When is a counselor …?

A work experience project for low income adults is described. “Counselors” in this project were found to have little experience; little training in interviewing, statistics, psychological analysis, or other guidance and counseling techniques; and inadequate supervision. Results on aptitude tests were reported on the average 26 days after test administration. Occupational information was sadly lacking. The question is raised: When is a counselor… ?     

Black perceptions of guidance

The demand made by black students that administrators employ more black counselors reveals not only students' needs to proclaim black identity and pride but also their grievances against guidance that have deeper roots than just the current social revolution. This article examines the black student's view of guidance in order that counselors might develop a role for the profession that will serve this student more effectively.     

The knower and the known

This paper is a presentation and discussion of Spinoza's view on the knower, or the mind, as an agent. The knower is on his view to be regarded as an active or generative complex cognitive experience. Imagination, reason and intuition are the cognitive principles. On account of their intrinsic relation to “the first law of nature”, that of selfpreservation, together with the thesis of the mind as constituted by ideas or knowledge, these principles function at the same time as moral principles. Consequently, it makes sense to speak of an individual's moral attitude toward everything be knows. A discussion of imagination, reason and intuition mainly as cognitive principles is followed by some concluding remarks on the cognitive and moral relation between human beings: To know another human being is to know his knowledge. The moral attitude of individuals to each other is a function of their mutual knowledge of knowledge.     

A conditioning technique applicable to elementary school classrooms

A procedure was developed for use in a public school classroom where only one of the children needed treatment, sophisticated apparatus was not feasible, personnel were untrained in conditioning techniques, and where disruption had to be minimized. Candy reinforcers were contingent upon working behavior. The total candy earned in the session was divided equally among the class. Portable radio control apparatus was adopted to give feedback to the child when he was displaying the desired working behavior. An increase in working behavior and a decrease in talking aloud and out-of-seat behavior was observed for each of the four subjects. When the feedback apparatus was removed, the desired behavior was maintained through candy reinforcement alone in all four subjects.     

Development of social responses in two severely retarded children

The effect of reinforcement dependent on the social responses of two severely retarded withdrawn children was investigated. During 30 training sessions (30 min each) food and praise were administered dependent upon the children's mutual participation in a ball-rolling and block-passing task. Both children showed a progressive increase in social interaction in a non-training situation during this reinforcement period. After the reinforcement procedures were removed, social behavior decreased markedly. Response generalization to children not involved in training occurred.