Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy E-Book

Richard Evans

• Herausgeber: Independent Thinking Press
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Written by Richard Evans, Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy: A passport to increased confidence, engagement and learning shares an approach that will help educators boost their pupils' emotional literacy, with the broader aim of nurturing a more grounded, engaged and intrinsically motivated child. Foreword by Ian Gilbert. Do teachers truly understand their pupils? And do the pupils themselves really understand their own needs? In Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy, Richard Evans reminds every school educator that behind every child is a set of circumstances so entwined - and within them a set of emotions so involved - that to ignore them is to be complicit in any educational failings experienced by that child. Richard equips educators with a collaborative 'passport' template designed to improve pupils' emotional literacy and promote discussion of the often-unspoken issues that prevent children from making progress at school. It enables staff to steer young people to greater emotional understanding of themselves, so that they can better manage their route through the school system. Furthermore, Richard provides a detailed tutorial as he walks you through the subtleties and wide-ranging possibilities of its use. Colour copies of the passport are also made available for free download as a complimentary feature of the book. If the passport is aimed at anyone, adult or child, it's those not altogether happy with the system; those not convinced it provides as much breadth and meaning as it could; and who sense that education is as much about the acquisition of self-knowledge as it is about that of knowledge per se. Ultimately, the result of the enterprise is deeper understanding - whether it's of the girl who falls asleep at the back, the boy who needs constant support, or those pupils who need extra careful attention at parents' evening. Suitable for all educators in both primary and secondary settings.

Leseprobe

AIn this book Richard Evans gives us a breakdown of what emotional literacy actually looks like in the nitty-gritty of everyday life. Moreover, he presents it from the pupil’s perspective and demystifies the subject in a succinct, lively and very readable way.

The book provides a clear, structured and practical outlook on what the conversation between a school and its pupils should be like, and how this conversation can be refined and made more effective for the benefit of all.

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is a must-read for anyone who works with young people; any school that follows Richard’s advice will be confident that they possess a clear grasp of the voice of their pupils, and will be making major steps to reduce any disaffection or disengagement.

PETER NELMES, SCHOOL LEADER AND AUTHOR OF TROUBLED HEARTS, TROUBLED MINDS: MAKING SENSE OF THE EMOTIONAL DIMENSION OF LEARNING

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy offers a vivid and realistic account of the lives of many students and gets to the heart of why some students are simply not in a place to learn when they arrive at school. It is written in a very honest and down-to-earth manner, and provides a range of helpful examples of some of the key challenges students often face when they struggle with their emotional literacy. Furthermore, the introduction of the passport is a helpful and relatively simple tool for practitioners to use as a focus for the not-so-simple process of supporting pupils to successfully and independently develop their emotional literacy skills.

NATALIE PACKER, EDUCATION CONSULTANT ON SEND AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

BI would recommend Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy to anyone wanting practical ways to address what is often a difficult area in an already crowded curriculum – that of pupils’ emotional literacy.

Writing in a highly engaging manner, Richard offers himself as a guide, provides a licence to travel on the journey (presented in the form of the passport) and encourages educators to explore how they can better navigate the territory that is the inner emotional world of their pupils. The passport itself is a powerful tool to assist in engaging pupils in meaningful discussions that will help develop their self-efficacy, motivation and specific skills for successfully engaging in the world of school.

All in all, Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is an invaluable resource for any teacher or mentor working in a wide variety of educational settings.

STEVE RUSSELL, BEHAVIOUR, LEADERSHIP AND WELL-BEING CONSULTANT

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is essential reading for all staff who want to support young people to become happy, confident adults, and not just knowledgeable ones. The generosity, empathy and patience that we need to show in order for this to happen can seem daunting, but Richard Evans offers practical and effective advice on what questions to ask, how to ask them and – most importantly – how to listen to the answers. It is becoming increasingly clear that young people need ever more support in reaching a level of emotional understanding that will allow them to succeed both in school and beyond – and, in an engaging way that will speak to all teachers, Richard shows us how we can help.

JOSEPHINE ROCHFORD, TEACHER OF ENGLISH, MONK’S WALK SCHOOL

CRichard Evans’ Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is exactly what we have been waiting for in schools. Everyone is acutely aware, now more than ever, that teaching emotional literacy is one of the most important things we can do to help a child’s sense of well-being and future success – and it is also well known that emotionally literate children perform better in school. But how do we teach it? Cue Richard to the rescue, as his vast experience of tutoring nurture groups and his sense of humour make reading the book feel like you are chatting with a good friend. He pulls together a range of theoretical perspectives and offers plenty of suggestions on how to develop students’ independent thinking in order to help them find solutions for each scenario around the passport, which can also be adapted to suit your own setting.

