Emotional Intelligence in Education

26 نوفمبر 2022

Goleman drew attention to the link between educational success and emotional and social competence in 1995, and he pointed out that emotional intelligence is more important than the average IQ for success in various areas of life, including the educational and academic fields.

Based on this importance, studies of the possibility of teaching emotional intelligence skills and making it a part of the curricula, whether primary or advanced, have begun because of its great importance in influencing educational and academic achievement rates.

Despite all this importance, the experience of integrating emotional intelligence skills in education is still limited in popularity, and it has not received much support in this regard.

Before proceeding to the importance of emotional intelligence and its role in education, we must first know what is meant by the term emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Definition:

Emotional intelligence is defined as one’s ability to recognize, categorize, control, and manage their emotions in a positive way, in addition to the individual's ability to recognize and empathize with others' feelings, and to identify the causes and motives for their behavior.

Based on this definition, we can realize the importance of these skills in many areas, such as emotional intelligence in education and emotional intelligence in children and adolescents. These skills effectively affect the adoption of effective educational strategies in order to apply them in the school setting.

What is the role and importance of emotional intelligence in education?

Parents, teachers, and students all want to know the personal qualities that can help students do well in their studies.

Although the quality of education, the availability of educational resources, and environmental factors play a large role in achieving good results for students, the personal qualities of students can give them an advantage over others.

However, research shows that emotional intelligence can give students an added advantage. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotion.

Many studies have shown that emotionally intelligent students get better test results and better grades. This is due to several reasons:

They have the ability to overcome exam anxiety.
They possess the ability to communicate well with teachers and peers.
They have the ability to identify and categorize their feelings, and to put those feelings in the service of their academic goals.

Emotional intelligence in the teacher:

Since it is teachers who are responsible for structuring the minds of future generations, the expressive connection between teacher and student has become necessary as it lasts forever. However, the teacher has some limitations to communicate with students on an emotional level.

It is the teachers' responsibility to develop tomorrow's students with a positive and constructive attitude towards life, hence the importance of emotional intelligence for a teacher.

In simple and clear words, we know that emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your individual feelings, as well as understanding what others are saying to you along with the feelings of the people around you.

This means that you, as a teacher, must have a self-awareness that makes it easier for you to identify feelings by managing your feelings. Emotional intelligence helps develop the teacher’s professional performance. Emotional intelligence also helps develop healthy communication and achieve better success in working with students.

Today all over the world and in all sectors including education, the importance of emotional intelligence has become more enduring. Various teacher training programs are now developing their curricula by considering emotional intelligence as one of the most important factors for teacher professional development.

Emotional intelligence builds a sense of self-awareness among teachers so that they can categorize their own emotions and the emotions of students. This also makes it easier for teaching professionals to identify their feelings and thoughts, know their strengths and weaknesses, and create self-confidence.
Emotional intelligence enhances teaching practices in today's evolving world of education. It helps build an effective relationship between the teacher and the student. Also, through emotional intelligence skills, different types of conflicts and misunderstandings between the teacher and the learner can be resolved if the teachers are emotionally capable and intelligent, and this is vital; This is because the current complex education system requires the teacher to excel in relationship management in order to communicate beneficially with the fruitful teaching and learning process.
An emotionally intelligent teacher who applies emotional intelligence skills knows how to run a classroom more successfully. The teacher can deal with the students' various issues in a correct and proper manner, and has the ability to create a useful classroom through which they achieve the lofty learning goals.

Emotional intelligence in children:

Think of a moment in your childhood that was particularly emotional. For example, anxiety about getting on the bus by yourself for the first time, fear of moving to a new city and sadness of leaving your friends behind, moving to a new school, or changing your class, and other situations that can affect every child without exception, and here it is necessary to raise some important questions:

How did your parents help you?
Did they offer relief?
Did they talk to you about the experience?
Did they pay attention to your feelings and help you express them effectively?
Did they cut back on the experience and let you figure things out on your own?
Who was there to help you through these feelings?

Whether you are a father, a mother, or a teacher working in the field of teaching, before you make your decision to transfer emotional intelligence skills to children and work to provide them with those skills, you should stop for a while and consider the following:

What is the best way to teach emotional intelligence to children?
How can you help them develop self-awareness and empathy?
How can you help them connect better with others?

The answers will depend on a number of factors. With emotional intelligence becoming increasingly embedded in school curricula around the world, it is important to work on teaching children emotional intelligence skills.

What is emotional intelligence in kids?

As children grow, parents and teachers can teach them emotional intelligence skills at different rates. There is no single, neat, linear model to summarize what emotional intelligence skills should look like for children of all ages, but there are steps to teach children emotional intelligence skills:

Developing emotional awareness of their own feelings first, and then the feelings of others.
Teaching them to recognize, identify, or perceive feelings, in addition to understanding what feelings are.
Teaching them to understand what their facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc. mean.
Teaching them to describe feelings as well as to name feelings. They will learn how to use emotional vocabulary to convey what they are feeling.
Teaching them to empathize with the feelings of others.
Teaching them to control and manage their emotions, and learn and apply knowledge about when it is appropriate to act or respond when they feel something.
Teaching them to understand what causes feelings, either in themselves or in others.
Teaching them to understand the links between emotion and behavior.

