Essay on Mental Hygiene and

Education

1. Essay on the Meaning of Mental Health:

Mental health which today is recognised as an important aspect of
ones total health status, is a basic factor that contributes to the
maintenance of physical health as well as social effectiveness.

It is a normal state of well-being, and in the words of Johns, Sutton

and Webster, is a positive bat relative quality of life. It is a condition
which is characteristic of the average person who meets the demands
of life on the basis of his own capacities and limitations. By the word
relative we imply that the degree of mental health which an
individual enjoys at a time is continuously changing. According to
Hadfield mental health is the full and harmonious functioning of the
whole personality.

It is a positive, active quality of the individuals daily living. This

quality of living is manifest in the behaviour of an individual whose
body and mind are working together in the same direction. His
thoughts, feelings and actions function harmoniously towards the
common end.

It means the ability to balance feelings, desires, ambitions and ideals

in ones daily living as well as ability to face and accept the realities of
life. It connotes such habits of work and attitudes towards people and
things that bring maximum satisfaction and happiness to the
individual. But the individual gets this satisfaction and happiness
without any function with the social order or group to which he or she
belongs.

From this one can conclude that mental health has two important
aspects. It is both individual and social. The individual aspect
connotes that the individual is internally adjusted. He is self-
confident, adequate and free from internal conflicts and tensions or
inconsistencies. He is able to adapt himself to the new situations. But
he achieves this internal adjustments in a social set up.

Society has certain value systems, customs and traditions by which it

governs itself and promotes the general welfare of its members. It is
within this social framework that the internal adjustment has to be
built up. Only then, the individual becomes a person who is acceptable
as a member of society.

It is an undesirable fact that social forces are in a constant flux. They

are constantly moving and changing. Similarly, our internal
adjustment is also affected by various stresses. As such, mental health
is a process of adjustment which involves compromise and adaptation,
growth and continuity. Because of the significance of individual and
social aspects, some psychologists have defined mental health as the
ability of the individual to make personal and social adjustments.

It will be pertinent here to explain the word adjustment. If one can

establish a satisfactory relationship between himself and his
environment, between his needs, desires and those of other people, or
if one can meet the demands of a situation. He has achieved
adjustment. Adjustment results in happiness because it implies that
emotional conflicts and tensions have been resolved and relieved.

Other definitions of mental health refer to such abilities as of making

decisions of assuming responsibilities in accordance with ones
capacities, of finding satisfaction, success and happiness in the
accomplishment of everyday tasks, of living effectively with other and
of showing considerate behaviour.

Generally, a mentally healthy individual has some insight into and an

understanding of his motives and desires, his weaknesses and strong
points. He can evaluate his behaviour objectively, and can accept his
short-comings and weaknesses. He can give and accept love, can form
friendships which are satisfying and lasting and which give him a
feeling of belongingness.
He has developed a philosophy of life that gives meaning and purpose
to his daily activities. This philosophy belongs to this world and
discourages the tendency to withdraw or escape from the world. It
makes him do something concrete about his problems as they arise.
He does not evade responsibility or duty.

Such a person has developed a capacity to tolerate frustrations and

disappointments in his daily life. He shows emotional maturity in his
behaviour. This means that he is able to regulate such emotions as
fear, aggression love, jealously and expresses them in a socially
desirable manner. He does not go to pieces as a result of this fears,
anger and worries. He has a variety of interests and generally lives a
well-balanced life of work, rest and recreation.

2. Essay on the Foundations of Mental Health:

Foundations of mental health refer to a few basic and significant
factors on which mental health of any individual depends.

These factors are as follows:

(a) Heredity or hereditary factors.

(b) Physical factors.

(c) Fundamental social forces as the home, the school, the

neighbourhood and the community.

(d) Satisfaction of basic or fundamental needs in childhood.

(a) Heredity:
It provides the raw material, or the potentialities of the individual. It
sets the limits for his mental health. What the individual inherits is the
potentialities in relation to growth appearance, intelligence and the
like. The development and utilisation of these potentialities is
determined, to a large extent, by the environmental opportunities.
Investigations have shown that heredity may predispose a person to
the development of a particular type of mental illness when he is
placed under excessive stress.

