some amongst us will call it our duty, another may say it is the will if the people, and yet another may say it is God’s wish that we find a way; a way out of further social disaster, a way up to higher ground. Our people need the hope we are perfectly capable of providing.

Let us first recognize there is a connection between education and mental health. Education counselors have evolved over the past 40 years in American urban education to the extent that, in some quarters, it has become a universally understood component of any comprehensive education program. The problem basically is that the position of education counselor is yet to have a clear definition---especially among education professionals. Even today, many education professionals---including some education counselors---mistakenly define what we do without formulating lines of distinction between education counseling and the clinical counseling model. To be clear, education counselors work within the school setting as a support service to foster stronger, more capable students. Education counselors are as much to blame as other professional educators if there is no improvement in student performance. We are educators, part of the team. Another area that causes confusion is the distinction between counseling and guidance. Guidance involves telling a child right from wrong. As the word "guidance" clearly indicates it is very directive, intended to lead an inexperienced youth to more acceptable behavior. Grandparents, parents, teachers, school crossing guards, and a multitude of other adults administer guidance on a daily basis. Guidance is common sense reasoning requiring a minimum amount of time. No one has to be trained to give guidance. Counseling, on the other hand, is the very opposite of guidance. Counseling requires a private space and more time. Counseling is progressive, meaning it is evolutionary, bringing about positive change over time. Counseling has a design/strategy that helps a young person resolve problems/concerns. Counseling requires in depth training in techniques and theories developed by grand masters of the counseling field such as Fritz Perls, Sigmund Freud, Erik Erickson, Alfred Adler, William Glasser, and a host of others. Counseling is very nondirective. The professional provides a space where a client is empowered to define themselves in the process of finding solutions to personal problems. Also, providing materials and talking with students about their career path requires a counselor who is trained and informed.

It is not the intent of this forum to become very theoretical. I will now digress to tell you a short story which is actually a significant piece of history. Often, when this story is told to very educated people in the United States, it is not known.

The story takes place in post WWII Japan. The atomic bomb had been dropped, the war was over and General McArthur was assigned to help the Japanese rebuild their economy. McArthur immediately sent for an American named Deming. Deming had developed a paradigm referred to as Total Quality Management. Soundly rejected by corporations in the United States, Deming found a very receptive group of businessmen in Japan. What had been rejected by the corporate sector in the United States was his model of how to improve business by changing the relationship between worker and management. Deming proposed abandoning "boss mentality" for a more progressive respectful work environment where it was possible to generate ideas for change from the bottom up. Although he didn’t project his ideas this way, it seems to me that Deming’s approach would actually have lead to the final dismantling of the master-slave relationship in modern America. The Japanese revered Deming. They quickly learned and put his paradigm into practice. Based upon the Japanese success many American corporations have joined the movement to develop a Total Quality Management environment. Even the United States military establishment recognizes and practices Deming’s model of management in order to build up a more professional approach among the rank and file. The education enclave may find Deming’s paradigm essential to structuring viable changes in the education profession.

I am here to propose the consideration and development of a collaborative effort between governments concerned with improving education. However, it may be most effective to begin such a process of change by having a few educators, some from English speaking America and their peers from various countries in Latin America, come together to define where we are, who we are, and what we need from each other. To be clear, I’m looking for at least one person who will join me in saying, "WE NEED EACH OTHER." I’m looking for a connection with a kindred spirit from all points in the universe. I believe it is wrong to present the idea of establishing international ties among scholars and educators from the viewpoint of exporting models of education. It may be anti-progressive to suggest that we have a model of education here in the United States that needs the consideration of being exported south of the border. I feel there is much about scholarship in Latin America that is progressive and special. Educators in the United States do not have one model education program deserving greater consideration as being any more viable than education programs in neighboring countries. I’ll say it again. WE NEED EACH OTHER.

Let us now move forth with the commitment that we are in a place and time where positive changes can happen---must happen. All praise to the Almighty. Thank you Dr. Rodriguez, Cal State Dominguez Hills, and The Society of Educators and Scholars. Viva la Colaboracion Educativa Para Las Americas!

By Luis South

1. Inculcate the individual’s inner need to see the world and themselves in the context of experiencing current history. Utilize video and DVD equipment as well as cameras within the education curriculum.

2. Teach etiquette and diplomacy to students from a very young age in the context of the school environment.

3. Teach kindergarten, first and second graders how to speak and read Spanish. Why? It’s a great way to teach phonics while developing the self-efficacy of an English speaking young person.

