My school reports make chastening reading. Twice in 1962 my “folly” earned me “the most severe punishment”. My behaviour was, apparently, “often deplorable”. I spent a fair amount of time lounging resentfully in detentions. I was caned now and again.

But, looking back, I can’t say that these sanctions made much difference. At best, they might sometimes have made me think twice. It was, though, the presence of teachers who believed that I could do better, who inspired the thought that studying might actually be more interesting than mucking about, that made the difference.

Gradually, through success in class and participation in the many sporting and cultural activities the school offered, I grew up.

If I were at school today, I would be expected to grow up faster. I would have my behaviour managed. “Behaviour management”, the latest initiative in the government drive to raise educational standards, is based on the belief that children can be taught to understand and control their emotions. It is known in education circles as “emotional intelligence” or “emotional literacy”, and is a fad now sweeping through our schools.

The claims are dramatic. Schools that teach emotional intelligence will, it is asserted, produce pupils who are less stressed, have a greater attention span, achieve better exam results, possess “enhanced interpersonal skills”, can “manage conflicts” and are less likely to be involved in crime.

This is the panacea for all educational and social ills. No wonder the government is so enthusiastic.

Teachers are encouraged to undertake an “emotional literacy audit” (ELA) to find out “how individuals experience the emotional culture of the organisation”.

This ELA can then be used with an ELLI (“effective lifelong learning inventory”) to “track” the links between emotional literacy and “learning power”. An ELLI questionnaire measures traits such as “growth orientation” and “dependence and fragility”. Once completed, the school is, presumably, finally in a position to help disruptive pupils channel their anger and aggression into positive relationships and more effective learning.

“We stress,” explains Stephanie Quayle, vice-principal at Cotham school in Bristol, “the importance of feeling as a counter to the fear that schools may become too rational, too instrumental, full of accountability, efficient rather than effective. At Cotham we are trying to find the narratives that carry reason, meaning, depth and conviction and explain why we are doing what we are doing.”

Scoff not. Cotham has found its narratives, and, as the school has become less rational, its exam results, it is said, have improved.

Peter Sharp, chief psychologist at Southampton education authority, believes the pursuit of emotional intelligence is as important as the teaching of literacy and numeracy.

The Department for Education and Skills is spending £5m on a scheme designed “to promote children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills”. As one commentator put it recently: “It is more important to learn how to cope with anxiety than to know how to spell it.”

But is it? Children who cannot spell tend to feel anxious. It is the non-readers who worry every day that they are going to be asked to perform a task they cannot manage and so often take refuge in disruptive behaviour and truancy.

My own experience was different. I learnt to read early on and I still messed about at secondary school. But my behaviour stemmed from boredom, not the inarticulate anger of the behaviour therapists. Teachers who loved their subject, who had high expectations of behaviour and work, and who knew how to engage the interests of potentially stroppy boys had little trouble from me or anybody else.

Our schools are not blackboard jungles. Serious violence is, thank God, very rare. We do not need policemen in every school. But we do need teachers who can teach.

More than 80% of teachers canvassed in a recent survey by the National Union of Teachers said pupil behaviour had deteriorated in their time in the classroom. To say that the answer is for teachers to teach better is not to blame the profession — the reasons for poor behaviour are many and go far beyond schools. But it is to query the belief that schools should become quasi-therapeutic institutions where pupils are helped to be come more emotionally intelligent.

The more interesting the teaching, the better the behaviour. The more a pupil achieves, the better they feel about themselves. Self-esteem has to be learnt. The preoccupation with emotional intelligence is at best a distraction, at worst a dangerous indulgence.