Even in psychoneuroses and psychopathic personality trends, heredity

factors may play some role. In the production of a number of the
mentally defective and feeble-minded hereditary factors are quite
prominent. In the words of Wallin, defective heredity may furnish a
fertile soil for the development of mental and nervous diseases but so
far as minor personality maladjustments are concerned, heredity
supplies only a predisposing conditions.

(b) Physical Factors:

Physical factors make a significant contribution to mental health. An
erect posture, a winning smile, colour in the cheeks, a feeling of
exhilaration promote a sense of personality security and have a
marked influence on other people. People with greater strength, better
looks and robust health enjoy a social advantage in the development of
personality characteristics.

An individual with a feeling of physical well-bring ordinarily enjoys a

good disposition and is enthusiastic and intellectually alert. He has a
desire to live, to achieve and to be happy. Nobody can deny that
physical health improves mental vitality in as much as it increases
motivation and drive.

It has been observed that continued hunger, over work or

sleeplessness produce fatigue, and that may affect our mental health
adversely. Sick people find it more difficult to make adjustments to
new situations than healthy people. Vitamin deficiencies have been
found to be the causative factors in many personality difficulties. In
pernicious anaemia, For example, there occurs a deficiency of red
corpuscles and this produces characteristic symptoms of apathy,
irritability, depression and anxiety.

Again, person suffering from serious defects may have problems of

adjustment, on account of interiority feelings which they have not
been able to deal with adequately. Positively speaking, the individual
who follows a hygienic regimen, pertaining to food, drink, elimination,
bathing, physical activity, work, sleep, rest, relaxation, prevention of
disease and correction of defects, is more likely to have good mental
health.

(c) Social Factors:

Social factors pertain to the individuals society in which he lives, the
interactional processes, and his social functioning with other persons.
The social environment shapes the knowledge, the skills, interests,
attitudes, habits, values and goals that he acquires. Every individual is
born into a society which influences the content of his behaviour.

Of the social factors, the most important are the home, the school and
the community. Let us consider the home first. Parents who give
affection and security to their children contribute to their mental
health. Parents who are nervous, tense or self-centred, over-protective
rejecting, domineering or inconsistent in disciplinary practices or who
are partial in dealing with their children are laying the foundations of
mental inadequacy or ill-health. On the other hand, parents who share
their life and time with their family and children, who show interest in
the development of their children, play with them or work with them,
help them to develop mentally healthy attitudes.

Broken homes or unstable homes where parents are in constant

conflict produce a large percentage of children with adjustment
problems. A good home, on the other hand, where there is a
harmonious relationship between parents, where parents understand
the needs and interests of their children and where there is an
atmosphere of happiness and freedom, contributes greatly to the
mental health of every member.

The school can also develop a sense of personal worth, social growth
and social competence, if its experiences are satisfying and if they
evoke affectional responses. A good school provides an atmosphere in
which each pupil is respected as an individual. It provides a
curriculum enriched by activities, meeting and needs and interests of
pupils co-curricular activities such as dramatics, athletics, debates
which promote the physical and emotional development of its pupils.
Such a school is a positive factor in the development of sound mental
health.

The community provides the framework and climate within which the
family lives and develops. It ought to provide, therefore, a healthy
atmosphere and a well-organised network of public and private
community services of the highest possible quality. These services, will
satisfy such needs as those of love and affection, will give to its
members a feeling of belongingness, and will provide opportunities for
group anticipation and for emotional release.

Some of these community services could be libraries and reading-

rooms for the general public, social education centres, well round
recreational programmes, vocational and educational guidance
bureaus for youth, child-guidance clinics, Bal-bhavans, hospitals for
the mentally and physically ill, arrangements for family counselling
like family-life institutes, maternity and child welfare centres in the
urban and rural areas.

(d) Satisfaction of Fundamental or Basic Needs:

Mental health in childhood and later depends very much on the
adequate satisfaction of our fundamental or basic needs. These are
physical as well as emotional or psychological. The organic of physical
needs are to be satisfied for maintaining physical well-
being Hunger, thirst, fatigue, lack of sleep, physical pain,
exercise, heat or cold and the like set up certain tensions in
the individual which must be relieved.
Psychological or emotional needs are also called ego needs which
must be satisfied to maintain self. They are as important as the
organic needs. There are two main ego needs. Firstly, we have the
need for a sense of security thought love and affection of those who are
important to us our parents, our friends and our fellow men. We
wish to have a warm and satisfying relationship with other people.
This feeling of security mostly comes through love which consists of
such elements as understanding, trust, cooperation and overt
affection. The child feels secure when, he is assured that his parents
care for him, want him and accept him as he is. Accepted in this way
and the child can establish healthy relationship with the world outside.
To the person with a feeling of security, the world is a friendly and safe
place. Such a person likes people and feels comfortable with them.

