Head and heart for children’s education : the role of the classroom teacher

Abstract

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) underlines the fundamental cognitive processes which prepare young people for the global economic challenges and consequently the market economy. Academic learning and performance indicators thus become the benchmark by which the quality of education is evaluated, leaving little space or time for other, non-cognitive, aspects of education. Such a reductionist view of education, however, denies children and young people the right to a balanced and quality education. Such an imbalance is evident within the PISA outcomes themselves, with little or no relationship found between learning outcomes and sense of well-being at school. Some of the highly ranked countries in learning outcomes reported lower levels of student happiness, while countries lower down the scale in cognitive outcomes, reported high rates of student happiness (Currie et al, 2012).