Curious Snippets

There is always a good excuse to conjure up memories of REM songs, and this is one of those times. It seems school kids are to be taught how to be happy...

Today Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, will announce that lessons in happiness, wellbeing and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools.

The initiative follows an extensive pilot of a programme called Seal (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) in primary schools, which has been found to boost both academic performance and discipline by helping children to better understand their emotions.

The adoption of “wellbeing” classes by state schools suggests that emotional intelligence - a term coined in 1995 by psychologists in Britain - has now become entrenched firmly in the educational mainstream.

Ministers are convinced that teaching children to express their feelings, manage their anger and empathise with other people makes for a calmer school and boosts concentration and motivation.

It is not just the pupils that benefit. Research published today by the Institute of Education (IoE) into the effect of Seal in primary schools indicates that it is equally beneficial for teachers, reducing their stress levels and boosting their enthusiasm for study.

The approach includes wellbeing assemblies and one-to-one sessions in which pupils may, for example, be told a story about a personal conflict that they are then encouraged to discuss.

The wellbeing ethos will be incorporated into all lessons and even into playtime through the use of positive phrases and ideas, such as “OK, let’s start again” and “people like me succeed”.

Excuse me while I ram my fist down my throat in an optimistic attempt to invoke some projectile vomiting.

Susan Hallam, author of the IoE research, suggested that the Seal programme was the perfect antidote to the intense pressure imposed on schools by the testing regime and exam league tables.

“Most of the effort in recent years has been on academic work. Seal gives teachers and pupils permission to think about things that are not academic. It allows them to take time to consider how they think about themselves and others,” she said.

The programme had seven themes including, “good to be me”, “getting on and falling out” and “relationships”. Finding that the programme helped them to understand their pupils, teachers noticed that they were shouting less and resolving conflicts more easily. Queues of naughty children outside the head teachers’ offices diminished or disappeared entirely.

Because the children were more relaxed, their learning, motivation, willing to interact with those from different backgrounds and cultures,” Professor Hallam said. Children’s behaviour at home also changed: they tidied up without being asked and had fewer confrontations with their siblings.

Sounds like the government has found a way to turn us all into good little citizens. All we need now is to be taught obedience to the state the superiority of the British race and we'll be well on our way to world domination.

Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College in Berkshire, who has pioneered wellbeing classes in the independent school sector, said the approach was based on hard evidence.

“We know much more about how to teach children to be emotionally resilient and self-reliant and to be able to manage their emotions than we did. Even ten years ago there was no empirical evidence to support this approach, but now there is,” he said.

Oli Marjot, 16, who took wellbeing lessons at Wellington last year, said: “The wellbeing lessons were a pool of calm. They don’t teach you to be happy all the time. They teach you about how to deal with things when you are not happy.”

But Seal does have its critics. Frank Furedi, Professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Therapy Culture, has cautioned that children are more likely to develop emotional problems if they are encouraged to become obsessed with their emotions.

Wow. A critical voice. And a lone voice judging by the weighting the article gave to the liberal cause!

How to develop self-awareness

— Ensure all pupils can achieve and experience success

— Help pupils to identify their own learning style (eg visual, auditory, kinaesthetic)

— Use a range of methods and approaches to ensure that all learning styles are catered for

— Give careful and sensitive feedback to pupils about what is going well and how to improve areas of weakness

— Ensure every pupil feels known, valued, consulted and listened to, and is not just part of a group

— Value the experience pupils bring from home and from their own culture

— Help pupils to make sense of their life story (especially important for those whose lives have been fragmented and chaotic), for example through work in language, citizenship and history

And correct me if I'm wrong but are the first 4 points not what we used to call 'teaching'? Of course we all know the 'nobody can fail, everybody wins' system of GCSEs has improved education standards. It is amazing nobody thought of making school a total 'nobody loses' environment before now.

The question is how long before government decides that all school kids should take 'happy pills' to counter the variable teaching standards in wellbeing in SEAL classes across the country? Then we can take their DNA and develop genetic treatments to remove all violent emotions and create a nice happy and peaceful race of people. Anybody seen the film Equilibrium? Take away the bad bits and you take away part of what makes us human.

Tags: Politics - Education - Liberal Junkies - Happiness - Be The Tree