| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this thesis is to explore the notion of emotional and social education in the curriculum for primary school student teachers, focusing on the development of students 'emotional and social competence. I argue that this is not only a necessary and fundamental component of student teachers' learning, but that it needs to be considered as a matter of priority in the light of South Africa's history.
Developing emotional and social competence in children is, under any circumstances and in any context, an integral part of their overall development as human beings. In my experience of primary education, however, the emotional and social dimensions of learning have seemingly been neglected. ln addition, the damage caused by apartheid in general and by violence in particular to the emotional and social lives of south Africa's people has been deep and profound. For these reasons, I argue that emotional and social education be given special attention, as a way of dealing with the effects of the past and in terms of building a new society in the future. ln order to develop emotional and social competence in children, teachers need, in themselves, to be emotionally and socially competent. They also need particular skills to develop these competencies in their pupils. From my observations of student teachers and of their learning experiences during their three years in teacher education at college, however, it appeared that this was not the case. The course offered to the students seemed neither to focus on the development of the child as a whole, nor on the overall development of the students, themselves. Rather, it seemed to emphasize the teaching of traditional subjects such as Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Language, by providing the students only with information about and skills in which to teach these subjects. This thesis attempts to document my perceptions of emotional and social education as a neglected area in the curriculum for students and the problems arising from this neglect in terms of their preparation as primary school teachers. while doing so, it also focuses on the way in which particular values and patterns of behavior are reinforced and perpetuated - not only by what is taught, but by the unconscious messages transmitted through one's daily interactions with students and by the kind of general environment that is created within the college as a whole. Particular attention is paid to those experiences operating in terms of the hidden curriculum. This is done in an attempt to show these experiences as powerful determinants for the way student teachers, in tum, will relate to their pupils and for the kind of environment they will create in their classroom. My own endeavors to address emotional and social education in the college as a whole and in my classroom situation in particular are also discussed issues around the implementation of emotional and social education in primary schools are looked at, and implications and recommendations for colleges of education are explored. The perceptions, reflections, and recommendations recorded in this thesis are to highlight the necessity for primary education colleges to rethink their curriculum - to consider carefully how best to implement emotional and social education for their students that will enable them, as teachers, to provide the kind of learning experiences necessary for developing emotional and social competence in their
pupils in the future. | en_US |
