Scottish Schools to teach emotions and personality?

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Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
Having written the leaflet on the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, http://www.puritanboard.com/f119/curriculum-excellence-scotland-60846/ I sat back and reflected that out of the blue it would read like a conspiracy theory. A warning of what might happen but lacking in hard evidence. That was, until I came across the work carried out by Renfrewshire Council.

They are developing material to test how effectively they are teaching the four capacities, central to Curriculum for Excellence. As Dr Woolfson put it “All human behaviour is measurable. We aim to create a straightforward assessment which will allow teachers to benchmark where pupils are, in terms of becoming a confident individual or a successful learner.” 1

Now this assumes that the four capacities are assessable outcomes. As one teacher put it how exactly do we “… get 100 per cent for being a confident individual and what kind of person would score just 20 per cent for being a responsible citizen.” 2

Already some are waking up and realising where this is going. As one research student in the faculty of education (University of the West of Scotland) put it “… I will not measure emotions and personality.” 3 We need to wake up everybody! When did education become about emotions and personality? I don’t want (or trust) the schools to mess with my kids personality or emotions.

It is interesting to note which department is pushing this in Renfrewshire – it is the psychologists in the psychology service!

1 Assessment stalled, Emma Seith (accessed 25th June at
Assessment stalled - News - TES Connect)
2 How the four capacities shape us all, Marj Adams (accessed 25th June at
How the four capacities shape us all - Comment - TES Connect)
3 Emotions and personality not measurable, Alan Nicholson (accessed 25th June at
Emotions and personality not measurable - Letters - TES Connect)
 
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