Learning "emotional culture"

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

In order to be mentally healthy, one must have the ability to express themselves properly, and without fear and shame of revealing their feelings and thoughts. And the conventional wisdom goes that the better one expresses themselves, the better they will be understood by others, and the more success they will have in society. But of course the development of decent communication skills should start from a very, very early age.

A couple of schools in the southern suburbs of Cape Town (one of them the school of the three boys [8, 8, and 9] that my family has been taking care of for two years already, under a program that we lovingly call "semi-adoption") are about to introduce classes in "Emotional Culture" as part of a project to prevent aggression and behavioural problems at school. The project is funded by the Ministry of Basic Education (because there's also a separate Ministry of Higher Education). Some good specialists in psychology and pedagogics from three universities across the province (my friend nairiporter among them - thank you Nairi!) have been invited to take part in the classes. They will present a series of lectures and practical exercises to the kids throughout the next two quarters of the school year, and if this works, from next year onwards as well.

Researches show that kids in primary and secondary school in this country and many others have some serious gaps in their emotional/psychological education and they are in urgent need to improve their abilities of expressing themselves and communicating, if they are to become integral members of society.

Last year over 50 students from various universities worked on a similar project in four schools in the area (Cape Flats), the purpose of the project being to teach the kids how to express their emotions and thoughts, how to be tolerant, how to control aggression, and how to nurture a feeling of empathy for their fellows. The project turned out to be very useful and it showed some good results, many conflict situations were avoided or resolved... And this is why this year the program will be extended further, now to include the psychology specialists as well - most of them are specialised in working with groups of people rather than individuals. Thankfully, there are already enough such specialists trained in the country, thanks to a number of high education initiatives that started 4-5 years ago in Gauteng, and then here.

All this is aiming to create a better quality of communication between young people. But of course the main factor for developing an adequate individual is the family. The parents remain the most important element. But when there are no parents, as is the case with many of those kids (many of them are orphans or semi-orphans, or abandoned, and live in institutions spread across the area), deliberate programs like this can be of crucial significance.

To relate this to you folks, my question is this: Are you aware of similar programs and initiatives where you live, and how useful do you think they are? If you think they are necessary, in what form exactly would it be most appropriate that they should be carried out? And from what age? What about home-schooling? Can it substitute the social environment in class, particularly as far as the development of adequate social and communication skills is concerned? Or, after all, is this a worthwhile issue at all, or people are getting too carried away about it and the kids should learn these things naturally, from the family and their peers alone? Your thoughts are very welcome.

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

From a strictly scientific point-of-view, attempting to extend pedagogy creates in itself a new form of culture; ostensibly aimed at teaching "some other" culture with which to integrate, but in reality you are creating a new "culture". So it is a rather discursive sort of thing.

Or, after all, is this a worhwhile issue at all, or people are getting too carried away about it and the kids should learn these things naturally, from the fmaily and their peers alone? Your thoughts are very welcome.
I think people are too often ignorant of the realities these kids face, and place too much hope and importance on these kinds of initiatives, that probably don't last one second beyond the threshold of the school's doorway.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

What new, artificial culture, is being created in this particular case? I described a case where kids consider themselves fortunate for being able to go to school in the first place, let alone creating adequate social skills that would later be useful for them in society. Wouldn't they otherwise be predestinated to remain left as outside of society as they already are, and thus perpetuate the poverty-illiteracy-crime-welfare cycle?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

What new, artificial culture, is being created in this particular case?
In particular, the specifics of the class doctrine.

I described a case where kids consider themselves fortunate for being able to go to school in the first place, let alone creating adequate social skills that would later be useful for them in society.
These sorts of things don't just "plug-in" to society though. You can get all the training in the world, and it applies exactly within that program and nowhere else. You can have all the relationship training in the world, and it applies only to those particular people who learned it.

Wouldn't they otherwise be predestinated to remain left as outside of society as they already are, and thus perpetuate the poverty-illiteracy-crime-welfare cycle?
Maybe, maybe not, I don't know, but I think that cycle has more to do with relations of power, labor and capital than it does with reforming school children.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Please explain a little more about the class doctrine. I may be unfamiliar with this concept. If kids are being trained to be self-aware psychologically and emotionally, at any level of social communication, how is this related to class?

