”Sands changed my life. I’ll never forget it. I don’t know where I would be without the confidence that Sands gave me.”
Kate is now off to university and works with both dementia sufferers and supports prisoners through the ‘New Bridge ‘charity.
”Taking challenges and enjoying life. Giving and asking for reasons for everything.”
Marina is training to be a telecommunications engineer at Barcelona University.
Comments like these from ex-pupils remind me that one of the things they most valued about their experience of Sands was the opportunity that they were offered to learn about themselves, their personal strengths and emotional resources. Many say that Sands prepared them, not just for exams and college, but for the real world of work and relationships. They say that the experience of Sands made them emotionally mature as well as intellectually literate.
”I still remember the arguments I had with Nathan, my maths teacher, about philosophy and climbing, feeling that he was seeing me as an equal. I know that experiences like that made me believe that everyone deserves to be listened to.” Kian Clipson, Outdoors Instructor.
Although it is hard to teach emotional literacy, it is possible to create the opportunities and environment in which it develops. Ex and present pupils argue that these conditions exist in Sands. When we have asked them how they think this is achieved, they all say similar things; that the adults are kind and listening people; that they always seem interested in the pupils lives and the school environment is one in which discussions about feelings happen openly and without judgement. But they also say that the easy interaction between all ages is a key factor in the sense of ‘ family ‘ that is at the heart of their
experience.
That means that the school feels safe and that all ages, from child to adult talk to each other. And, maybe more importantly, that the discussion is about so much more than what happens in the classroom. Philosophy, Soap Operas, hobbies, passions and everything in between. Not just exams and performance.
I remember a day a number of years ago, when a group of four students, aged 14-17, decided to avoid class all day and sit on the ‘outside sofa’ [something of an icon in Sands culture]. It was cold and soon they were wrapped in blankets ‘borrowed’ from the Sick Room, but they remained determined to spend the day outside with each other and anyone else who chose to be with them. The teachers could have made a scene about their absence from class, so too the students.
Of course, teachers elsewhere would have disapproved and this probably could not have happened anywhere else but Sands. You see, we all believe that one missed class is not life-threatening, nor one missed day. That is why we all abandon lessons on the first day of real snow, to go and play on the Moor and why the first day of warm sun sees everyone out on the grass. Our sense is, that at best, a day on the sofa talking about life would be memorable and may even create the opportunity for something special to occur. At worst, a day of lessons is missed and another sort of lesson learnt. As adults, we would not be able to measure the learning that took place nor be in control of the outcome and maybe this is why such an event would be disapproved of elsewhere.
As it was, I arrived with hot drinks after lunch. They were still there shivering and engrossed in a conversation about child birth and parenting. It was clear they were having a great day. They asked me to sit with them and fired questions at me about my life as a father and my experience of child birth and babies from my perspective as a man. Questions bounced back and forth between us all. We talked for hours and the depth and maturity of their interest astounded me. Some of those sitting there normally struggled with concentration in class but also tended to be flippant about learning. Not that afternoon. They had learnt huge amounts from each other and were receptive to my experiences as well because it was totally relevant to their interests at that moment.
Had they been present in a PSHE class about childbirth that afternoon, I believe that their relationship with that information would have been totally different. Allowing them to control the moment at which they called for that knowledge meant that they were emotionally engaged and receptive at a much deeper level. They were learning from each other about their attitudes to relationships, marriage, commitment, fear and growing up into parents. They were checking those findings against my experiences. It was a pretty special afternoon.
Educational research talks about the ‘zone of proximal development’ and the ‘zone of reflective capacity’ in which children develop their skills and awareness of morals, emotions and attitudes from competent peers around them as well as from adults. Educationalists found that children were receptive as learners when supported by skilled co-learners who had already mastered skills and tools of communication. Those relatively close in age to the learners were listened to with great generosity. Teenagers, who are notoriously resistant to adult input, had the amazing resource of their more skilled peers to help them evolve. Giving teenagers time to advise each other and scaffold each other’s learning is to take advantage of a wonderful and underrated resource.
Where is the time for this in a normal school day? I don’t know, particularly if we don’t trust children to have unsupervised time out of class. But if we are able to allow children the opportunity to explore their skills, attitudes and feelings in a safe environment both with adults and their more experienced peers, then we are resourcing what we could call ‘three dimensional education’. Academic, emotional and spiritual development can then be offered in schools.