Essential reading for anyone passionate about helping children and young people become more emotionally literate.

PAULA REEVES, EMOTIONAL LITERACY LEAD, BROOKE HILL ACADEMY

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is an excellent read which is honest, accessible and captures you from the start. It offers both new and experienced colleagues something rather unique, and builds upon the fundamental need for our children to understand themselves – illustrating that if we get this right, the rest will follow.

The passport is a potential game changer for pupils and teachers alike, offering teachers the means with which to increase their pupils’ confidence, engagement, resilience and learning. It provides us with a ‘how to’ and encourages educators to find their own way with it – to use it, adapt it and grow it. Furthermore, it breaks resilience down into measurable behaviours and allows students to identify Dtheir own needs and to be reflective in their progress. This highlights an asset-focused approach to all things well-being – to focus on what we can bring into our lives and the changes we can make.

The book is startlingly accurate in its description of transition and the whirlwind start to the academic year for pupils and teachers alike, reminding us of the power of listening and the importance of making time in our work with pupils and in education. It also made me laugh out loud in parts and deeply reflect in others.

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy has significantly added key insights to my 20 years’ experience of teaching, pastoral leadership and work with young people. Thank you, Richard, for reminding me to keep thinking and reading to improve my own practice!

LYNETTE HARTE, SCHOOL LIAISON, RESILIENT RUTLAND

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INDEPENDENT THINKING ON ...

EMOTIONAL LITERACY

Richard Evans

A PASSPORT TO INCREASED CONFIDENCE, ENGAGEMENT AND LEARNING

G

For mum and dad – because you couldn’t have shown more love to more people.

H

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FOREWORD

I was once gifted a book entitled Could Do Better: School Reports of the Great and the Good.1 It was an entertaining compendium of teacher comments stretching back for over a century – from ‘He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere’2 (Winston Churchill) and ‘He has glaring faults and they have certainly glared at us this term’3 (Stephen Fry) to ‘She must try to be less emotional in her dealing with others’4 (Princess Diana) and ‘All glib and cleverness’5 (Carl Gustav Jung).

Although good for a chuckle, these comments show how subjective, inaccurate, meaningless and unhelpful this way of reporting on a young person’s potential really is.

Of course, we have come a long way since a teacher could write, ‘He shows great originality, which must be curbed at all times’6 (Peter Ustinov) and get away with it – and reporting is usually done in a more humane, collaborative and productive manner these days.

Or is it?

To what extent do we enter into a genuine dialogue with young people, whether it’s with the academic high-flyers or those making their way through school rather closer to the ground? Do we really engage with our students, not only in a conversation about what they are doing wrong and what they should be doing instead, but one that iiactually helps equip them with the tools and approaches that will be of real help as they chase the almost mythical ‘do better’ goal?

Even the schools that are dogmatically following Rosenshine’s Principles of instruction – with its focus on review, small steps, scaffolding, questioning and the like – might be missing something more fundamental when it comes to helping young people improve.7 And that something is at an emotional rather than purely technical or cognitive level – and it is that emotional understanding, and the way it can hinder or help classroom attainment, that is at the heart of this book.

Of course, the idea of emotional intelligence has been around for quite a while since it first appeared in academic papers in the 1960s, but it was well and truly brought to the fore by the science writer Daniel Goleman in his seminal book Emotional Intelligence.8 For a brief, some may say glorious time, we knew that there was more to getting ahead than IQ and that our EQ had a big part to play in how we effectively thought about ourselves and those around us. And of course, that is still the case. The World Economic Forum’s 2018 research into the most sought-after skills for 2022 has ‘emotional intelligence’ as number eight in its list of ‘trending’ skills, just below ‘leadership and social influence’ but above ‘reasoning, problem-solving and ideation’.9 (Worth noting here too is that its list of skills in global decline include ‘memory, iiiverbal, auditory and spatial abilities’ and ‘reading, writing, math and active listening’. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.)

