Publish at December 06 2023 Updated December 06 2023
Providing a suitable learning environment is of paramount importance for anyone, but it's even more crucial for young schoolchildren taking their first steps at school, given their inability to contain their emotions in the event of any kind of upset, which can adversely affect their stay at school and even their ability to learn. Although emotion management is not always associated with the schooling process, it does seem to be an important factor in improving classroom climate.
With this in mind, Sophie Driol proposes a research topic that has as its focal point the development of her students' socio-emotional skills in a master's thesis, the title of which is: Apprendre aux élèves à reconnaître et gérer leurs émotions pour améliorer le climat de classe à l'école maternelle (2018).
In order to report on her study, we will proceed by presenting the literature review, then the research questions and hypotheses, through the methodological framework and finally the research results.
In this section, Sophie Driol develops two major lines of argument concerning the importance of managing emotions at school. Firstly, she draws on the contribution of neuroscience to this issue, and secondly, she highlights the advances made in school programs to improve classroom climate.
But before getting to the heart of the matter, I'd like to take a brief detour to define the notion of emotion. In her dissertation, Sophie Driol refers to Catherine Gueguen, who defines emotion as the immediate reaction of the body, reflecting what we feel. It differs from sentiment, which is more durable. While emotions are felt by the individual, they also affect the environment. However, the environment is not the only data on which emotions exert an influence.
According to cognitive, affective and social neuroscience (CASN), emotions influence a child's cognitive development and behavior. This works in such a way that negative emotions such as stress are an obstacle to learning. Exposed to stress, the frontal lobes responsible for managing emotions and cognitive processes malfunction. This prevents the child from reasoning objectively. As a result, school performance suffers, leading to lack of concentration and absenteeism, among other things.
And yet, when children evolve in a peaceful environment, they trigger the secretion of oxytocin, developing empathy and a readiness to learn new things (J.A. Durlak, 2011). It is therefore important for educators to create an environment that is conducive to learning for children taking their first steps in such a world, in order to instill in them a taste for learning. The teacher therefore plays a major role in this undertaking: creating a classroom climate that promotes well-being means being benevolent (Brown, 2015), inhibiting aggression (Gueguen, 2018) and fostering secure student-student and student-teacher relationships.
After presenting the importance of emotions in facilitating learning, the researcher highlights a few tools that can act on classroom climate. These tools are mainly based on the development of socio-emotional skills. These involve teaching children to recognize their emotions, name them, understand their cause and regulate them (Catherine Gueguen, 2018), with the ultimate aim of cultivating non-violent communication (Marshall B. Rosenberg, 2016). The mastery of socio-emotional competence is a reflection of the environment on the very young, as they evolve by imitating those around them.
While it's true that neuroscience has provided a wealth of answers to the need to manage emotions at school, the French state is just as interested. This can be seen in the refoundation of schools in 2013 and 2015. The first refoundation attaches paramount importance to creating a serene environment conducive to children's well-being. This is a decisive step in the child's subsequent schooling.
As for the second refoundation, the kindergarten program places great emphasis on the notions of well-being and the development of socio-emotional skills. This can be seen in the use of storytelling and playlets, which play the role of identification and distancing, not to mention artistic and sporting activities. As you can see, neuroscience and the French education system recognize the importance of managing emotions to create an environment conducive to learning. Having set the scene, it's time to present our research question and hypotheses.
After combining neuroscience research, ministerial recommendations, the particularities of her classroom and her professional sensibility, Sophie Driol poses the following research question:
The research population is made up of 21 kindergarten pupils in the middle and large sections, aged 4 to 6. The researcher opted for both quantitative and qualitative methods.
The first measures the evolution of communication and relationships between pupils, while the second measures pupils' ability to regulate their emotions. To achieve this, Sophie Driol designs workshops along these lines, using didactic material to introduce children to emotions, and a philosophical debate workshop to help them regulate their emotions. She organizes her collection into two periods. In view of the time allotted to her research, she only managed to interview one of the students mentioned as RN, with emotional disorders, in order to answer the second hypothesis. She therefore reached some conclusions.
Analysis of the data collected led to the following results:
Illustration: gpointstudio - Depositphotos
Reference
Sophie Driol, 2018, Apprendre aux élèves à reconnaître et gérer leurs émotions pour améliorer le climat de classe à l'école maternelle, Education, online https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-02115906/document
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