My oldest son attended a K-5 public school in Harlem for one year when he was in third grade. Just last week I found a number of projects from that year that he had brought home. Almost all of them were about emotional intelligence & mindfulness. I accept that you can learn another subject, for example English or art, and write about mindfulness, but the work was kind of incredible to me. Even at the time he attended the school I observed that they appeared to spend half the day on EI topics. This school was 98% Black students and my son fell behind that year on math and ELA. I think it's more complicated than focusing on emotions instead of material reality, but I also don't think it's an accident that this was the coursework in a segregated school full of students of color.
My oldest son attended a K-5 public school in Harlem for one year when he was in third grade. Just last week I found a number of projects from that year that he had brought home. Almost all of them were about emotional intelligence & mindfulness. I accept that you can learn another subject, for example English or art, and write about mindfulness, but the work was kind of incredible to me. Even at the time he attended the school I observed that they appeared to spend half the day on EI topics. This school was 98% Black students and my son fell behind that year on math and ELA. I think it's more complicated than focusing on emotions instead of material reality, but I also don't think it's an accident that this was the coursework in a segregated school full of students of color.
Thanks for this comment— and you are right that juxtaposing emotions and social reality is too simplistic.
This is great! So thoughtful and considerate.
Thank you, Robert— Elliot