Copyright
2001 by Cristina GabbianelliCopyright
2001 by Cristina Gabbianelli
The term guidance has become so vague that it leaves room for almost anything, so much the case that at school today such guidance is the sort which provides information. However I think it is possible to be more specific in identifying some characteristics to point students in a certain direction.
In the academic year 1999/2000 a project was devised; it was called “Graphology for Academic Guidance” and was offered to schools teaching pupils aged between 11-15 years. The aim was to persuade the school and teaching staff to consider graphology as a possible instrument to investigate and understand pupils. Handwriting is a symbolic behaviour that reflects important aspects of the personality, it is a dynamic and mental synthesis of the living being, of attitudes and tendencies. Therefore its application within the school could be extremely fertile; it could help to guide the student towards a choice that would match his or her qualities.
This type of study had already been carried out with students aged about 15 years in 11 classes in the Veneto region of Italy. Pupils were asked to write a text in which they explained their future intentions in regard to education and work. The method of graphological investigation was beneficial because it did not affect the pupil directly. It does this by avoiding artificial or invasive situations that risk giving rise to results that are not always objective.
Definition of the problem
Teachers must complete a report form for each pupil and suggest the best choice of subject. The single pedagogical aim of this is to make the pupil aware of his personal maturity, of his intellectual and temperamental qualities. From the outset guidance involves evaluation in order to reach self-evaluation. In the "Graphology for Academic Guidance" project evaluation plays an important role because it does influence the pupil directly, helping him to know his potential by consciously directing himself by self-guidance. The recommendations that emerge from the personality profile can have educational value because they do not stop at a simplistic “external” appraisal of achievement. Naturally for this purpose it is best for the graphological analysis to be on-going and to begin from about 11 years of age.
It is very important not to limit oneself to pick the showier and immediately obvious features in the writing; these signs are a snapshot of the current moment. Instead it is vital to pay attention to things in the personality that are temperamental, that describe longitudinal developments, those that are mainly based on the deeper and innate aspect of the personality.
It is essential to emphasize the strong points, especially where less positive characteristics prevail. By highlighting the talents on which the student can build, he will be guided towards goals that he can reach, thereby identifying elements for his self-achievement.
Sometimes vicious circles are created whereby there is poor school achievement due to various factors, not least the child's temperament. Added to this there are continual reproaches from the family and the school, with the inevitable result that the student sees himself in a negative way and undervalues himself. Reasons for school failure are varied and from received experience one can identify some points
- often youngsters, whilst having the same interests towards studying, have a different approach because they lack stimuli from their families. This attitude diminishes the importance of study leaving them at a cultural disadvantage;
- the standardisation often encouraged by the school can risk not to account for originality, extravagance, liveliness, insecurity, shyness etc, these all are left out of the standard which has been laid down. In this regard it is important to emphasize the personality traits of the child and to highlight his capabilities;
- the abilities that the school exalts do not always correspond with those that are key to success at work and do not help in dealing with the problems of integrating into the workplace
Once each person's individuality and aptitudes have been identified the school must nourish them and encourage the child realise his/her future potential. For that reason it is necessary for guidance to begin early, wheras we note this not to be the case. We see that the school will introduce students to the different study options, they will organise sessions with local industrialist groups and at the last phase will call parents to meet the psychologist who just explains to them the issues of scholastic choice in the context of "growing up."
Thus the school, by the use of graphological analysis, can provide itself with precious information. It can bring about an academic and vocational intervention that is customised, in time to prevent future problems or failures which can disadvantage personal achievement.
Results of the project
Besides the knowledge that teachers have of the pupils and of the information they can supply concerning types of schools and their specialisations, it is crucial to introduce technical and innovative methodologies. For this reason the use of graphology for guidance has allowed experimentation of new relationships between scholastic choice and real potential of the child, opening the way to a closer connection with the stages the subject goes through in his development.
The operating scholastics right from the outset placed in the comparisons of the plan with an attitude of participation and opening and the personality profiles have given way to teaching to characterize drawn of the personality that often does not emerge in the scholastic context. For this they have been said interested to being able to have use of of the elements that emerge from the graphological analysis sin from the first class, in order to mainly succeed better in their didactic task and accompanying the pupil towards a distance in tune with its characteristics.
Subsequently the experiment has taken place in a further eight classes in the Emilia Romagna region and has been inserted to the inside of a wider biennial plan than prevention of the juvenile uneasiness and that ago head to Law 285/1997 (a 1997 law associated with the politician Livia Turco). Confident in the light of previous experience I proposed graphological analysis, but I have only been allowed to be involved in the second classes, for reasons inherent to the organization of the overall programme.
The teachers have benefited greatly from the graphological profiles and have agreed to use the material during class council, because that allows them to understand the pupils better and than to search for customised approaches, particularly in cases that show greater uncertainties or difficulty.
In this second phase parents had the opportunity to speak with the graphologist and in the greater part of the cases they have agreed with the choice of studies suggested in the analysis, moreover they agreed to a further meeting in order to assess the usefulness of recommendations.
Now validation is needed. This will serve the purpose of defining the real effects produced from a guidance assisted by graphological analysis. Such a validation will only be possible by the passage of time, for which we send back the reader to a modernization that will come later on introduced. The appraisal of the result will be essentially a search activity that, also in its limited dimensions, will serve to measure the match between the recommendations that were made and the path followed after the middle school.
1. Cristina Gabbianelli lives in Bologna. Her email address is cricam@libero.it She has the Diploma di Consulente grafologa from Urbino University, Italy.
2. This article was translated and adapted from Italian to English by Nigel Bradley during October- December 2001.
Gabbianelli C. (2000). Iniziative grafologiche. Rivista Scrittura 113, 79-80
Last modified 14 December 2001. Please report any corrections to me at this email address bradlen@graphology.ws
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