Challenging a perceived trend in education that focuses on the emotional literacy and mental wellbeing of pupils at the expense of rigour and a traditionally grounded education, this book may make for provoking reading for teachers wishing to reflect critically on their practice.
The dangerous rise of therapeutic education
Behaviour
Character and non-cognitive development
Mental health
Pastoral care and wellbeing
Pupil development and support
Spiritual, moral, social and cultural education (SMSC)
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Synopsis
Setting out to contest the view that children are so vulnerable that management of their emotions and developing emotional literacy constitutes the principal function of education the authors suggest that, though well intentioned, such schooling disempowers pupils and threatens their intellectual development. They advocate instead a rounded education to help pupils cope with ‘the real world’.
Examining trends that suggest that the nature of education is being changed, and not for the better, the authors argue that ‘therapeutic education’ infantilises children and actually hampers their mental wellbeing.
They argue for more traditional forms of education, based around subjects and the authority of teachers, calling for a restoration of the previous state of affairs based on Enlightenment values of 'reason, science and progress'.