4. Offer Spanish language classes after school in order to develop more bilingual (English/Spanish) speakers among first language English speakers before students complete elementary school.

5. View the constant flow of students and families between the United States and neighbors to the South as a positive. They perhaps hold the key to helping us understand the effectiveness of this international collaboration. Perhaps an incentive program to promote family participation would lead to greater understanding of how we can better educate these students.

6. Utilize the classroom as a museum space. Have students do research, gather materials in order to effectively create a three-dimensional museum for other classes to come visit.

7. Invite senior citizens from the community to visit the school in order to share their special talents or present focused ideas designed to be integrated into the curriculum. An awareness of aging instills character in youth.

8. Offer parenting classes and or special seminars that serve to strengthen the family unit.

9. Develop a core of educators on both sides of the border who have clear histories of multicultural approaches to the education field. Problem solving within a multicultural setting is possibly a necessary component to the personality make-up of core members.

10. Encourage corporate and other professionals to send their children to public schools within this international program. Incentives may help fulfill this idea.

TQM COMPONENTS By Luis South

In the 1950s, the Japanese asked W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician and management theorist, to help them improve their war torn economy. By implementing Deming's principles of total quality management (TQM), Japan experienced spectacular economic growth. In the 1980s, when the United States began to see a reduction in its own world market share in relation to Japan, American business rediscovered Deming. TQM is now practiced in business as well as in charitable organizations, the military, government, and education.

First learn about community needs then solve the problems.

Deming outlined 14 steps that managers in any type of organization can take to implement a total quality management program. (Walton, 1986)

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service. Constancy of purpose requires innovation, investment in research and education, continuous improvement of product and service, maintenance of equipment, furniture and fixtures, and new aids to production.
    

2. Adopt the new philosophy. Management must undergo a transformation and begin to believe in quality products and services.
    

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection. Inspect products and services only enough to be able to identify ways to improve the process.
    

4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone. The lowest priced goods are not always the highest quality; choose a supplier based on its record of improvement and then make a long-term commitment to it.
    

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of product and service. Improvement is not a one-time effort; management is responsible for leading the organization into the practice of continual improvement in quality and productivity.
    

6. Institute training and retraining. Workers need to know how to do their jobs correctly even if they need to learn new skills.
    

7. Institute leadership. Leadership is the job of management. Managers have the responsibility to discover the barriers that prevent staff from taking pride in what they do. The staff will know what those barriers are.
    

8. Drive out fear. People often fear reprisal if they "make waves" at work. Managers need to create an environment where workers can express concerns with confidence.
    

9. Break down barriers between staff areas. Managers should promote teamwork by helping staff in different areas/departments work together. Fostering interrelationships among departments encourages higher quality decision-making.
    

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce. Using slogans alone, without an investigation into the processes of the workplace, can be offensive to workers because they imply that a better job could be done. Managers need to learn real ways of motivating people in their organizations.
     

11. Eliminate numerical quotas. Quotas impede quality more than any other working condition; they leave no room for improvement. Workers need the flexibility to give customers the level of service they need.
     

12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. Give workers respect and feedback about how they are doing their jobs.
     

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and retraining. With continuous improvement, job descriptions will change. As a result, employees need to be educated and retrained so they will be successful at new job responsibilities.
     

14. Take action to accomplish the transformation. Management must work as a team to carry out the previous 13 steps.

HISTORY OF C By Luis South

In ninth grade student exhibited extreme negative behavior patterns. Almost daily he would fight with peers, suddenly becoming angry. However, on most occasions, no indicators were present in the environment that could be used to explain his anger. Academically, he was a poor reader of the English language and at the same time consistently good at math. Spanish is the language spoken in the home. C prefers speaking to his peers in English when in school. C has gradually changed from being compassionate to his female English teacher (who is of the same cultural background of this student) to one who consistently rejects and remains argumentative until she is forced to send him out. Teacher complains that although she has talked with C and his mother face-to-face and via telephone on several occasions it has become impossible to teach her class while he is in the room. C is from a single parent home. Mother is supportive of the teacher’s efforts and complains that C is also showing similar behavior at home. He is slim with well defined muscular structure. He has asthma. His hand-to-eye coordination is excellent, exhibits motor skills above his peer group.

1. What questions may we ask in order to understand this student better?

2. Is there a similar student profile in your country or U.S community?


Circle one     Yes            No
 

3. What factor may be most prevalent causing social breakdown in your country or U.S community?

Media Images
Youth Gangs
Political/social differences

List Other Systemic Problems :

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