The second ego need is for recognition or regard as a person of worth

and importance. The adequate satisfaction of this need gives a sense of
adequacy, a feeling of self-enhancement. In order that this need is
satisfied in the child, parents and others have to demonstrate their
affection and their approval and evince in what the child does. Once
the child has a feeling of adequacy and importance, he will be able to
cope with, and if possible, solve the problem which confronts him.

Other needs besides these two are the need to grow independently, the
need to play and the need to belong to a group. The need to grow
independently is often not properly satisfied in our homes. Our
parents are mostly over- protective. They find satisfaction in their
children remaining dependent on them forever. Generally, the
youngsters are not allowed to think and decide for themselves.

3. Essay on the Defence or Adjustment Mechanisms:

We have seen, that our needs cannot always be adequately satisfied on
account of several obstacles and difficulties. These obstructions cause
frustration and produce tension. Continuous frustrations of air basic
needs lead to serious maladjustments or conditions of mental ill-
health. All frustrations imply mental conflicts. These frustrations and
mental conflicts threaten the individuals psychological balance.

But the human individual is equipped with mental capacities to

protect himself against such psychological dangers as much as his
body is equipped with powers to protect against physical dangers or
distress. These mental mechanisms or protective devices are known as
ego defences or defence mechanisms or adjustment mechanisms.
They are protective in that they help the individual in overcoming
threats to his ego.

They reduce the distress caused by frustrations and conflicts. They

soften ones failure, preserve inner harmony and enable the individual
to make adaptation or adjustment to distressing experiences. That is
why, they also called adjustment mechanisms. Some of the important
defence mechanisms are compensation, rationalisation, projection,
identification, substitution and sublimation, repression, negativism,
sympathism, withdrawal and day-dreaming or phantasy.

When we are trying to make up for a deficiency by directing our

energies to some other aspect of personality in which no deficiency
exists, we are using mechanism of compensation. We try to overcome
a failure or deficiency in one area through achieving recognition to
another area. For example, an academically weak student may work
hard and may show his abilities in dramatics at times we may
overcompensate.

Demosthenese, one of the greatest orators of all times, was a stutterer,

but he overcome his defect by hard work and determination. This
illustrates over-compensation. A boy who is physically weak and
deficient may turn into a bully. This is an example of socially
undesirable compensation.

In rationalisation we tend to give reasons which are plausible rather

than real and true for our behaviour and this justify it. A student who
does not know how to play badminton well, may not participate in the
game, and may justify his non-participation by saying, I do not want
to play badminton, it is not any fun. Rationalisation amounts to
giving justification or excuse-making.

Rationalisation takes the form of sour grapism when we insist

that the things we cannot have or achieve are not worth having. A
student who has failed in an examination twice or thrice too may
argue, Only creamers pass such an examination. This is called sour-
grape mechanism, on the basis of the fable grapes are sour.
Rationalisation takes the form known as the sweet-lemon
mechanism. It is illustrated in the example of a house-wife who lives
in a small house because of limited financial means but who exists the
virtues of small houses by saying they are cosier and more
comfortable.

Attributing to others our own shortcomings, desires or moral defects

as a means of lessening our own sense of guilt or inadequacy, is called
projection. In this way, we deflect attention of others from our own
shortcomings. A student who has cheated in an examination may
satisfy himself by saying that others also have cheated, it is a regular
practice with all.

Identification is an adjustment mechanism which enables one to

achieve satisfaction from the success of other people, groups or
organisations. Students often identify themselves with their favourite
teachers. Hero-worshipping is a form of identification. As a result of
this mechanism we adopt the mannerisms and habits of our favourite
artists, teachers, friends and film-stars, in dress, in speech and in
other styles of living.

In substitution, the original goals or desires are substituted by others.

The original goals are difficult to achieve to an attempt at achieving
them may end in failure. A student who has not been accepted for
admission by a medical college may satisfy herself by becoming a
nurse.

