The Junior School Learner Book 3: A Guidance and Counselling Resource Book for Completing Students

By Dan-Bush Bhusumane and Simon Mekia Marumo

The book helps junior secondary school learner to understand him/herself, provide skills in passing examinations, manage life, learn more about careers and decision-making, plan future, and explore legal issues. The first section is about assessing personal quality traits and how personality influences decisions. It then helps the learner identify good ways of communicating with others, use better and effective methods of studying, and how to handle examination anxiety. It provides skills of use of time effectively and designing a study timetable. It identifies better ways of managing resources and teaches self-discipline and how to succeed at school. It explains how education influences career choice, how to select subjects related to career choice. It guides the learner on how to conduct oneself appropriately during an interview. Topics on preparing for the future, family, and handling problems of a family are covered. Learners explore their personal values and issues about crime, corruption, and consequences of abusing drugs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503557840

Dan-Bush Bhusumane

Dan-Bush Bhusumane holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision, which he completed in 2007 at Duquesne University, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a counselor educator and professional counselor, and a counselor supervisor. He graduated with M.Ed. in Adult and Higher Education in 1993 from University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada. He has written 2 books for High schools and co-authored 3 for elementary schools.

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Copyright © 2014, 2015 by Dan-Bush Bhusumane & Simon Mekia Marumo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/22/2015

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter 1 Understanding Yourself

Chapter 2 Passing Junior Certificate

Chapter 3 Managing your Life

Chapter 4 Careers and your Decisions

Chapter 5 You and your Future

Chapter 6 The Laws on Crime and Corruption

Chapter 1

Understanding Yourself

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

☐ List your good qualities

☐ Describe your qualities

☐ Talk about things that influence your qualities

☐ Explain how your personality influences your decisions

☐ Assess your personality traits

☐ Give examples of good ways of communicating with others

Overview

To live peacefully with yourself and others, you need to understand yourself. Understanding yourself is of great importance. To understand who you are requires learning about yourself. Some people know very little about who they are and what they are able to do or not to do and have limited knowledge of their qualities and behaviors. This chapter looks at ways in which you can understand yourself, live well with others, and learn good ways of communicating with other people at school and at home.

What can help you understand yourself?

Learning about who you are, where you come from, what you like or dislike, your beliefs, attitudes, values, and personality, what you value most, and your culture and family history helps you know and understand yourself. In many African communities, for example, folk stories, participation in dancing and singing, and cultural events, activities, and rituals help young people learn more about their talents, skills, behavior, and general appreciation of themselves.

Activity 1.1: Example of a folktale

1. What have you learned about yourself through the folktale?

2. Write down lessons from the folktale.

The folk stories of great men and women told to young people in the evenings when seated around the fire during or after the family home chores.

These stories played an important role in developing one’s understanding of the self. It was a time young people liked as they listened attentively as elders took turns relating these stories and also giving words of wisdom. Such stories and words of wisdom were an important part of assisting young people to learn more about life and all the challenges that go with it. From these stories, young people also learned about themselves, their values, and what it means to be a member of their community. The young were told about the history of their community and family background. The stories also highlighted some of the social and economic challenges their families or communities faced and how some of the great legends, heroes, and heroines helped overcome these struggles. The general emphasis in these stories was on the good qualities as you grow up.

Activity 1.2: Good qualities from heroes, heroines, and legends

1. List all legends, heroes, and heroines in your community.

2. What did these heroes, heroines, and legends do?

3. What qualities did they have?

4. Which of these qualities do you possess?

Most stories contained great events, such as brave people in wars, hunting and boxing, and productive farmers, rearing cattle, goats, and sheep. All this was meant to stimulate or motivate the young to actually understand the self and aspire to achieve high goals. In this context, understanding oneself therefore requires serious scrutiny of the self. You search yourself in relation to your environment, the community standard of living, and your societal cultural norms and values. A school situation where you meet schoolmates from homes with varying backgrounds socially and economically gives you a good basis to understanding yourself. Your age in level 3 and the level of education you acquired would be sufficient to assist you in understanding yourself.

Activity 1.3: Sources of information about the self

1. What have you learned about yourself so far?

2. List some of the sources where you learned about yourself.

These days, those moments of having adults sit around the fire to pass on values and teach great things that help the young build character continue to fade away. Schools, books, magazines, radios, televisions, and groupings of age-mates at home or at school have replaced these stories. It is, therefore, important to ask yourself questions such as the ones below to help you understand yourself:

☐ What do I know about myself?

☐ Who am I in the first place?

☐ Where do I come from?

☐ Have I gone through maturity stage or not?

☐ What physical developments or appearances do I notice in me?

☐ Am I now able to make decisions on my own?

☐ Do I understand my behavior?

☐ Do I notice something different about my eating habits, dress, the books or novels I like to read?

☐ On the whole, do I understand myself?

Once you are able to answer the questions above, you are likely to learn something about yourself. Remember, you do not live in isolation. You live with other people in your family, in the community, and at school. All these environments contribute to making you understand yourself (i.e., the way you interact with others, react to situations, and respond to calls or given responsibilities, and your behavior toward your classmates and authorities). These statements will assist you in understanding yourself. You also have to take note of your abilities in various fields, your interest, what you consider essential, and your personal needs at home, at school and, in general; your attitude towards others at school, towards life in general; your dealings with others and responsibilities and the way you lead others when asked to; your communication with others, is it by orders, persuasion, roughly or gently. All these and many more will help you understand yourself. Ask your friends and family to tell you about your personality and write their views in the columns provided below.

Activity 1.4: Family and friends’ views about you

Activity 1.5: Which of these apply to you?

From the list of words below, select those that apply only to you by ticking (√) in the space provided and then comment on how the word describes you.

Abilities, interests, values, and needs

We sometimes judge people positively by looking at how clever they are, their talents, or their intelligence. Cleverness, talent, intelligence, and mental power are points to consider when judging your ability. Ability centers on your capability to use your talent, cleverness, and mental power. Your abilities will make it easier for your teachers and peers to understand you. A learner who is able to speak fluently and calmly is already termed as a confident person. Ability is something one can acquire through learning, or it can be something inborn, like a talent.

Activity 1.6: Your abilities

List all your abilities (e.g., art, singing, public speaking).

Note that an interest can be a subject or a hobby, something you love to do. One’s interests though rely