ABSTRACT
In the beginning of this book I pointed to the negative view there is of emotions, including their secondary status relative to cognition in psychology and the broader culture. I also noted how the culture (including institutionalized psychology) has shaped people to see their lives and the world in general in terms of problems and how the problem-solution paradigm has been misapplied to human subjectivity. More than any other social organization I can think of, education has brought the negative view of emotions and the problem paradigm together with a vengeance. Mainstream psychotherapy may insist that a person has an emotional problem in order to get help, but it doesn't view emotionality per se as problematic. Not so schools. Structurally (by which I mean how they are organized) schools relate to emotions as problems, even the ``positive''
emotions. (How often do classroom teachers not stop infectious laughter and silliness? Or linger with a student's momentary happiness? Or share their own excitement about something?) Not all play is emotionally pleasant, but the nearly total taboo on play in American schools (at this time, even in kindergartens) must have something to do with its frequently transparent enjoyment. As for anger, upsetness, frustration and other ``negative'' emotional displays, these are considered serious problems in schools, understood to interfere with learning and, increasingly, to be symptomatic of an individual's neurological abnormality or psychopathology. Fortunately, many, many teachers are able to organize their classrooms and student relationships in ways that recognize and are respectful of emotions, despite of®cial educational policy and ideology to the contrary.
