When you mention the word psychology to someone, it’s normal to come up with the stereotype of the clinical psychologist, but the truth is that psychology is a much broader discipline: psychology is the science that studies human behavior and its mental behavior. Within psychology we can find several professionals, such as psychopedagogue, figure that we will delve into this article.
Our intention will be to show its functions and the current situation of psychopedagogue, we are talking about a little-known professional who plays essential functions in cases where teaching is of better quality, in addition, today we can find different obstacles. or burdens that significantly hinder your professional activity.
- Psychopedagogue is the psychology professional whose mission is the study and intervention of human behavior in the context of education.
- Its main objective is the development of the capacities of individuals.
- Groups and institutions.
- In addition the definition refers to the educational term in the broadest sense of training.
- To enable personal and collective development.
The field of study and action of psychopedagogue is related to the associated cognitive processes or derivatives of learning, reflects and develops its work at all levels of psychology, whether social, personal, biological, health, etc.
It is normal to confuse psychopedagogue with other professionals: we are talking about pedagogues, counselors or clinical psychologists for children, in this sense the teacher is responsible for the study of educational and educational models. The role of mentors is to guide people throughout their academic and professional lives. And child clinical psychologists aim to treat mental disorders that appear in childhood. While they are very different professions, the joint work of all is necessary to obtain a quality education.
As in any science, in the psychology of education we can find two main axes: academic and applied. In the academic field we find the psychologists responsible for research, that is, to deepen and expand the theory and procedures of educational psychology. On the other hand, in the applied aspect, there would be psychologists who use the knowledge of university research to improve the quality of education.
Next, I will introduce the functions of psychopedagogue
Currently, the figure of psychopedagogue has a number of problems, the most important are: (a) lack of public concern, (b) poor support from public administrations, (c) professional confusion and (d) hostile education system.
Most of the population does not know the existence of this profession, which makes the psychology of education null and void, makes it difficult to spread their knowledge and funding to support research in this area, it is necessary to publicize the existence of this professional and the work he does to publicize this discipline, so important for the quality of people’s education.
Public administrations do not even recognize psychopedagogue in their professional activity, graduates of this discipline are recognized before the State as mentors or psychopedagogues, this lack of support is not given only in the name, because the resources that are given to the discipline to promote its development are also not generous.
Due to poor state organization, there is a professional confusion between the roles performed by different professionals; in a position, the same person usually plays the role of teacher, psychopedagogue and counselor; instead of a person doing everyone’s work, he should a team of well-coordinated professionals who work to educate students.
In this sense, the current educational system is full of errors that hinder the work of educational psychologists, today we are facing an educational system whose objective seems different from the one we had as a project at first.
Moreover, ultimately, decisions return to a political power that ignores the recommendations of scientific research, applying good initiatives to a system that does not work does not solve the problem, structural change in education is necessary to make it dignified term “education”.
In conclusion, I emphasize that education is a very important area because of its influence on the formation of future generations, so we need to know the professionals who act in the field of education and the complex role they play.