By sublimation is implied a mechanism in which our unacceptable

desires or activities are redirected in socially desirable channels. An
unmarried women interested in children may give expression to her
repressed maternal urge by engaging herself in orphanage work or in
any child welfare institution.

By redirection of the impulses, the individual not only gives expression

to his impulses in socially desirable channels, but also gets personal
satisfaction. Great works of art, music, science and literature, are often
described as the sublimated art-pourings of our primitive impulses
i.e., Dantes poetry.

In repression our strong emotional ideas and unpleasant memories

which do not fit in with our social values and norms, are split off from
consciousness and thrown into the unconscious. It is a process of
unconscious forgetfulness of our unpleasant and conflict producing
emotions and desires. These emotions and desires threaten our ego,
or our well-being hence, the protective device of repression.

Regression means reversion or retreating to an infantile or childish

level of behaviour when a problem confronts us. Instead of facing it
and coping with it in a mature manner, we go back or regress. As such,
we will not be expected to meet the demands of any problematic
situation. A five year old child may regress when a sibling is born and
he feels neglected, unloved and depressed.

Feeling miscure, he may resort to behaviour patterns of earlier years.

He may start bed-wetting or he may experience difficulty in feeding
himself. Negativism consists in becoming contradictory, stubborn or
rebellious when a problem confronts us reacting to frustrating
situation by becoming negative.

In sympathism, the individual avoids the necessity of solving his

problems by obtaining the sympathy of others. A students, For
example, who is not doing well in studies, instead of finding out the
cause realistically and making an effort to improve himself may be
satisfied with others sympathy which he may evoke by telling them
how his family is in great trouble. Refusal to face the problem, may be
expressed sometime in the withdrawal behaviour.

Failure and critism makes many people timid, exclusive and retiring.
They fear failure so much that they avoid coping with their
responsibilities. In reposing to face their problems, there is no danger
of failure in connection with them. Withdrawing into a work of
phantasy or daydreaming is a type of withdrawal behaviour.
In this world of phantasy, all our desires and ambitions are fulfilled
without any effort; here we succeed in every undertaking of ours. A
habit of daydreaming may accustom us to this so much that phantasy
life might become more desirable, more sought after than real life.

These adjustment mechanisms are used by both well-adjusted and

maladjusted people. The difference is that whereas the former use
them sparingly, the latter use them frequently and in socially
undersirable channels. The psychoneurotic or the psychotic individual
depends on them constantly.

It is to be noted that these mechanisms usually represent unconscious

attempts on the part of an individual to solve his problem and to
preserve the integrity of his personality. But if these mechanism are
used again and again, there is a likelihood of our personality
undergoing change for the horse, leading to a persistent state of
maladjustment or some form of mental illness or mental disorder i.e.,
psychoneuroses or psychoses or psychosomatic complaints.

4. Essay on the Meaning and Purposes of Mental Hygiene:

With the advance of scientific knowledge and research, we have now a
better understanding of mental illness as it emerges in various forms,
of its symptoms, its causes and treatment. As a result of these
advances, we have a knowledge of certain principles which, if practised
correctly, will save us from developing mental illness or suffer from
maladjustments. In other words, these principles will help individuals
retain their emotional balance.

Definitions of Mental Hygiene:

1. Kolesnik:
Menial hygiene is a set of conditions which enables a person to live at
peace with himself and others.

2. A.J. Rosanoff:
Mental hygiene endeavours to aid people toward off troubles as well
as to furnish ways of handling troubles.

3. S.K. Dani:
Mental hygiene is the science of the principles of mental health
derived mostly, from our understanding of the causation and
pathology of mental illness.

4. Crow & Crow:

Mental Hygiene is a science that deals with human welfare and
pervades all fields of human relationship.

5. Drever:
Mental Hygiene means investigation of the laws of mental health and
the taking or advocacy of measures for its preservation.

Aims of Mental Hygiene:

Doctors treating mental disorders have determined the
three aims of mental hygiene:
1. Prevention of mental ill-health.

2. Preservation of the mental health.

3. Cure of individuals suffering from mental disorders.

Elements of Mental Hygiene:

Generally mental hygiene has the following elements:
(i) Physical health.

(ii) Intellectual health.

(iii) Emotional health.

(iv) Interest and aptitude.

(v) Good environment.

Mental hygiene deals with these principles of living which would serve
as a guide to human adjustments. It consists of those patterns of living
which promote the development of wholesome and socially adequate
personalities.

