Training for Leadership in Local Educational Improvement Programs. Unit 6. Personal/Social Development As an Educational Theme, with Related Innovations

The development of the student as person and as group or community member became a major theme of educational innovation during the 1960s. Previously, most educators had sought to make a sharp distinction between intellectual and personal/social development, assigning the first to the schools, the latter to home and community. This distinction has been abandoned by many educational innovators who contend that the development of such attributes as positive self-concepts, self-management, interests, values, and interpersonal competencies is at least as important in the education of the individual as the development of intellectual skills and knowledge. There has also been a fuller realization that intellectual and emotional/social development are closely interwoven. Intellectual development depends heavily on the student's adjustment to self and others and on his interests and values. Correspondingly, personal/social development has essential intellectual components--thinking, planning, valuing, and choosing. This unit focuses on such goals as describing how traditional curricula foster negative self-concepts in girls and minority-group members, and how this can be corrected; describing instructional approaches that foster positive self-concepts; and describing how the group-project approach can be used to teach students interpersonal competencies. (Author/IRT)