This event was a powerful example of that process in operation. It reminds us that education is not always reliant on adult input and that education takes place all the time and not just in the classroom. And it should be assumed that it is happening all over a school, both with and without adults. In fact, for lots of teenagers they are most open to learning when they are not in the classroom. The artificial environment of classrooms disables many children and it is only when they are released from it that we are able to see their true potential. If that is correct, then the school campus is one huge learning resource. Every child is a teacher and every child a learner.
I see this happening at Sands, when children are sitting together or around a table sharing lunch with adults and each other. Enthralling discussions take place. It feels as if we can be genuine and responsive to each other’s interests.
Then minutes later, we gather for lessons and the opportunity to learn seems to have been enhanced by the equality of what has occurred over lunch or tea. That means that the class room experience is richer for the events that preceded it.
And because we don’t fill every minute of each child’s day with conventional lessons but allow time for play, relaxation and these sorts of discussions, then these informal moments build into a profound alternative curriculum.
The pay back is huge. The school feels happy. Children know that we care about their feelings and their opinions. And vice versa. The result is that they behave as if they co-own the school. It is a place in which they feel they can be themselves. It is a place that embraces their ideas, their moods and their talents. I’m not sure this could be said of many work environments. How many adults feel as if they own their work place and that their emotional needs are valued?
I don’t believe we teach this emotional intelligence, only create the environment in which it can grow. But that requires us to be brave enough to structure our schools so that they give space for the emotional needs of our children to be challenged and developed.
This requires us to give children time in school to talk to each other about their interests and to communicate with adults informally and on their terms. But it also requires us, as adults, to value more than our own specialisms as teachers.
We carry great authority as the owners of the knowledge and skills that children want to access. With the best will in the world, this does create huge inequalities between the possessors of learning, the teachers, and the consumers, the students. If the only time we engage with young people is in this capacity, then why would children ever believe we are genuinely interested in them. They need to know that we see them as more than vehicles to process the knowledge that we impart. If the development of emotional literacy is something we value in our schools, then we need to create the conditions that make young people believe we care about their feelings and their opinions, not just how well they perform.
Often, one feels that teachers believe that children are actually interfering with this performance, getting in the way of the teaching and that the subject is much more important than the students. Certainly, I often feel that in many schools, the grades are more important than the child. And the students definitely feel the same.
If we want our children to really connect to holistic, three dimensional learning, then we need to connect to their characters. That means embracing their personalities and enjoying the times they disagree with us.I want them to challenge me. That is often when they are most intellectually and academically alive. And often those children, who manifest that challenging behaviour elsewhere, are labelled as difficult. They are often the mavericks who are most in touch with their characters and have much to offer us all. I wonder why they so often find themselves at Sands?
I am arguing that teachers need to get out of their classrooms. To be prepared to be ordinary people who are not in charge of learning; let go of the power they have and value the fact they have genuine life experiences to share that could be part of the broader education of our children. We need to value our skills as parents and citizens of the world as well as those we possess as teachers. Be prepared to sit with children and join them in discussions about themselves and not exams. Be wrong, be interested and be prepared to learn from a child. When I’ve shown real interest in their lives and attitudes, then that
reflects back into the classroom beneficially, with the children repaying my respect with their patience and interest.
That is what many of our most successful students valued most about their time at Sands. Learning everywhere, learning about everything and arguing about everything, ”taking challenges and enjoying life. Giving and asking for reasons for everything”. And so they left us competent and confident.
We can’t measure this ’emotional quotient’, but we all know that to be emotionally literate is to have an invaluable life skill. We can achieve a string of top grades, but having the wisdom to know how to use those qualifications and communicate one’s passion for learning to others, requires more than the ability to regurgitate facts and do exams well. To develop rewarding relationships and express one’s needs sensitively cannot easily be taught in PSHE, though there do exist remarkable teachers who seem to be able to do that very thing. But when you ask students how they achieve this, it is invariably because the students recognise in that teacher those very qualities to which I have been referring.
Emotional intelligence could be modelled throughout schools as a living, genuine form of everyday communication that happens between all ages. It could form part of an alternative and complementary curriculum. But it needs space and time. It seems a huge ask for larger institutions, but in the democratic schools worldwide that I have visited, and many are large, with pupil roles over 300, emotional literacy is as valued as every other aspect of a child’s education. Students and staff in those schools talk about how happy their schools feel and as a result how much people want to learn. Maybe, if nothing else, we should realise that emotionally literate children make better learners. Schools that embrace E.Q are happier and safer places. Maybe that is enough for most of us to invest effort in exploring how we can encourage children’s voices and emotional interests to be met.