These patterns of living help an individual to get along with himself

and with his fellowmen, to cultivate desirable attitudes, to avoid
conflicts that bring about maladjustments, and to pursue intelligent,
rational behaviour. These principles have been drawn from
philosophy, psychology, religion, ethics, sociology, biology, physiology,
medicine, psychiatry and common-tense.

The three purposes of mental hygiene are:

(i) The prevention of mental disorders through an understanding of
the relationship that exists between wholesome personality
development and life experiences;

(ii) The preservation of the mental health of the individual and of the
group, and

(iii) The discovery and utilisation of therapeutic measures to cure

mental illness.

Of these three approaches, preventive, preservative and curative, the

most significant and modern approach is the preventive approach.
This approach is very much influenced by principles of public health.
According to Kaplan and Baron, this approach is based on the
principle that the best way to insure well-adjusted individuals is to
surround them with environmental influences which will enable each
person to develop his full potentialities, to attain emotional stability,
and to achieve personal and social adequacy. Preventive mental
hygiene begins in the home, and its principles are important even in
the school and other areas.

5. Essay on the Mental Hygiene Concept in Education:

It is being realised by all progressive educators that the goal of mental
health and education are similar. The aim of education is an all-round
development to human personality. It is to help every individual
become a well-adjusted being in his society. Mental health is also
concerned with the harmonious development of personality. This is
clear from Hadfields definition of mental health.

He says, Mental health is the full and harmonious

functioning of the whole personality.
That education can contribute to the attainment of mental health is
being increasingly accepted in all quarters. There are forces,
movements and trends in modern educational practice which are
indicative of this belief.

These are the increased importance being given to feelings and

emotions as a factor in growth and development including learning,
recognition that all behaviour is complex and its causes be deep with,
in the emotions, recognition that all behaviour has causes, the
increased importance being attached to personal and human factors in
education i.e., the significance of inter-personal relationship in day-to-
day teaching, sensitiveness to modern teachers to individual
differences of students in interest and ability.

Another evidence of this standpoint is the assumption that expression

and release, through worthy creative endeavour, are demanded by
growing minds and bodies and that consideration must be given to
basic human needs in the development of curricula and the selection
of subject- matter and experiences for children.

6. Essay on the Mental Health of the Classroom Teacher:

A menially healthy and well-adjusted teacher plays a vital role in
promoting the mental health of school children and in attaining the
mental health objective of education. If the mental health of the
teacher is inadequate, it is bound to affect adversely the mental health
of school children. In order to be mentally healthy, a teacher has to
develop and cultivate certain personal professional qualities.

Of the desirable personal qualities, alertness, enthusiasm and interest

in pupils and classroom activities, the ability to maintain natural and
pleasant person to person relationships, cordiality and friendship,
recognition of ones own mistakes ; patience, sympathy, sincerity,
fairness in dealing with pupils, democracy and courtesy in relation
with pupils good disposition and consistent behaviour; flexibility in
opinions, beliefs and attitudes, a good sense of humour, and width of
interests, are often mentioned in various studies on the subject.

On the other hand, the undesirable qualities or traits are bad temper,
intolerance, unreasonableness in demands, tendency to be gloomy and
unfriendly, sarcasm and the tendency to use ridicule, tendency to talk
excessively and to talk down to pupils, apathy, rigidity of procedure
and perfectionistics attitudes.

The professional qualities which are conducive to the mental health

goals in education are the good knowledge of subject matter in which
he has specialised capacity and willingness to teach effectively and
mastery if communication skills, ability and desire to improve
professional skills, achieve competence through the study of
professional books and magazines, ability to work together and to
share experience with others, acceptance and understanding of
children, realistic perception of the social expectations and an
understanding of his social role as well as respect for oneself and ones
profession.

It must be noted that the mental health of the teacher, reflected in

these personal and professional qualities depends on various factors
including his personal striving, other factors being his upbringing,
educational, and culture. This means the mental health of the teacher
is closely associated with the mental health of his family community
and socio-economic and cultural conditions that obtain in the latter.
This loads us to the discussion of some possible hazards to his
mental health.

These are his personality factors or difficulties resulting from

biological or early environmental influences, in sufficient preparation
for teaching, unhygienic supervision, insufficient and substandard
salary, other economic difficulties in terms of uncertain tenure,
overcrowded classes, heavy work load, particularly in primary classes,
undesirable community attitudes amounting to lack of status and
appreciations, lack of purpose or purposes in-education, greater
attention to minor details of techniques and methodology.

