EQ In Education

The Importance of Developing Emotional Intelligence

As I see it, there are many reasons to develop a child's natural emotional intelligence. For example:

Dealing with threatening situations
Helping others
Conscience and Moral Autonomy
Happiness
Mutual respect, cooperation, empathy
Responsibility
Individuality

I have written about each of these in my EI in my parenting section.

link

So called "Disruptive" students and behaviors

A thought on "disruptive behavior" - if a student were to start bleeding, would the teacher call this "disruptive behavior"? If the seats the students are forced to sit in were electrified and sent shocks to the student, causing him or her to scream out in pain, would this be considered disruptive behavior? But for the student who "disrupts" the normal class, the student is typically in some kind of pain.

Pain from boredom, pain from needs not being met. Why have the teachers chosen to call a student's pain and needs "disruptions"? Maybe the teachers like to label students and behavior as "disruptive" because the teachers themselves are actually the most direct cause of the pain and the unmet needs. For example, when a student needs to get up and move around and the teacher won't let him. In this example, I would say the teacher is causing the student pain. By labeling the student disruptive when he tries to move to stop his pain, the teacher avoids taking the responsibility for causing the pain. If a student is bored to the point where it starts to become painful, so he tries to make the class more interesting by talking, telling jokes etc., are we to blame the student for this. too?

I don't believe this is helping society. This pain and these unmet need cause problems outside of the school building

See Unmet Emotional Needs

Individual Differences and Innate Needs

Here is a very good quote about education and differing individual needs.

Respect for differences requires an "agricultural" model that focuses on individual nurture and cultivation due to innate needs. We use differing methods for growing cabbages and azaleas. And, there is no problem over which way is better; one isn't right and the other wrong. Anyone would call a farmer a fool who planted them in the same place, and gave them the same fertilizer, sun and water. We value each, and, knowing they will not thrive unless needs are met, we respect their different natures and accept their special requirements.

From: Choice as a Way to Quality Learning, Nancy Reckinger
www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_197901_reckinger.pdf

Consequences

My Comments on Natural vs. Fabricated Consequences

Alfie Kohn's Chapter on Punishment and Pseudochoices

Comments by Norma Spurlock

Article by Teresa Pitman (also saved as edu_art1.htm)

EQ News!

EQ News! was a publication started by EQI for those interested in elementary education Here are the issues which were published.

EQ News! Vol. 1, Issue 1

Contents

Editor's Perspective	Interview with Peter Salovey
What is Emotional Intelligence?	School Profile of the Month
What Have Studies Found?	Consultants Corner (S. Hein)

Presently, the other two are available in printed form. I may put them on line at some point in the future. The contents are as follows:

Issue 2

How Teachers Become Emotion Coaches-- Interview with John Gottman

Whose Needs and Feelings are More Important? -- Steve Hein

Peter Salovey interview continued.

Issue 3

Spotlight on a Social Development Program

Part 2 of Interview with John Gottman

Expanding Emotional Literacy-- Steve Hein

Low Emotional Intelligence Among Head Teachers?

A consultant in the UK wrote this letter to a colleague,

Susan,

I recently did a study of UK Head Teachers. There were 109 Heads in my sample and I looked at emotional intelligence alongside a number of health parameters, school size and type of school.

As there are different ways that MSCEIT data are scored, I am re-running the results as the emotional intelligence scores were much lower than expected.

(Actual letter posted on EMONET, May 11, 2004

Links

Alfie Kohn (his guestbook is very interesting reading)
Taking Children Seriously
http://www.naturalchild.org/home/ - Lots of good articles and resources on alternative and progressive child development
Article by Romesh Ratnesar, Time Magazine, 1997
http://www.noogenesis.com/malama.html - Good collection of resources
www.antidote.org.uk - Organization in the UK which is promoting emotional education
http://nonclb.blogspot.com/ - Site opposing the No Child Left Behind law in the USA which is forcing more standard tests

Alternative Schools, Alternative Education

http://www.creatinglearningcommunities.org
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com - Ann Zeise's site

http://www.idenetwork.org International Democratic Education

http://www.educationrevolution.org/ Education Revolution - AERO (Alternatve Educ. Resource Organization) Jerry Mintz

http://en.idec2005.org/ International Democratic Education Conference

http://www.davidgribble.co.uk/ David Gribble

In conventional schools children are literally prisoners: the law keeps them in. Learning according to inclination is not an option; children's inclinations are not considered relevant; adults tell them what they must learn. They make the best of it and enjoy themselves as much as they can, but they are always under someone else's authority, unable to conduct themselves as they would wish, unable to follow up their own interests. School seems to be designed to destroy their individuality, to turn them all, as the Swiss teacher, Jürg Jegge says, into cogwheels that will fit smoothly into the machinery of society. David Gribble

Resources, Reviews, Recommended Reading

Under construction - High School Course Outline

Responsibility Training, by Norma Spurlock, 1996

How Children Fail, John Holt (Based on a journal of classroom observations. His conclusion is that children fail because they are "scared, bored and confused.")

From Childhood To Adolescence, Maria Montessori

To Educate the Human Potential, Maria Montessori

Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn (Very heavily research-based. A bit difficult to read/very academic. Basic conclusion is that all forms of extrinsic motivation are inferior to intrinsic motivation. Even rewards fail to motivate in the long run.)