Emotional Intelligence in adolescents:

Emotional intelligence is a worthwhile set of skills for a teenager, as these emotional skills increase the intellectual flexibility of the adolescent, provide them with self-awareness, and help them develop healthy and sound relationships.

However, the important question is:

How do you know if your teen is really emotionally intelligent?
Or what should they improve?

If you need to dig deeper into your understanding of emotional intelligence, its many benefits, and how to tell if your teen is actually showing signs of emotional intelligence, here are the top tips for teaching emotional intelligence to teens:

1. Talk openly about your feelings:

The first step to develop emotional intelligence in teens is to talk openly about feelings. For example, outdated phrases such as "boys don't cry" stifle emotional intelligence and development and promote toxic masculinity, so if your family tends to sweep feelings under the rug, it is time to take steps to get everything out in the open.

2. Describe the feelings:

Talk about feelings in everyday conversations at the dinner table. You and your family can traditionally start by asking each other “How was your day?” But start your responses with: “Today I felt X because X” or “Today I did X and it made me feel X”; This is a simple way to start recognizing and validating feelings.

It may seem a little strange at first, but it will become natural to you and your family. Simple exercises like these will help your teen think about how you feel in certain situations, people, or events. Recognizing feelings is the first step toward understanding how to manage them.

3. Encourage self-awareness:

Once your teen is able to recognize their feelings, they will begin to anticipate how and why certain situations might make them feel and react. This kind of insight can be very valuable, especially if your teen has other mental health conditions, such as anxiety.

A conscious adolescent can confess when something makes them feel a certain emotion. For example, your teen may feel anxious when meeting new people. Once they know this about themselves, they will be able to see upcoming situations. They may start to worry and learn to prepare for it. For example, when they join a new sports team, preparing for emotional responses can effectively manage emotions and perhaps even adopt strategies that reduce their anxiety.

4. Help them manage their feelings:

Your teen can now acknowledge feeling certain emotions and can identify situations that will trigger an emotional response. The next step in teaching emotional intelligence to teens is managing emotions. There are some great tools you and your teen can try together to help manage feelings.

Help them find the best way to manage their heightened emotions. They might play video games to de-stress after exams or have a creative outlet like drawing or playing music when they're feeling down.

If they know they are getting into a situation that will make them feel emotional, they may try some soothing breathing techniques beforehand to prepare themselves. The important thing is that they can:

Recognize the moments when they feel heightened emotions.
Recognize when a potentially emotional situation may arise.
Develop processes that will ease the blow of these feelings.

5. Demonstrate good listening:

Emotional intelligence is not just about being aware of one's feelings, but also by empathizing with the feelings of others, and we perceive the emotions of others mostly through sight, and the expression on people’s faces and the way they act are often the strongest indications of their feelings. Being a good listener is crucial to understanding and empathizing with what others are feeling, yet it is very important to tell your teen that they don't have to put up with other people's feelings to show empathy.

On the other hand, empathy is about the ability to understand and relate to what another person is feeling. However, there are "knowledgeable and compassionate" forms of empathy that allow you to connect with an emotional person without being consumed by their emotions, and often the best way to do this is by listening and realizing.

Teens may find it too easy to get caught up in other people's feelings, and they are at risk of impairing their emotional stability and mental health. Therefore, teaching them to be a good listener will allow them to recognize emotionally charged situations with others and show them that they can be supportive without taking on the weight of others' feelings.

Sometimes what teens going through tough times need is someone to sit with them and listen, and often they don't need a response, advice, or reassurance. Just validating someone's feelings and showing support by allowing them to vent verbally can be enough.

You can teach your teen to be a good listener by showing it to yourself. If they need to rant about something that happened at school, listen patiently, remember to validate their feelings, and exercise your cognitive empathy by trying to put yourself in their shoes and understand their frustration.

Your teen will pick up on your listening skills and hopefully emulate that in their relationships with others. Some young people may need a more explicit push toward practicing good listening. If your teen falls short when you talk to them, remind them of the importance of listening and have an open conversation about mutual respect and sympathy.

Over time, your teen will learn to rationally empathize with others by being a good listener.

6. Practice:

It can be hard to teach emotional intelligence to teens, but be patient and persistent. As with any other skill, developing emotional intelligence takes time and practice, so continue to recognize feelings in everyday conversations.

Developing emotional intelligence early will help your teen transition smoothly into adulthood, strengthen their relationships, and can improve their resilience to life changes.

Emotional Intelligence in raising:

You serve your child's favorite breakfast - crunchy cornflakes - on their favorite plate in the favorite seat at the table, and what do you get in return? High pitched "I hate cornflakes!":

"But this is your favorite breakfast, you told me so yourself!"
"I do not want it".
"But you happily ate it last week!"
"I do not want it".

And so it continues.

Isn't it frustrating that you can't get your child to see why when you can't help them understand difficult logic?

You can't win all the parenting battles with common sense, but rather, dealing with children requires a lot of awareness and empathy.

