The guidance is found in that area of educational endeavor, which involves assistance given by agencies or persons to the individual in making choices and in helping him choose a line of action, a method of procedure, a goal. It is not choosing for him or directing his choice; it is helping him to make the choice.
Education deals with the entire scope of human development. From one standpoint it is the conscious effort of society to change and develop the individual so that he may conform to society, take his place in it, improve it, and in doing this secure his own optimum development.
Another standpoint is the conscious effort of the individual to adjust him to his physical and social environment, to improve it, and so to secure his own highest development.
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Here are two forces, the individual and society, working for the same ends. When society merely determines what will be learned and how it will be learned and does nothing to secure the cooperation of the individual in the choice of things to be learned or methods to be used, guidance is not present, for there is no choice by the individual.
Society in general and the teacher in particular may need to influence or direct the growth of the individual since wise choices in later life are dependent to a large extent upon habits and attitudes formed in early years.
This might be considered good education, but it is not guidance. On the other hand the individual may consciously attempt to establish a goal without help. When he does this, guidance is not present.
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Although education may, and often does, take place through the effort and initiation of the individual alone, the same thing is true as above: this is education but not guidance.
It is only when the cooperation of the individual is secured and assistance given him in choosing his goals or his methods that guidance is present.
All guidance is education, but some aspects of education are not guidance; their objectives are the same-the development of the individual—but the methods used in education are by no means the same as those used in guidance.
