The Importance of the Emotional Life of the Child

The school life is sure to be influenced by the emotional attitudes of pupils either positively or negatively. So side by side with the recognition of individual differences, a teacher must be aware of the emotional aspects of the child’s life. A child’s emotional life is just as important as his intellectual or physical life. Unfortunately, parents and teachers have been relatively slow to accept this. Most of the people responsible for the growth of children are still ignorant of this vital factor.
The importance of the emotional life of the child in his education has been duly recognized by certain groups of modern educators. Its evidence comes from four principal sources. Firstly, we find it from the Progressive Schools. They attach due importance to the emotional life of children and are against giving any kind of harmful school punishment of the older type. These schools produce pupils whose adjustment and happiness are distinctly marked. Secondly, we find it from schools which through arts, handicrafts, drama, music etc. give full scope to pupils for free emotional expressions. Consequently, the pupils acquire emotional, mental and motor control with corresponding social poise. Thirdly, we find it from schools where the needs of the pupils are always given the first importance. The teacher-pupil relationship is based on understanding of these needs. Everywhere in the school, there is a natural sympathetic attitude towards capabilities and difficulties. Fourthly, in the fields of backwardness, juvenile delinquency and maladjustment, several valuable investigations have been made. These investigations acquaint us with the deep and potent influence which negative emotional states exert- as evidenced in progress, cure and readjustment. studies of children and adolescents and various kinds of researches in this connection betray the intimate relation between intellectual, physical and emotional aspects of life. Today we are aware that much of the illness, scholastic failure, unhappiness and difficult behavior in children is the direct outcome of emotional frustration. The teacher cannot foresee all this unless he has a deep psychological understanding.
According to psychological findings, emotional calm is a necessary condition for the proper functioning of intellectual power whether in children or in adults. The sense of success and achievement creates balanced personalities. It is in the favorable emotional incentives of interest and success that we can concentrate and apply our powers to the best advantage. Even the dullest child may be immensely benefited by encouragement, praise, individual help and sympathetic consideration of difficulties. Failure, fear, frustration, harsh criticism, sarcasm, punishment, and unhealthy competition will never create the sense of independence and self-control in children which we must endeavor to promote. Hence, all the teachers must be trained in the principles of mental hygiene of child and adult. Free psychiatric advice and treatment should be available for all the teachers both in training and actual practice. Hence the knowledge of psychology is very necessary for a teacher.
Why Psychoanalysis is Indispensable to the Teacher
The success of educational efforts much depends upon the personal relationship between the teacher and the pupil. This point should not be neglected either by the practical teacher or the education theorist. The teacher is prone to the influence of parental complexities, because for the pupil, he is the psychological situation of the father or mother. The teacher is in a position of authority which may provide a favorable opportunity for the gratification of such powerful impulses as self-esteem, self love, pleasure in inflicting pain. These impulses work in such a disguised form that consciousness cannot easily recognize their true nature. The pupils, too, can resort to narcissism and exhibitionism if the teacher is not able to handle them in a psychological manner. All this requires that the teacher must be able to understand his own psyche so that he may take due precautions against his special tendencies and complexes. He should also be able to get into contact with the pupil’s psychic life. The teacher can be tolerably free of complexes. if he has at least achieved a fairly satisfactory fulfillment of his own conscious and unconscious desires. If the teacher possesses some complex, he may use a situation for his own personal gratification, thus foiling the very purpose of his work. If the teacher has not properly understood the relation between emotional and intellectual processes, he is sure to stultify and neutralize educational results. Thus a knowledge of psychoanalysis is indispensable to the teacher. Naturalism in education is closely connected with psychoanalysis. “The teaching of Freud was a Godsend to the post-war apostles of naturalism, both in educational sphere and outside of it; it was believed to have proved the soundness of their case for untrammeled self-expression and for entire freedom from restraint.” Psychoanalysis emphasizes that the natural growth of the child should not be explored in any way and that the natural growth of the child should not be explored in any way and that the unconscious should be explored in order to understand the cause of neuroses so that suitable steps may be taken. It is because of psychoanalysis that a healthy attitude has grown towards ’sex’ and ‘authority’. Corporal punishment and authoritarian methods are now shunned. Dangers of undue prudery have now been laid bare with the evil consequences of ‘any bottling’ up of the child’s energies. Psychoanalysis has rendered valuable service in helping us towards the understanding and treatment of delinquency in childhood and adolescence.