University of Melbourne’s Professor Michael Bernard believes that teaching students about social and emotional skills is just as important as teaching them literacy and mathematics.
Professor Bernard further believes that social and emotional wellbeing should be included in federal and provincial curriculum. He argued that ‘if these skills are delayed it puts children at a disadvantage and makes teaching and learning virtually impossible’.
According to Professor Bernard, anger, anxiety, feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, stress and underachievement in school are all symptoms of a student having poor or minimal social or emotional skills. Developing these skills, Bernard says, “It is important, if not more important, as literacy and [mathematics] because without social and emotional skills, students aren’t going to be as literate or [mathematically competent] as they could be.”
Bernard has identified five blockers to social and emotional skill along with the five foundations that build better relationships and well-being:
No comments:
Post a Comment