Affective Education Guidelines

Abstract

A practical explication of learning packets, this article gives a useful example of format and a guide for evaluation.A TEACHER enthusiastically returns from a week-long summer human relations lab to which his principal sent him to be trained as an affective educator. He begins the school year with his classes structured according to the T-group model which he experienced as a lab participant. After six weeks, students are still sitting in his classes, frustrated, unable and unwilling to expose even a little of their personal selves. The goals he and the principal had for these classes are not being achieved. Disillusioned, he abandons the project and returns to his old method of teaching. Examining the SituationThis case illustrates a number of common problems in attempts to initiate affective education programs in schools. That affective education has merit and should be applied on a wide basis in the classroom is not in question. Our concerns revolve around why it is being used, under what conditions, and with what effects. What are appropriate goals of affective education and by what means can or should they be achieved? Why are affective education strategies so often doomed to failure, as in the case cited? In beginning to confront these concerns, let us examine the issues in the case presented above.