The Centrality of Emotion in Education

I found it interesting this week to juxtapose our earlier readings on how teachers are (and are not) viewed as “professionals” (and the reasons behind those views) to this weeks readings “The Emotional Practice of Teaching” (Hargreaves) and “A Teacher’s Awesome Power” (Raywid).  Just a few weeks back it would have seemed to me that discussing the emotional or relational side of teaching would be tantamount to falling into the trap of our detractors by giving them ammunition to attack us for being “soft” and therefore non-professional.  This week’s readings have really changed my thinking.  
I am learning more and more about the critical importance of building classroom community.  Central to the formation of a classroom community that can effectively engender optimal learning is the ability of the teacher to emotionally connect to students and to foster students’ emotional connections to each other.  The cornerstone of a classroom community is positive relationships and the building of positive relationships requires emotional sensitivity -- “emotional intelligence” (as coined by Daniel Goleman in his book of that title).  Therefore, as schools are becoming increasingly diverse and our children are facing increasingly complex and stressful circumstances in their lives it is more important than ever that we create space in our school day to share the different life experiences and emotions of everyone in the classroom and to teach tolerance, empathy and inclusion.  Unfortunately, we are swimming upstream against an increasingly strong current as educational reforms are concurrently de-personalizing teaching at every turn by allowing increased class sizes while at the same time binding teachers’ hands with cut-and-dried curriculum that force them to teach to one-sided standardized assessments.  All of these structural changes hinder a teacher’s ability to build emotional connections within the classroom community.


It is critical that we educate the public about the centrality of emotions to teaching -- not because the emotional aspect of teaching is largely what draws people to the profession but because emotional connections and emotional intelligence are essential in creating the relationships between teachers and students, and among the students in the classrooms, that create the foundation for optimal learning to occur.  Emotion may seem like a soft issue but it is really the hard and central core of the profession of teaching.


P.S. Just after posting this I was surfing my blog reader and came across this blog post on relationships in teaching. Coincidentally, at the end of his post the blogger references the article Rosie told us about regarding the principal in Walla Walla and his innovative approach to discipline!