Interesting view on your third point. I agree that these issues spread way beyond the classroom. That said, do you have a better suggestion about how to help youngsters in a socially unfavourable environment to adjust to the realities of their society?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"Wouldn't they otherwise be predestinated to remain left as outside of society as they already are, and thus perpetuate the poverty-illiteracy-crime-welfare cycle?"

Predestined, no. We are not our upbringing. However it is always a significant factor and without some sort of training the odds of them overcoming their childhood are lessened and a large percentage of them will perpetuate the cycle.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

This is not about making school children quiet, obedient and compliant, and neither is it an attempt to forcefully teach them to put up with poverty and injustice. It's not about anger control either. It is about creating certain abilities in them to self-analyse, including the skills to detect their own needs and find ways to set their own goals, follow their agendas, i.e. to empower them to take their own paths.

Emotional intelligence is as important as that "conventional" type of intelligence, and there are certain aspects of it (http://www.emotionaleducation.org/en/presentation_home.asp?m=1&p=n) that could be enhanced

Have you experienced moments when how you feel is more important than how much knowledge, skill or wealth you have? These things happen every day to children, no matter if they are rich or poor.

I am sure you've heard about many Olympic champions, Oscar award winners and other peak performers who have all the wealth, knowledge and skill to outsmart every competitor in their field and still feel lonely, unhappy and restless. They never learned how to deal with such feelings. Some retreat for a year or two to examine their lives and sort out their emotions and then for the first time they could feel like winners.

When you ask people how you could help them, they often say "I just want to be happy." We all want to feel good about ourselves and to be happy. What, after all, do others expect from us? Perhaps, the answer may lie in an age-old saying: "People don't care how much you know. They want to know how much you care." Interestingly, we don't take physical health and fitness for granted any more. Most people now recognise that they have to make a conscious effort to put in the required time and effort to remain physically healthy, and that they likely need some guidance to attain that goal.

But meanwhile we still take emotional health and education for granted. Why is that? The dynamism and intensity in our society, including the omnipresent violence in society is finally creating awareness of the importance of emotional education. But we still seem to take a very narrow view of emotional education, such as an "anger management class" for out of control anger. It's often too little, too late, isn't it?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

* like

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

We need a "head start" program for emotional education. Emotional make-up is largely constituted during early childhood. Parents are the first and most important emotional educators. But there is a big problem. Parents have too little time for something so intangible. Meanwhile, academic achievement is seen as important because future career depends so heavily on it. Likewise sports have tangible rewards. But, emotional education! What would that do? Interestingly, career, success and personal sense of well-being depend on emotional fitness as much as on actual qualification.

Caring and ambitious parents hurry all the time and make use of every spare minute in bringing kids from school to the soccer field, from dancing class to music lesson. Mom picks up the family dinner from a fast food restaurant and feels guilty for doing so. Dad is still rooting for his son at the football game. Rarely is the entire family at home together to eat at the family dinner table. Then both parents feel guilty for having missed out on sitting down together and bonding as a family.

In the other extreme are many parents who are hyper-parenting. They are trying to provide every possible educational and growth experience so their children are the smartest and the bestEST, creating immense psychological pressure on the child which often backfires a lot later. The development and enhancement of intelligence and leadership qualities partially depends on the emotional environment, among other things. During early childhood, such aspects of emotional environment as love, respect, patience and following your child's leads create greater opportunities for overall development and learning than any class or a course can. That I fully acknowledge. These classes are not designed to "create", "shape" or "build" personalities. In a sense they already have these personalities, all we can do is to show them how they can reveal them and be "clearer with themselves".

Even toddlers begin to show differences with regard to their sensitivity to other people's emotional upsets. Some pay close attention to others' emotional expressions and may become upset while others may cast a sneaky glance and act unconcerned. Why do some children become more emotionally attentive while others simply tune out? Turns out that a large part of the difference in sensitivity to others' emotions, also termed as, "empathic concerns," depends on how their parents trained them. Children turn out to be more empathetic when their parents call their attention to the distress their behaviour caused to the aggrieved party. For example, when a child says something hurtful to his playmate, such parents should say, "Look how sad you made him (or her) feel" instead of, "That was mean!"