Another source of tension and anxiety as well as conflict is that he is

expected to be an ideal person, a paragon of ascetic-living, possessing
all virtues and having no failings. Finding himself all the time under
public examinations and scrutiny, he is likely to develop anxiety and
tension.

Of course one important anti-dote to these hazards is respect for

oneself and ones profession, which the teacher should develop. This
implies the development of a positive attitude towards profession
reviewing and evaluating the advantages of the teaching profession in
terms of opportunities for professional achievement, intellectual
stimulation and personnel satisfaction is very much needed for mental
health.

Regarding the importance of the mental health status of the teacher as

a basic factor in mental health of school children, Townsend wants
greater attention to be paid to the selection of students to teacher
training college. According to him mere credit gatherers or those
who are merely scholastically high wont be suitable candidates.
Similarly, persons who are lonely, who are in need to friendship, who
are victims of worries, emotional up-sets and defects of immaturity or
uncongenial home surroundings who have no strong motivation are
most clearly unstinted to the work of modern teaching.
7. Essay on the Mental Health of Students:
Mental health of students, to a great extent results from the day-to-day
functioning of mentally healthy teachers. These teachers know that the
problem mental health of school-going children is rooted in their
needs and their satisfaction. Conditions in the school, which satisfy
their fundamental emotional and social needs, have to be provided.

These needs are for security, for manipulation, for expanding cultural
and social contacts, for a sense of recognition and achievement, for
acceptance and approval. It is to be noted that these needs should be
satisfied at first by their parents at home.

Children who are rejected, over-protected or over-indulged or those

who are treated indifferently by their parents who are severe and
perfectionist are note emotionally equipped to withstand the
frustrations which the school life may entail for them.

The child goes to the school from the protective environment of the
home. There is exposed to new people, new authority figures, to new
ideas, to new experience of being are of the group. Let the child not
have the failing that he is being sent to the school just as a punishment
for his being naughty in the home.

If teachers are encouraging and they understand his needs, if their

discipline is not sympathetic and too rigid or harsh, if they allow
children to behave as children rather than as young adults, if the
school provides a member of interesting group activities instead of
negative rules, adaptations which the child has to make will be
facilitated and no complications will arise.

It is necessary that the child develops a feeling of belongingness to the

school. This will be possible if the atmosphere in the school, as in the
home, is that of love and understanding, free from favouritism and
invidious comparisons.
Other principles and practices that will conduce to mental
health of students during the early school period which
ranges from 6 to 12 years are as follows:
(a) Helping the child to gain control of his developing body through
constant physical care, attention, and opportunities to exercise his
muscles through games and play activities.

(b) Respect for individual differences among students, by providing

instruction according to their abilities and interests.

(c) Provision of such activities as dramatics, art and painting,

handicraft and games for emotional expansion and self-expression.

(d) Provision of group activities in the school to satisfy their desire for
group-making towards the later period of this period (6 to 12 years),
by organising scout-groups, guides, squads of clubs and other clubs.

(e) Attempts should be made by teachers to see that children do not

develop feelings of inferiority and worthlessness. Hence let not the
childs attention be fixed on his limitations, his failure and handicaps
alone. Provision of tasks which give them a sense of adequacy and
success, is an important principle that ought to be practised in this
stage.

The period between 6 to 12 years is followed by adolescence (13 to 19

years). It is a period of transition from childhood to maturity
a between age. An adolescent is no longer a child and yet not a
man. Being in a period of transition, he has problems peculiar to
transition having lost an established and accustomed status. He has
not yet acquired the new status towards which the factors impelling
developmental changes are driving him. He may suffer from the
transitional difficulties of insecurity, disorientation and anxiety.
The mental health of the adolescent requires an understanding and
satisfaction of the special needs of this period.

These are:
(i) The need for status,
(ii) The need for independence,

(iii) The need for a satisfying philosophy of life,

(iv) The need for a proper orientation to the opposite sex, and

(v) The need for guidance in selecting a vocation and in preparing

himself for a vocation.

These special needs will be satisfied if the following

suggestions are considered and carried out:
(i) The adolescent should be helped to accept his body with all the
changes and instabilities.

