Teaching Social & Emotional Knowledge
This article details a growing interest in adding social and emotional skills training to school curriculum. More generally, as the article states, this seems to be an outgrowth of research done by people like Antonio Dimasio which has shown that the emotional and the rational are not really discrete entitites in the way our brain functions.
A kind of nice happenstance for me was that this really connects with a conversation I was having with my son last night. He was saying that a criticism he has about the way that his highschool experience has been so far is that adults are teaching the conventional subjects, but that they aren't available much as role models--you only get to interact with them as authority figures; you don't see how they deal with day to day life, socializing, telling jokes, making choices about work, making choices of what to drink/eat, etc. Most of those social skills are being modelled by your peers, and often not in the greatest way. He was saying that he thinks he's been lucky to be involved with some extracurricular activities with some older kids who have been better role models for social/emotional/moral choices. That just got me thinking that it would be good if there was a way to structure schools so that they weren't so age segregated--so that both older students and teachers could be models for younger kids.
it's a question of numbers and delicate balance
Jaz, how true. And for your son to make such an astute observation says a lot about him and his maturity. You obviously did a good job with him.
I'd venture its a case of numbers and efficiency. Most children have a parent or guardian to be their role model (in addition to their piers) and that has how society has set it up. I feel sorry for the children who do not have a role model or an absentee parent/guardian.
In my experience, the student engages more if the teacher is "real" to them - meaning just what you stated above: visible in day to day life when they are not always the authoritative figure - or - willing to show their frailties so the students can see them as human beings and not know-it-alls.
A sometimes negative outgrowth of this is when adults normally in an authoritative position try to become "friends" with the child/young adult and risk losing the mentoree's respect. Its a delicate balance I straddle every day as a coach. The adult wants to be liked (seen as "cool"?), but sometimes has to be the bad guy (especially when the class gets out of hand) because they also have responsibility to the school and other parents to achieve the education objectives. The skilled teacher is one who can find the delicate balance.
Another issue is relavence or "in touch" with the times. Students do not as a rule engage with an authoritative figure who is out of touch.
What would be the harm if teachers ate lunch with the kids or played intramural sports together (just as 2 quick examples), or were together in some other activity where there wasn't the authoritative/subordinate dynamic present? I venture it would get to exactly what your son is talking about.
Great post!
Delicate balance
Kind of a definition of living with a teenager in some ways :-)
Like one day you're having this very mature conversation with someone, and the next you're pointing to the bits of food debris which the same person has left unhygenically littering the living room.
What you said about your role as coach (and I can identify with as a teacher)--the balance between having fun with someone, but then also having a responsibility to them which includes seeing that they don't hurt themselves and others--I think what can happen when adults act as role models is that they can do the latter more through showing than through telling.
I'm just thinking of the way my son described the student director of the play he's in. Tangent just to note that I really admire this kid (the director)--he wrote and is directing a group of first-year students (he's a senior). The play is about the Holocaust but is being done in the style of a silent movie. And as part of preparation, he's showing his actors a bunch of silent films (mostly Chaplin and Keaton) for models of acting styles.
Anyway--what my son said about him is how much fun he is to be around, how he tells great jokes, etc.--but unlike a lot of my son's peers--the jokes are not at someone else's expense. So that kind of combines the best of both worlds and shows in a nutshell what's wrong with the current system. Moral behavior is associated with authority, rule, suppression of fun; fun & having a good time associated with not treating others well.
Teaching giving...
Interesting idea about teaching philanthropy.
"In the classes, students draw up mission statements for makeshift foundations, research nonprofits in their communities, and decide how to allocate the pot of money.The goal, say professors and donors, is to build upon surging interest in social responsibility among college students and make philanthropy part of the mainstream curriculum."
For philanthropy courses, students become the givers