When children's attention is called to other people's pain and they are asked to think about how they would feel in a similar situation, they tend to become more empathetic and attuned to other people's feelings. That was just an example out of many.

And besides, as was stated by the OP, many of those children don't even have parents so you can take the factor number one out of the equation and see where it goes. The picture does not raise one's hopes very much, does it?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

As has been discussed several places here already; it takes a tool kit to have mental wellbeing and you need to get those tools somewhere.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

We don't get our tool-kit from socio-psychological interventions. We get it from the world. Psychology is about learning from human beings, not teaching to them.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I think the general condition of social psychology and pedagogy is far too shaky to even begin trying to declare authorities on "emotional education". It's really reaching. It's full of vim and vigor, and these sorts of things are stabs-in-the-dark. I know, I'm training for this field, and there is way too much self-confidence and optimism in the field for this kind of thing. Especially when such programmes are justified by social narratives (like the ones you gave me) that are stereotypical, "standard" narratives which then justify the response. I mean, the problem here, right, is that parents are either absent or hyper-twats destroying their kids. Sure. It happens. So we're gonna teach the kids how to survive their absent or twat-based parenting. Right.

The picture does not raise one's hopes very much, does it?
Well, I'm an idiosyncratic person, and have boundless optimism for the ability of human beings to cope, adapt and construct personal solutions for their particular environments. Human beings have been coping and surviving for a long time, and I personally am prone to resisting any sort of monolithic, psychological interventions based largely upon the social reality and social research of a Western, wealthy society. We simply do not know enough to go white-knight on these issues, without crashing about and generally making more of a mess of things.

Nor do I believe that we even need to work towards creating a monolithic, scientifically-amenable social culture whereby we're all taught how to be ourselves. I think science and psychology should stay well away from such projects.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify, I'm not saying these sorts of things are "bad" or pushed by bad people. I just think there are a whole lot of cultural assumptions to be unpacking within the words "emotional culture".

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

A necessary clarification indeed.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

I am not aware of any programs of this sort in the public school systems, certainly not here in central Kentucky. I do know that all of this is pretty central to the Religious Education programs that are taught at Unitarian Churches but Unitarians are a tiny minority of America (~1.1% iirc) and so most kids never get exposed to this sort of education.

As far as Homeschooling, absolutely it can substitute the social environment in class. Assuming of course that is what the parents want to happen. Generally speaking social and emotional development for Homeschoolers tends to follow an empty middle paradigm where large numbers of kids are WAY above their peers in social and emotional development and a smaller but still significant number whose parents choose to homeschool as a means of isolating their children from the evils of the world (almost always religious fundamentalists) are way below their peers but almost none are in the center of the bell curve.

As far as the necessity of programs like this, I can certainly see how specifically teaching empathy, emotional control, and communication skills is a necessary component in areas where large numbers of kids are guaranteed to experience significant trauma because of poverty or other factors, I'm not sure that a program like this would be of much help if offered to kids from more stable neighborhoods/families.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

"...choose to homeschool as a means of isolating their children from the evils of the world (almost always religious fundamentalists)."

My niece (who is a qualified teacher) and her husband fit this category. Their five children are loving intelligent kids who may eventually do well in college - as long as they attend either Oral Roberts University or Bob Jones U. They have been isolated their entire lives in a home-schooled hyper-fundamentalist atmosphere. I would almost guarantee they will have problems communicating with the larger American society - on any level.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

My sister is like this as well.

When her kids were younger they were so isolated from everything that they were literally terrified of a thunderstorm shown in one of the Winnie the Poo movies, and it is not like they were toddlers either, they ranged in age from 2 to 6 at the time.



On the flip side my wife and I also home school, religion is actually even one of the reasons, however where we factor religion in is that we live in the middle of the Bible Belt about 5 miles from one of the largest Fundie mega churches in the world and honestly we don't want our kids to be bullied into becoming Christians, we'd rather they be exposed to as many beliefs as possible and then make their own choices when they are ready. Additionally, as they have an Atheist for a Father and a Ghost Hunting Neo-Pagan Druid for a mother odds we don't want to have them have to deal with excessive teasing and bullying because of who we are. Already the next door neighbors will not let their children play with ours because of our beliefs (or lack thereof).