(ii) Provision of suitable games and exercises in schools.

(iii) Sex education, to be given in a scientific and objective manners,

emphasising the values of healthy sex life.

(iv) Emotional emancipation from parents and teachers by allowing

them to differ from adults and by encouraging them to think to decide
for themselves to take responsibilities.

(v) Increasing their sense of adequacy by providing tasks which they

can perform successfully.

(vi) Provision of proper vocational guidance and counselling facilities

in the school set-up.

(vii) Providing them with a healthy philosophy of life through lectures,

discussions, suitable readings and contacts with men of ideas.

(viii) Helping the adolescent develop healthy peer age, relationships

and friendships through suitable opportunities and an attitude of
respect for their friends, gangs, groups, as well as for their opinions
and judgements of these relationships.
8. Essay on Mental Health and the Curriculum:
What will be the form of curriculum from the mental health point of
view? This is another significant aspect of education that needs
consideration in the context of mental health goals through
education.

The objectives of mental health in education can be achieved

if the following principles are observed in the curriculum
construction:
(i) The childs needs, interest and experiences,, individual differences
in learning capacity should form the central factor.

(ii) The curriculum should give importance to the activities that are of
real worth and interest and which have a definite relation to the life of
the child and community.

(iii) It should be flexible and adjustable to the need of pupils at every

stage.

(iv) It should be dynamic and possible of revision so that it may be in

harmony with changing social conditions and should reflects the latest
developments in educational philosophy and psychology, ft should
befit the student for competent participation in home and in social and
vocational activities.

(v) It should incorporate the so-called extra-curriculum activities such

as dramatics, writing, games, hobbies etc. in the very fabric of the
school programme.

(vi) An important principle of curriculum-construction should be its

totality or integration, rather than traditional compartmentalisation
of the subject-matter. This will be possible if it is an activity and
curriculum and presents the human experience as a whole.
9. Essay on the Mental Health and the Methods of Teaching
and Classroom Practices:
The methods of teaching and classroom practices which afford pupils
the satisfaction of being successful in their school work and which
reduce the emotional shock of failure are instrumental in achieving
mental health. The underlying principles of such methods are many.
Teachers should regard the failure of pupil as a challenge, not as an
offence or as a defeat or humiliation.

They should encourage in students the habit of independence and a

spirit of adventure. All learning activities should be properly
motivated by the teacher by and through the use of various social
urges and acquired interests of students.

The principles of learning by doing which is the corner-stone of such

methods of teaching as the Project method and the Dalton Plan is
another significant principle. The teacher should try to increase the
purposefulness of school work by making goals clear, desirable and
attainable.

Fragmentation of learning, the tendency to make learning isolated and

remote from the life situations, the tendency towards
authoritanianism and restriction of freedom, the over-emphasis on
speed in learning and the confusion of ignorance of students with their
misconduct are some of the questionable practices in our schools that
are inimical to the mental health of school children.

10. Essay on Mental Health and School Administration:

The school administration conducive to mental health would re-
organise the educational policy and practices in terms of the happiness
and welfare of students. It would view the machinery of management
primarily as the means for carrying out an educational programme
designed to meet human needs.
It would make effort in making human relationships within the school
system more satisfying and wholesome. In order to ensure teacher
morale and efficiency, school administration has to become more
concerned with the human aspects of education.

Maintenance of democratic relations with teachers, encouraging not

only verbal communication but also the communication of feelings,
are other high lights of administration geared to the goals of mental
health through education.

11. Essay on Mental Health and Discipline:

The concept of discipline has to change if the objectives of mental
health have to be achieved. The order which results from compulsion
is not necessarily good discipline. It consists in the hearty performance
of duties as well as freely chosen activities. Good discipline has to
encourage the development of each individuals unique personality.

It comes through self-direction a personal direction of actions that are

purposeful and self-determined. It implies an under-standing of the
childs behaviour and how it is influenced by various environmental
factors.

The teacher direction has its place in effective discipline but it is not to
be authoritarian in anyway. Nor can it be obtained through sarcasm
and ridicule. A very important means of good discipline is to keep the
pupils busy and useful! occupied. Other means are the rewards which
are inherent in the work on hand, the recognition of the group moves,
teachers confidence in pupils and the ability to exercise a positive
authority, enjoyable classroom atmosphere as w I as alteration to the
individual child, the time and the total situation.