A shift in attitudes within the school system has been steadily gaining traction over the passing decades, with views on what might constitute an effective education growing to include a curriculum expanding its focus from solely academic subjects to other areas of personal development too.
The benefits of physical health have long been recognized by schools, with P.E being a prominent part of the curriculum in the UK and events like ‘Sports Day’ being widely embraced by teachers, school leaders and parents alike. Along with Physical Education, the development of personal and social qualities in children has been gaining increasing focus too.
The increasing emphasis towards emotional and personal well-being in schools reflects the changing public attitude on childhood development shifting away from chiefly academic concerns in recognition of other important factors in what could be considered a well-rounded, healthy upbringing.
Concepts such as ‘Emotional Intelligence‘ have found mass-appeal among parents and teachers; while ‘intelligence’ as a concept has usually been defined along the lines of academic ability, a lot has been made of the fact that many successful individuals obtained only poor academic achievement earlier in life. This discrepancy between ‘intelligence’ and success seems to cast doubt on the monolithic importance of concepts such as ‘I.Q’, with many researchers and studies pointing to ‘E.Q’, or ‘emotional intelligence’ as an essential counterpart.
Emotions are a central part of life and being able to recognize and manage your own as well as those around you is a valuable life skill; even teachers, who must manage a wide array of emotional states from their students in the classroom, benefit from an increased focus on nurturing E.Q at schools, where understanding emotion is important in dealing with disruptive or challenging behavior as well as in their ability to connect with their students. But what is ‘Emotional Intelligence’ and how can it be taught?
This concept of a second type of intelligence is relatively recent, gaining recognition as an increasing number of studies have begun researching into it. As a psychological concept it describes the minds capacity to recognize and control one’s own emotions, as well as the capacity for empathy and the perception of other people’s emotional states. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and scientific journalist, formally defined it as ‘understanding one’s own feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living’.
Considered a valuable skill, ’emotional intelligence’ has been linked with personal and professional successes in life, affecting how we make personal decisions and how we navigate social situations. Essentially the more emotional intelligence someone has, the better they are able to effectively interact with the world around them, putting them in an advantaged position over people with low ’emotional intelligence’.
Research into the role ‘E.Q’ plays into academic success has also shed further light on its importance – emotions have a stronger impact on human behavior and thinking than the older school curriculum accounted for: one example is when people feel themselves to be in a high-threat situation (such as during an exam, encounters with bullying, etc,) their emotions tend to take precedence over rational thought, a situation that Goleman terms an ’emotional hijack’. Emotions such as anxiety and stress can effect abilities to rationalize and think properly and effect a students ability to receive information or apply themselves in class. Emotional states undeniably come into play while in a learning environment and so the case for developing emotional intelligence in young people is a strong one.
These multiple benefits to a more emotionally-focused curriculum have resulted in schools changing their curricular approach globally, with a proliferation of various “social and emotional learning” programs being taught.
“Social and emotional learning”, abbreviated as SEL, has spread throughout various education systems in the USA and other parts of the world. These classes teach children how to recognize and label their own emotions and those of others around them, as well as a variety of related social skills.
In the UK, ’emotional intelligence’ has also influenced an increased focus on classes in personal and emotional development – with ‘personal, social (health) and emotional education’, more commonly abbreviated as PS(H)E, receiving increasing focus in secondary schools.
This isn’t new; the idea that emotions play a central role in learning and that the ability to manage them is crucial to success and well-being can be traced far back along western and eastern philosophies. While it is natural that some people are innately more emotionally intelligent than others, emotional awareness skills can be taught and learned, particularly during critical periods such as infancy and adolescence. With schools re-evaluating their responsibility to include help in assisting other areas of childhood development, ‘emotional intelligence’ or ‘emotional literacy’ , as some prefer to term it, are becoming increasingly important concepts to pay attention to.