In this essay, I'm going to discuss and address why emotional care should be positioned in the first place before academic teaching. For this, I will introduce the term ‘attachment issue' and we'll see how it is beneficial in diverse ways, both for the child and for the teaching staff. On the inside curriculum, the teaching subjects such as mathematics or language are anticipated to the well-being or behaviour of the children. Is it in this what schools should focus more about? My position on this issue is in favour of focusing more on the emotional education of children, because I believe it is an important point in both personal and collective development of the child.
Today, and for many years, the purpose of schools has been to teach and educate students providing them of subject knowledge to prepare them for the future, in which they expect a job and a life full of challenges. Being cultured is very important, but it does not do much if the child does not feel good about himself. Exams and overwork create an environment of stress in the classroom (Hutchings, 2015), and have negative effects on the student, which teachers do not take into account since they are more focused on academic results and subject matter than in the emotions of children. As Kevin Courtney (2015) said, "If it is not relevant to a test, then it is not seen as a priority."
Attachment is a theory that refer to the importance of ‘attachment’ parallel to personal development. In other words, is an affection bond between the caregiver and the youngster or child, which tells the child that they’re safe and their needs matter.
This term was first conceived by the British Psychologist John Bowlby, who described attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (1969, p. 194). Bowlby shared the psychoanalytic view that early experiences in childhood have an important influence on development and behaviour later in life.
Based on research (N. Schore, 2001), the reason why children should have a secure attachment is that it creates a mental process in which the child can regulate their own emotions. Securely attached children feel confident and have the opportunity to express themselves.
Attachment styles are formed through the child’s relationship their caregiver(s). If the main caregiver(s) can make the child feel safe and protected, then the young child can start to make sense of the world around them (National Children’s Bureau) and they develop trust and confidence in their caregivers (Howe and Fearnley, 1999).
In contrast, children who have experimented traumas such as loss or abuse, grow up feeling that they are not worthy of love, understanding or protection (Ainsworth cited in Howe and Fearnley, 1999). This can lead to social, behavioural and emotional difficulties, and these can affect the child’s learning and development (National Children’s Bureau). Recent investigations have tested the impact of character on underperformance (Angela Duckworth; James Heckman, 2011). They have discovered that key attributes such as adaptability or self-discipline are powerful predictors of achievement in education and success in adult life. This is potentially true, as children who are not well at an emotional level, cannot have a good academic performance.
This is where the role of teachers to help children with an insecure attachment comes in, although they are not always given enough attention or what each particular child needs.
Some teachers put labels to their students because of how they act, and these prejudices can be harmful and even serious on children. It is true that some children’s behaviour can be quite difficult to manage, but it is important to remember that for every behaviour there’s an explanation, and this is where good communication and listening takes its role to get an overview of the child’s situation and try to solve it.
The change I suggest is to put the emotional wellbeing of the child before academic work and tests because this will help stop the negative effects that testing has on children and their work that I have already discussed. There are many ways this can be done. One way is utilising the attachment theory to create better relationships between pupils and teachers. If the child is emotionally happy, as I explained before, it will perform better academically.
Finally, and really the key to be able to carry out this change, is the awareness of teachers about the importance of good attachment and care for the life and welfare of students. Children need to feel safe at all times, whether it is at school or at home, they need to know that there will always be someone to help and listen to them, this last as more essential.
If the attitude towards the behaviour of pupils is negative or disinterested, the child will then find himself in a constant situation of insecurity, which will affect his personal and academic development (Freud, 2017). To ensure that there is an environment of security and equality of conditions for all students, it is necessary that the teaching staff is willing to carry out a series of actions. To achieve this secure attachment environment, both parents and teachers have to be aware of the significance of how their interest on a child’s life means a lot to them, because it can affect them negatively for the rest of their lives if there is not a proper attachment (Rose and Parker, 2014). Consequently, children that suffer from poverty or frequent moves from home to school, will suffer attachment-related behavioural symptoms such as not being focused in class, or disruptive conduct (Rose and Parker, 2014). However, if these behaviours are not attended, children will be unable to find comfort in relationships. Children need to feel safe and secure before they learn anything else. (Rose and Parker, 2014).
We all have emotions and sometimes we don’t know how to express them, so the best way to help young children with attachment issues, is to talk to them, listen to what they have to say and consider every option to try and help them, because for children, to be heard is crucial to progress emotionally.
In conclusion, after having studied the theory of attachment and its importance, it is essential that student’s voices are taken into account and treated in a way in which they feel confident with themselves and others.
School environments should strive to make the school a place to learn of course, but also a place where the needs of each individual child are taken into account.
We put too much emphasis on teaching the subjects that the curriculum proposes, that sometimes we forget that at early ages the important thing is not only that they learn but that children can communicate well with others and feel good emotionally, and this cannot be achieved if the teaching staff is not sufficiently prepared to attend to the needs that the children demand daily. Here we are not saying that caregivers do not pay attention to children, we are saying that they are not given enough attention, and often, although teachers try to worry and help, if there is not a valid understanding about the behaviour of the child in a certain situation, it does not help much, since the child will not manage to feel understood.
With all this, the most important question is: what happens if we do not get a secure attachment environment? Well, those children who grow up with caregivers who cannot meet their needs for whatever reason, or their care is inconsistent, grow up with the thought that they do not deserve to be loved, listened to, and even protected. And this, as I mentioned above, leads to social difficulties, which impact on the child’s learning and development. For this reason, if schools are attachment aware and focus on what children feel and why they behave in certain ways, they can help them recover from any situation, whether is traumatic or simply of not understanding their own emotions.
If we can install a system in which learning, understanding and attention to each student go hand in hand, we can achieve an environment of safety and well-being in which students feel protected and not judged.
Evidently, it is not an immediate solution. It does not attempt to turn teachers into psychologists, but to get an overview of the importance of understanding the child’s needs.