Emotional Learning

There has been much research conducted over the years in the field of Neuroscience in relation to the brain and in what states it becomes most effective. Authors include Joseph Ledoux, Antonio Damasio & The Dalia Lama. Unfortunately, work such as Daniel J Siegal`s `The Whole Brain Child`, is not given the widespread recognition that it should, especially when regarding issues such as curriculum and pedagogy. However, there are an increasing number of teachers like myself who, through their developing understanding of how children operate and through such books as these, have started to shift their methodology of teaching.

From a very young age, children are systematically induced into a state of reason and logic and all together left-brained activity. Through the immersion of facts and and through the importance placed on numeracy & literacy, the aspects of the brain responsible for feeling and creativity are being repressed. You only have to walk into a classroom for 20 minutes and see this happening. Even such learning topics as morality and emotional awareness are being taught through logic & reason, rather than the tangible experience of life.

Unfortunately, this way of teaching & learning is being introduced at an even earlier age when children`s free creativity and understanding in relation to themselves and this world should be the aspects of development that are nourished most. In nursery & reception, children are being expected to sit down for extended periods on the carpet to learn phonics. Now, I think it is great that children learn to read at an early age, but it must be dynamic and creative, not stagnant & overly logical.

What I believe should occur is the opposite. An extension of dynamism & creativity into key stage 1 & even key stage 2. Children are natural learners: naturally inquisitive and naturally creative. The curriculum should be taught with a pedagogy that uses feeling & logic. The left brain & the right brain. Children should be doing more than listening, discovering information more than receiving information, being active in their bodies whilst learning rather than being stagnant in their chairs.

If we can create a pedagogy based on the development of children`s brains, with a balance of sitting & moving, with a balance of thinking & feeling, with a balance of speaking & listening, then we WILL be working in accordance to modern research that sites the right-brain as being as important, if not more than the left-sides logical brain that we all use, even as adults, way too much throughout the day.

Not only will this foster the development of their learning capacity, but also their emotional development. Giving them the opportunity to develop into well rounded young adults.