Classroom Teaching as a Parallel Therapeutic Setting: Implications for Therapeutic Effects of Learning

Observation revealed that some primary and secondary school teachers are yet to understand how to tap and use the classroom setting to effect therapeutic change. This enkindles concern and worry, for childhood and adolescent psychological disorders that ought to have been nipped in the bud if identified early by such teachers, were left to become fully blown. In order to emphasize the need that teachers’ responsibilities in the classroom should accommodate making classroom activities therapeutic, this qualitative research was embarked upon with the understanding that making early identification of learning and any other childhood and adolescence disorders will help the student get professional help and promote their active and optimal class participation. However, the perceived inadequate awareness of this untapped opportunity by teachers made it necessary that we use this study to canvass that teachers should be prepared for achieving near therapeutic outcomes for their students through their responsibilities as teachers. With this understanding we looked at different ways of how classroom teaching and therapeutic setting shared some characteristics. The implications inherent in our argument were discussed. One of our recommendations was that teachers need to be trained and exposed on how to identify disorders limiting the functionality of their students, as we observed the likelihood that classroom disruptive behaviours, for example, could be as a result of such unidentified and untreated disorders.