Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

124 N. Hodgson
In line with the understanding of positive psychology cited earlier, the principles of
SEAL are applied to “all pupils and staff, not just those pupils with identified social,
emotional and behavioural difficulties” (ibid.) for the benefit of learning, standards,
inclusion, positive behaviour and stress management. The emphasis on learning and
managing in particular is evident in the summary headed “What role does SEAL
play in learning?”:
Social and emotional skills underpin effective learning by helping all pupils to
do the following.
• Learn to manage their impulses, helping them settle quickly, concentrate and not
disrupt others.
• Build warm relationships, which help them to care what others (e.g. staff and
peers) think and to respond positively to them.
• Manage strong and uncomfortable emotions such as anger and frustration, and
become more resilient, which helps them rise to the challenges of the learning
process and stick at it if things get tough.
• Learn to feel good about themselves, which reduces the likelihood of disruptive
behaviour and increases capacity for independent learning.
• Manage anxiety and stress, including around tests and examinations.
• Learn to empathise, for example, with other pupils’ desire to learn, which helps
them contribute to a positive learning environment.
• Reflect on longer term goals, which help them see the point of learning, raise
their aspirations and become more able to resist negative pressure from others.
• Feel optimistic about themselves and their ability to learn, which improves their
motivation to work hard and attend regularly.
(DCSF: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/66414?uc=force_uj)
The outline shows us who the individual (child/adult/citizen) is asked to be: this
refers not only to there being desirable qualities for individuals to have but that the
development of these becomes an explicit educational practice and object of individual
concern and responsibility. Not only do I need to feel empathy, feel good
about myself and feel optimistic, I must adopt a vocabulary in which I can explicitly
demonstrate that this is the case. We can see this as part of the responsibilising of
the child/adult/citizen as an autonomous individual, to instil the required attitudinal
orientation for citizenship as an adaptable lifelong learner. The vocabularies of
expertise to which Nikolas Rose referred are offered to enable us to label our feelings
and emotions, to give voice to the qualitative aspects of our lives, and therefore
to be able to chart, measure, compare and improve them alongside other variables.
The SEAL programme also provides an example of and extends the understanding
of the school as an environment (see also Simons & Masschelein, 2008).
Learning is no longer restricted to the school but is to be pursued across all aspects
of our lives; the school provides one such environment, a term that invokes the need
for sensitivity to change and the possibility of adaptation characteristic of the discourse
of entrepreneurialism in the knowledge economy. The school environment is
described within the SEAL programme as follows: