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As we muse over the puzzle around the school fires and whether the return of the cane as recently proposed by Dr. Matiangi is the ultimate solution...we should bear in mind that learning is fostered or laden by emotions. The 'classroom' is an emotional place, our children are confronted by three sets of emotions: emotions due to interactions or realities external to the school; social emotions-which maybe attributed to nature of relationships between them and their peers in school and teachers; AND Academic emotions which are generally linked to their learning experiences especially around aspects like assessment. The academic emotions may be either positive...pride, excitement, anger hope enjoyment etc while the negative emotions include, anger, shame, anxiety, boredom, hopelessness...; well research shows that when students experience positive emotions, they tend to develop adapative motivational patterns like resilience, appreciation of efforts while those who experience negative emotions exhibit maladaptive motivational patterns like a sense of hopelessness, anger, despair and fear amongst others...; Reflect and ponder over! How well do we support our children emotionally especially academic emotions...look out for next post on tangible strategies we can employ...

KCSE 2017 mattters: Transparency and accoutability is at the heart of a just assessment process...Even with knowing how the judges voted, both Jubilee and NASA leaders are keen to find out the details of what informed the verdict of those assenting and dissenting('Mr Kimemia further called on the Supreme Court to lay down its reasons for annulling the presidential election results in the petition filed by opposition leader Raila Odinga'...(online Daily Nation Sept 2nd)... )...why then is Dr. Matiangi, Prof. Magoha and KNEC crew tormenting our children by keeping the KCSE marking and grading system a mystery. One year down the line there has been no official communication on the marking and grading process adopted for 2016 and what will happen in 2017.