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

What social outlets do you provide for your kids, and what specialist programmes? I'm pretty interested in the homeschooling idea but as a professional educator I can see it is fraught with danger (but then, that goes for every decision you make as a parent). It sounds like you're surrounded by a pretty toxic environment, so it's understandable. I think social development is a fair criticism to be made for homeschooling but there seems a lot of ways around it; social groups, sports teams, things like scouts. Also, do you do anything like specialist music or language lessons? Do you have any plans to mainstream your kids at any point?

Other random questions: Where do you get your syllabus from? Is there like a 'homeschool education resource store'? Or do you use off the shelf items? Do you follow a state/national curriculum? Are your kids tested? And also, if it's not too private, do you get funding? I know here if you homeschool you get the money that would have gone to the school.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

It's a good intitiative, but it should stop having a campaign character and become widespread. Yeah I'm aware that this is just a pilot project aimed at checking the waters, so to speak. If there are glitches on the way they shouldn't make the people involved desperate. It's generally the right direction to go although it'll surely undergo lots of adjustments.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an excellent idea.

Some things I've seen: "Learning Power" takes aspects of one culture and puts them into the school context. This started in Bristol in what was essentially a slum. They brought the emotional qualities of the outside world into the school. This helped integration amongst the school, students and the community. I worked with it in an indigenous school, where the local birds that make up the songlines that make up Yolngu culture where brought into the classroom context. For example, the idea of "making connections" was associated with the sea eagle, because the sea eagle flies high and can see how the world is interlinked. Because the songlines are so much more of the students' life saying that they're being like the sea eagle when they're making connections in class make a lot more sense. It also helps the community understand the values the school is promoting (importantly it was through community discussion that the birds were chosen).

In a high performance school I've worked in they had an anti-depression programme running. There were little to no disciplinary issues at this school (it was a school of nerds essentially) so the big student problem was stress and depression. Every student, every year goes through a few workshops that give them skills to recognise and deal with stress and depression.

Another school I've worked at has a large GLBT community and many special needs students so there are a range of issues around tolerance and understanding that are worked into the curriculum. This is an amazing school to be a part of.

Another all boys school I've worked at has "manhood" classes... They're essentially discussion groups where guys sit around and talk about what it is to be a man. I think this is really important; developing skills to be able to talk about emotions and feelings and all that wussy crap is especially important in the macho community that school is.

Some of these work better than others, but they are all tailored to each individual school's needs, and I think that is the important part. Teaching students, especially boys, how to deal with emotions and how to live a healthy emotional life is an essential part of schooling as I see it. I don't think schools should be education factories producing nice little worker ants for the machine. Our job should be to raise successful human beings, and that includes emotional intelligence. Where, how and what these should be are up to individual schools, communities and teachers. Some teachers can teach this kind of stuff, some can't. The reality of teaching is that we can't have nice little subjects with perfect teachers, so we have to make do with what we've got. I teach history, geography and philosophy (amongst other things as the need arises) and these issues always get ample time, because I'm good at connecting these things with teenagers. I make geography all about people, place and space and can put students right into their world, same with history. Essentially the only thing I do in philosophy is emotional development.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Our job should be to raise successful human beings, and that includes emotional intelligence.
The assumption here, being obviously, that emotional intelligence is amenable to pedagogical production and replication in the same way "traditional intelligence" is... but it isn't. The general success of Western production-oriented, "school-factories" has created a positivist illusion about these things.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

re: emotional intelligence

my problem is that what may seem as emotionally intelligent in one culture may be perceived as emotionally flamboyant in another.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Well you have to understand something about well-meaning social psychology: "other cultures" are a problem to be fixed.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I am not aware of a program that is exactly equivalent to this, but from what I have seen, the education system is saturated with this kind of thinking. It may be useful for children who have specific issues or unusual problems in this regard, but I think that for most children, the effort would be better spent ensuring solid reading, writing, math and other fundamental skills. And I would leave the psychology specialists out of it. They never seem to understand the ground level reality that children have to deal with.
Regarding home schooling, I think that it is probably superior in developing social and communication skills compared to public schooling, which is an artificial environment far removed from the real world.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

is this a CT public schools phenomena, or is this a ring of private schools?

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

It could become a S.A. public schools phenomenon.