What happened in our schools, though, was the state-driven ideological hijack both of the curriculum and the pedagogy employed to teach it. The kings and queens retook their thrones from hoi polloi such as Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) and Every Child Matters, while group work, teamwork and Personalised Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) were unceremoniously thrown in a school skip in favour of direct transmission and didactic teaching with a zero-tolerance approach to any child who took it upon themselves to kick off. What this meant was that those espousing that we seek to understand, even love, a child (and not simply manipulate them) were dismissed as tree-hugging sentimentalists whose ‘soft expectations’ would assign a generation of unqualified young people to a life working in low-paid jobs, as opposed to the generation we have now of highly qualified young people working in low-paid jobs and up to their necks in debt.10 And that was before factoring in the devastating effects of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on the graduate job market.11

Fortunately, there are still many teachers who, to borrow an old saw, prefer to be teaching children rather than simply teaching subjects – and so the focus on using understandings, strategies and practices from the world of emotional intelligence has prevailed, albeit under the radar of Ofsted and under the noses of school managers ivwho are more inclined to use students to improve their data rather than the other way round.

And Richard Evans is one such practitioner.

Drawn from his direct experience of working with troubled and troublesome young people, Richard has shown how asking the right questions in the right way and at the right time pays dividends in helping those young people get back on track and stay there.

By working to understand them – and help them to understand themselves – at a more emotional level, we can all help our students develop the necessary emotional intelligence to excel not only at school but beyond. In this way we genuinely help them create a passport to a better, more fulfilled life. Which is perhaps of greater use than simply expressing regret that the ‘threat of failure in his exams has not helped him to grow out of a tediously lackadaisical unsupportiveness’ (Jeremy Paxman).12

IAN GILBERT WEST WALES

1 C. Hurley (ed), Could Do Better: School Reports of the Great and the Good (London: Simon and Schuster, 1997).

2 Ibid, p. 98.

3 Ibid, p. 42.

4 Ibid, p. 136.

5 Ibid, p. 138.

6 Ibid, p. 25.

7 B. Rosenshine, Principles of instruction: research-based strategies that all teachers should know, American Educator, 36(1) (2012): 12–19, 39.

8 D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (London: Bloomsbury, 1996).

9 World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs Report 2018 (Insight Report) (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2018), p. 12. Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2018.pdf.

10 K. Makortoff, UK Employers Will Offer Fewer Entry-Level Jobs in 2020, Figures Suggest, The Guardian (6 January 2020). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jan/06/uk-employers-fewer-entry-level-jobs-2020-survey.

11 Institute of Student Employers (ISE), Graduate Jobs Decline in 21 Countries Due to Covid-19, FE News (15 July 2020). Available at: https://www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/51463-graduate-jobs-decline-in-21-countries-due-tocovid-19.

12 Hurley, Could Do Better, p. 56.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

So none of this would have happened without the collaboration of Bernie and the many brilliant students and staff who trialled and informed the passport, nor without the backing and encouragement of key senior leaders – you all know who you are.

Or, indeed, those friends and family who generously read, checked and advised: Angela, Freddie, Grace, Laurence, Liz, Mark, Mel, Oliver and Paul.

And it definitely wouldn’t have happened without Ian’s guidance and quietly blazing care, or without Emma’s skilful eye or the patient teamwork of those at Crown House Publishing.

Thank you to Clare for taking on more caring so I could do more writing; to Cathy for her relentless ideas and resources; to Jane for her drive and compassion for all.

Way back, there was Deborah’s immortal advice: ‘If the job doesn’t exist, create it’; Jacob’s conviction: ‘There’s a book in you, write it’; and Amit’s recognition of needs: not just the passport’s, but my own.

But it still wouldn’t have happened without Freddie, Grace, Oliver or Mel: the people who make me feel loved and inspired, who push me to think, who are always there for me.

Nor without those who have been my role models since as long as I can remember: my mum, dad and sisters. Thank you to you all.vi

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CONTENTS

Title PageDedicationForewordAcknowledgementsFirst ThoughtsChapter 1: WhirlwindChapter 2: Learning to ListenChapter 3: The Passport1. Select your protégé2. Declare your interest3. Unleash the highlighter (and listen)4. Identify needs5. Work out the how6. Record feelings and impact7. Make the call8. Decide what’s nextChapter 4: Behind the Questions: Confidence and ResilienceChapter 5: Behind the Questions: Organisation and PresentationChapter 6: Behind the Questions: Attitude to LearningChapter 7: SettingThe classroomOne-to-oneParents’ eveningDetentionviiiChapter 8: OutcomesFinal ThoughtsReferences and Further ReadingCopyright

1

FIRST THOUGHTS

A friend of mine, let’s call her Google, tells me people often ask her what emotional literacy means. This friend – intelligent, well-connected – says it describes a person’s ability to understand and express feelings. She says not only does it involve being self-aware and managing your own feelings – for example, by staying calm when you’re angry – but also being sensitive, and able to adapt, to the feelings of others.1

I tell her I like her definition. Not least because it points to the idea that these two words were meant for each other. Emotions are raw and savage, I offer, with a backstory to tell. Being literate in something is about having knowledge and understanding, in order that conundrums can be solved. Emotions and literacy feel like they belong together.