Emotional Development of Young Children: Building an Emotion-Centered
Curriculum (Early Childhood Education Series) by Marion C. Hyson

Trying Freedom, Richard Meisler (A college teacher's experience in giving his students more freedom.)

Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish, the Birth of the Prison", and John
Taylor Gatto's "6 Lessons of a School teacher."

Miscellaneous Thoughts and Quotes on Education

Schools turn beautiful children into ugly adults.

Steve Hein

If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.

John Holt

I had a major struggle; I had a teacher’s certificate and realized for the first time in my life that I was not an educated person. I was this person who had gotten wonderful grades and knew nothing, who had very few skills.

Grace Llewellyn
Author of "Teenage Liberation Handbook"

If emotional and intellectual life are one, the same, there is no conflict. If we keep these spheres separate, we set limits on both education and intelligence.

Stanley Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind: And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence

"The role of the teacher shifted from being a guide to being an "agent" of the ruling classes. Through using repetition and rigid instruction, teachers train students to obey, to learn passively and to compete against each other. Like a soldier, or a policeman, the teacher uses discipline, which manifests in a constant demand for silence and a refusal to allow pupils to dissent, as the tools to shape classroom culture and student behavior."

From "The Handbook of Alternative Education", by the National Coalition of Alternative Schools (NCAS) Contacts: (505) 474-4312; Jerry Mintz, 417 Roslyn Rd. Roslyn Hts, NY 11577, Phone (516) 621-2195
--

Abstract: Daniel Goleman's bestselling book 'Emotional Intelligence: Why It
Can Matter More Than IQ' has influenced many school systems in the US to teach
such values as kindness and people skills. Proponents of emotional learning
curriculum say its helps children both academically and socially.

Patrice Edwards teaches second grade at Beecher Elementary, a public school in
New Haven, Conn., where most of her students wear maroon-plaid uniforms.
That's the first indication that something unusual is going on. Here's the
second: on a recent September morning, as the 25 children in Edwards' class
sat cross-legged on the floor passing a big blue ball around, they whispered
compliments to each other. "You're a nice speller." "You've got pretty hand-
writing." "You are a good artist." A soothing calm settled in the room. For
the moment, traditional academics were nowhere to be found. Edwards says the
kids are learning deeper truths. "We are teaching them values that are
universal," she says. "Being kind to a person--that's something all people
need to do."

This is school? Kindness is an ancient virtue, but the idea of formally teach-
ing six- and seven-year-olds to give compliments in an inner-city public
school is brand-new. In New Haven all students from kindergarten through high
school take part in the district's Social Development Program, which weaves
"emotional learning" exercises--like the ball-rolling game--into the fabric of
an ordinary school day. School officials say problem-solving and
stress-management skills are as essential as literature and long division to a
'90s education. "We believe it needs to be comprehensive, just like science
and math," says Merrie Harrison, a seventh-grade teacher. "Every child, every
school, every year."

As many as 700 school districts across the country have instituted programs
that aim to nourish students' souls as well as their minds. And while the best
teachers have long taught kids to behave and play fair, they now have science
on their side. In 1995 psychologist and New York Times science writer Daniel
Goleman published Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ,
which contends that children's ability to recognize their own emotions,
empathize with peers and deal with crises--their "emotional quotient," or
EQ--influences their life chances as much as native intelligence. The book,
now a paperback best seller, has had a catalytic effect. Rutgers psychologist
Maurice Elias, a pioneer in emotional education, says he fields endless calls,
E-mails and faxes from interested educators. "There is credibility now given
to taking time in the school day to carry out this kind of work," he says.

For many teachers, this new focus is welcome. The forces driving students to
distraction have never been stronger. Says Goleman: "If you are a kid who
wants to avoid depression or violence and not drop out, academic topics will
have nothing to do with it." Marylu Simon, school superintendent in Highland
Park, N.J., says many children arrive at school "simply angry from some situa-
tion that has happened at home. It affects their ability to come into the
school, sit down at their desk and be ready to learn."

So Highland Park sixth-graders are taught to act as cool-headed "peer
mediators" who swoop in to resolve tussles among their peers. At Hazel Valley
Elementary School, outside Seattle, misbehaving students go to principal Bar-
bara Walton's office not for a scolding but for a questionnaire that asks them
to identify the classroom problems they caused and to generate solutions.
"It's nice to have discipline that's problem solving and not just punishment,"
Walton says.

Some parents bristle at such squishy, New Agey techniques. At its worst, they
say, emotional learning verges on therapy sessions for third-graders. "I don't
want my children talking about my family's problems in the classroom," a
Highland Park father said at a school meeting. But EQ gurus such as Professor
Roger Weissberg of the University of Illinois in Chicago say students in the
best programs have shown not just "more positive attitudes about ways to get
along with people" but also improvements in critical-thinking skills. And in
New Haven, teenagers say they're witnessing less violence, toting fewer guns
and having sex later. Admittedly, better behavior does not ensure academic
achievement. But American schools will take good news where they can find it.

-- End --

InfoTrac Web: Expanded Academic ASAP Int'l Ed..

    Full content for this article includes illustration and photograph.

   Source: Time, Sept 29, 1997 v150 n13 p62(1).

    Title: Teaching feelings 101. (teaching emotional intelligence)
   Author: Romesh Ratnesar

The education quote is often attributed to Haim Ginott. From my research though it appears Ginott was not the author of it, he just had it in one of his books.