How to Develop Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom
Emotional intelligence (sometimes known as emotional literacy and quantified as EQ as opposed to IQ) is a form of intelligence that involves the ability to have an appropriate relationship with our own emotions and those of other people, to discriminate between them and then to use the information to guide our thoughts and deeds.
Knowledge bank
The research of US researchers Salovey and Mayer brought the term emotional intelligence into our thinking in the early 1990s. Daniel Goleman's groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ was published in 1995 and this further brought the concept into the mainstream.
Howard Gardner's work on similarly fed into the discussions about emotional intelligence in the 1990s, as it relates to Gardner's inter- and intra-personal intelligences. These are the ability to relate to others and to ourselves respectively.
Most writers on emotional intelligence seem to categorize the features of emotionally intelligent function in the following or similar categories:
- Self-awareness - Having objectivity about our own feelings and noticing them as they occur. This self-awareness is characterized by confidence, a sense of integrity, self-honesty, openness and appropriate levels of self-esteem.
- Emotional management - Constructively managing our feelings and recognizing the useful information that lies behind them is key. In particular, having due awareness of the values and beliefs that lie beneath emotional responses and the impact of experiences in both aligning with those values and beliefs and misaligning. Through this thoughtfulness we can develop constructive ways to handle our emotional responses. This does not mean suppressing emotions, but it does mean respecting them and being aware of the information they bring.
- Being a self-starter - This involves using emotions positively to reach the individual and team goals we wish for. We need to be emotionally aware enough to ensure that goals are motivating and yet balance our own needs with the needs of others. This enables us to delay short-term gain, to make progress towards our longer-term goals.
- Empathic relationships - Being sensitive towards the needs and feelings of others and understanding that people are different and have different needs. This includes being aware of, and handling other people's emotions competently and without allowing our own emotions to impact on this negatively. It also encompasses respecting and upholding the values and beliefs of ourselves and others in our interactions.
Developing emotional intelligence comes from the practice of encouraging reflection on our emotions and our actions. In classrooms this comes through seeking opportunities to use events within the classroom and also happenings in the wider world and asking reflective questions of learners.
Cath Corrie in her book Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, talks of Emotional Wisdom. She defines this as 'the ability to use our emotional intelligence to contribute to our families, our communities and to humanity as a whole'. She goes on to suggest that one of the most effective ways that children can learn emotional intelligence and develop emotional wisdom is to have it modelled by their teachers.
The practice of coaching has been described as 'emotional intelligence in action' and provides a set of principles and practice for teachers to become even more emotionally intelligent in their classroom responses.
Ask yourself
- What currently are your strengths in developing emotional intelligence in your classroom? What do you need to work on?
- How are you modelling good emotionally intelligent practice at school?
- What opportunities are there for encouraging further reflection on emotional issues in your classroom?
To do list
- Study one of the excellent texts on emotional intelligence.
- Reflect on your own emotional intelligence and consider what habits you would like to develop in this area.
- Seek an EQ buddy in a colleague or friend to help you both to reflect on emotional aspects of your work. It's particularly important to have an objective partner where your emotions are involved. Set up mutually agreeable ground rules for working together in this area, such as:
- stick to reporting what you observe, rather than what you think it means
- what is discussed between us, stays between us
- it's never personal . . . and so on.
Encourage this kind of buddying between learners, too.