I might have misjudged the terms of our friendship because she’s already onto something else. No time for chat or reflection. So I leave her be, to her world of Q&As, and toss these thoughts around in my head.

And my thoughts go to education. I wonder if the strength of our determination for our children to be conventionally schooled and skilled means that we overlook a more fundamental educational need: for our children to understand themselves. I even wonder if, in trying so earnestly to push a knowledge curriculum, we inadvertently crush opportunities for this more primal form of learning to take place.

Independent Thinking on Emotional Literacy is the result of these thoughts. It is an attempt to explore the emotional grey areas between the education system and the 2pupil. In it, you will be taken on a tour of the world of the pupil. Not because you don’t know about it – you pretty much wrote the manual – but because it’s good to be reminded. And also because you already have your hands full with the demands of your own world.

You will be reminded of your pupils’ weaknesses and inhibitions; of their quirks and habits; of their upbringings and predispositions; of their needs and ambitions; of their innocence and strengths. And alongside this, you will be given a ready-made tool (well, a sheet of paper, but you know what I mean) with which to unpick, and hopefully help to enhance, the world of your pupil – in order that they can have better experiences of, at and, indeed, after school.

This tool, this sheet of A3, is called the passport.2 Like the traditional travel document, it’s designed to get you into new territories that will broaden your horizons, albeit with a few officious glares and refusals to enter along the way.

Through the language of feelings and needs (and a good dose of highlighter therapy), the passport enables staff to steer young people to greater emotional understanding of themselves, so they can better manage their route through the unwieldy school system. The passport is like an old-fashioned map: you faff with it until it’s the right way around, plot your course together, make marks where you need and, in unequal measures of harmony and conflict, you find a way through.

It isn’t aimed at any particular member of staff, student or educational setting. I’ve run with it at secondary level but it’s just as welcome at primary and in further education. We feel and have needs at all ages. To unpick them, with compassion, is relevant to all. 3If it’s aimed at anyone, adult or child, it’s those not altogether happy with the system; those not convinced it provides as much breadth and meaning as it could; who question whether enough teaching is getting to enough children; who sense that education is as much about the acquisition of self-knowledge as it is about that of knowledge per se.

You will have questions. I shall try to answer them. But not right away. We need to hold our horses a little and take stock of our existing set-up: at the realities of everyday school life; at what works and is so impressive about education; at what malfunctions and is ripe for improvement. And then we can get going on this passport thing, this tool-like sheet of A3, to see if it can help.

You hold the map; I’ll lead the way. I hope you’ve not forgotten the Werther’s.4

1 See https://www.specialeducationalneeds.co.uk/emotional-literacy.html.

2 Colour copies of the passport can be downloaded for free from: https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/featured/emotional-literacy.

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CHAPTER 1

WHIRLWIND

You’ve got your new uniform but the trousers don’t fit. The jacket’s too big and your tie’s askew. And a foot too long. One of hundreds, you are, seeping in through the gates of your new learning centre. Self-conscious, anxious, directionless, but for the tide of uniform that carries you forward towards, well, wherever it is you’re meant to start. Desperately looking for anyone who might constitute a new friend, someone assigned to the same place you’ve been assigned to, wherever that is. Someone of similar height, look, fear, confusion.

Were there space, last night would be replaying its familiar sequences in your head. How many times was it you awoke? Older brother next door, younger sister next bed, phone ping, worry dream, covers off, covers on, knees up, knees down, face plant. Do you need a PE kit? Did dad remember to pick up the tie? Whose house do you go to this weekend? And why have you started making odd vocal noises out loud for no reason, skipping slightly before each stride, tapping your leg repeatedly on the table?

But your head doesn’t have space. This is too all-consuming. Teachers are barking out instructions, kids falling in and out of line, voices booming, silences, racket, then silence again. And then at some point, you end up in a room with a load of other lost souls, barely listening to a word that is being projected by the figure at the front. Instead, you fidget with your bag, your pencil, your desk, your hands, with anything in fact that you can lay those same hands on, to somehow stop the worry and the fear and the 6confusion, the loneliness and the conundrum that is, right now, the thoroughly unwelcome institution of school.

Fast forward a month, a term, and some of this anxiety has eased: your timetable is either scribbled in your planner or etched on your memory – or you’ve just become good at following people. Your trousers still don’t fit but you’ve semi-grown into your jacket; teachers scare you less; you have a friend or two; your tie now stops at your trousers.