Emotional awareness and the ability to manage emotions is the cornerstone of emotionally intelligent parenting, and promoting children's healthy emotional development will determine their success and happiness throughout life.

Emotionally intelligent parents can help their children learn these skills, and this is what actually sets them apart from adults who don't practice these skills:

1. To take care of themselves:

Parenting is one of the most difficult roles in the world. Emotionally intelligent parents are self-compassionate, and they realize they need to keep their cup full.

Realizing that emphasizing their well-being will make them more patient, happy, and energetic. They recognize that their needs are valid, and they invest resources in practicing self-care. Also, when they find themselves stressed, they take steps to correct course and prioritize.

2. They focus in communication:

Creating a connected parent-child bond is one of the top priorities of emotionally intelligent parents, and our modern lives, which are characterized by their stress and distractions, make us feel stressed and separated. Contacting with our children seems to be marginalized when all matters are concerned, yet communication with our children - full presence with them in the moment and focusing 100% of our attention on them - doesn't take much time.

3. For emotionally intelligent parents to enrich their relationship with their children:

This is by creating small moments of connection, by performing daily (or weekly or monthly) rituals, or by creating special memories together.

4. To practice emotional training:

Training your child on feelings includes helping them recognizing and naming their feelings, as well as enabling emotional regulation. Emotionally intelligent parents do not reject or criticize their children's feelings, but rather, they view their children's difficult feelings as opportunities for empathy, communication, and education. They also enable their children to discover strategies for dealing with emotionally difficult situations.

5. To be disciplined to teach, not punish:

Discipline involves teaching your child what you expect of them. Emotionally intelligent parents focus on setting boundaries, on the consequences of breaking those boundaries, and on respecting, for they are not disciplined to punish. They understand that consistency and support go a long way in helping children adhere to rules and boundaries. They also understand that yelling, ignoring, or punishing may all lead to desired results in the short term, but in the long term they do not enable children to learn the skills to manage their behavior.

6. To develop intrinsic motivation for their children:

Intrinsic motivation is the ability to carry on with a task despite obstacles and without seeking approval from others. Emotionally intelligent parents help their children set goals “whether these goals relate to academics, chores, hobbies, or even recreational activities.” And by helping their children visualize the steps needed to achieve these goals, they reinforce their children's efforts in the task rather than the outcome, and they teach and design a love of challenge and perseverance in the face of difficulties.

7. To inculcate values in their children:

Values are the beliefs that each person considers important to themselves and to humanity as a whole.

Because they deeply influence our behaviors, attitudes, and decisions, values are essential in parenting. Emotionally intelligent parents work to define and communicate their own values to their children, yet they realize that simply telling their child to be more honest, hardworking, grateful, or compassionate doesn't work in a way that is better than telling adults. They design the values they support, categorize, and promote the expression of values, discuss why they make decisions based on their values, and encourage their children's initiatives that express emerging values.

Returning to the example of a child, emotional intelligence can be used. Instead of saying, "I know you love cornflakes! It's your favorite breakfast!", an emotionally intelligent parent says: "You seem disappointed about cornflakes for breakfast, you're in the mood for something different"; Emotionally intelligent parents acknowledge their child's difficult feelings.

Emotional intelligence strategies and their applications in education:

Teaching children how to manage their own emotions and respond appropriately to the emotions of others is an important part of education. To accomplish this task, many teachers incorporate social and emotional learning programs into the curriculum.

These programs are not only effective in improving students' emotional intelligence, but they are also programs that prevent bullying and increase academic success. However, most importantly, students begin to realize that their emotional intelligence is just as important as their academic success.

With the above prospects, it is clear that emotional intelligence improves educational training in the twenty-first century. By understanding the need and importance of emotional intelligence, it can be said that emotional intelligence is one of the main capabilities that a teacher needs to become a successful teacher in the twenty-first century in the development of emerging education, and teachers must be emotionally intelligent if they really want to survive their career as teachers.

How can we benefit from emotional intelligence in school?

Some skills are not taught in school, but this does not prevent them from being important, and among those skills that may not be taught in school are emotional intelligence skills.

Emotional intelligence gives an important advantage to students at all levels of education, and it prepares them for a bright future in their professional lives, hence the importance of using emotional intelligence skills in school and universities.

But why is emotional intelligence particularly important to students?

When you can understand and manage your feelings, you are more likely to get good grades on school or college tests. Emotionally intelligent students are better equipped to deal with negative feelings that may disrupt learning. Emotionally intelligent students are distinguished from others by:

They can quickly overcome exam stress and continue to answer questions.
They can beat boredom and stay focused on dull topics.
They can avoid obsessing over a disappointing degree and instead focus on improving next time.

In conclusion:

With the progress we live in our modern world, we have to know that emotional intelligence skills are no longer luxury skills, but rather, they have become basic skills that every one of us must have. No matter what job role we play, we can’t deny the benefits of emotional intelligence to teachers, educators, parents and even employees, managers and leaders. Emotional intelligence skills have become one of the most important pillars of success in life and in dealing with its variables.