DOCTORS have urged the training of teachers in psychology to help them identify children with mental and emotional problems, in order to help safeguard the progress of Jamaican students throughout the education system.

“Many of the children in our schools are experiencing psychological and mental problems because of various reasons. Some of it is genetic, some because of a chaotic home environment and basically difficulties that parents may be having that can lead the child into having these mental and psychological problems. And if these are not factored in, then the children will not learn,” said psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell.

“There are so many children that I have interacted with, who have been physically abused, mentally and emotionally abused, sexually abused, too, who end up with psychological issues. But they are not addressed because teachers are not looking at these psychological issues. They label it as the child is ‘dunce’ or doesn’t want to learn,” she added.

Bell noted that there was no disputing the importance of a child’s psychological state on his or her educational success.

“When the diagnosis for any sort of psychological problems is made, usually one of the markers that we use is that it is severely affecting the child’s educational and social functioning. So that is when a diagnosis is made – how is this affecting the child’s educational and social functioning,” she said.

“When we assess that then we know that the child is having problems. Invariably when the child is having psychological issues usually the education and social functioning is affected,” she added.

Against this background, Bell suggested that teachers need to begin to look deeper at the children they label as ‘problematic’. There are, she said, internalising and externalising behaviours that can be identified in such children.

“The internalising behaviours, for example, are the child being withdrawn, appearing to be shy, not socialising with other children, with school work affected. Sometimes teachers miss these symptoms because they say the child quiet and do not realise that the child may be experiencing depression. Some teachers like children like that because they feel they are ‘so nice’,” she said. “(As for the externalising behaviours), they are disruptive in the classroom, getting into fights with other children (and are) angry and aggressive towards their peers and teachers.”

Psychologist Sidney McGill underscored Bell’s position, noting that children today are bombarded with the challenges of a changing culture, which has over-exposed them to negative realities. These realities, he said, are causing them to experience a raft of psychological problems, making it a necessity that teachers be equipped to identify such children.

“Because of the deteriorating social conditions, which include moral and spiritual degradation, a massive scale of hopelessness and helplessness, and the need for self-gratification now without rigorous pursuit of goals, and with the sexualisation of the society, which negatively affects children because it overwhelms their emotional functioning, it is needed more than ever for teachers to be equipped to identify and refer children who are suffering from psychological/emotional problems,” he said.

“Not only do teachers need to have advanced training in psychology in order to try to meet the psychological needs of some of their students, it will also equip them to clarify their own personal psychological/emotional needs.”

For her part, Bell proposed that this psychology education of teachers form part of government policy.

“The Ministry of Education needs to understand that teacher’s need to be trained at the teacher college level and ongoing training. That (psychology education) should be part of service training and teacher education training so that teachers understand what to look for when children are experiencing psychological problems – whether it be anxiety disorder, attention deficit or that the child is being abused,” she said.

Added Bell, who has a private practice in Montego Bay, St James: “They should be made aware of what to look for – not that they are going to correct anything, but that they are going to make some referral. They will refer it to the guidance counsellors, and if they (guidance counsellors) are unable to handle it, then they can make reference to child guidance clinics.”

McGill proposed that teachers be educated, in the short to medium term, through certificate courses in areas, such as childhood/development psychology.

“The kind of curriculum that obtained for teachers years ago is in many ways not relevant today. A teacher has to do more than just teach their subject area. They must understand themselves better, understand the students they are teaching and have more effective ways of teaching once they understand what they are doing,” he said.

“When a child misbehaves, instead of reacting to the child in a negative way, a teacher needs to ask him or herself what does this behaviour, mean then apply appropriate treatment to solve the problem.”

McGill – himself the owner/operator of the Family and Counselling Centre with offices in St Ann, Montego Bay and Kingston – said that it was especially important that teachers be in the know as far as children’s psychological needs are concerned since there is a derth of guidance counsellors in schools across the island.

“I am thinking that the amount of guidance counsellors that are in the school are very small – one guidance counsellor to maybe 700 children or more. So that guidance counsellor cannot develop strategies to prevent certain problems in the school. They spend all their time trying to deal with individual crises,” he said.

“Therefore, teachers must have the psychological tools at their disposal in order to deal with some of these cases in their classroom and send the more serious ones to the guidance counsellor or to other professionals,” he added.