“Educating the brain without educating the heart is no education at all” – Aristotle
The factors contributing to learners' academic performances in the educational institutions have been of concern for many years. Intelligent Quotient (IQ) has been commonly used as a determinant and associated with academic success. Many recent and emerging studies reveal that IQ alone is not a reliable predictor of a learner’s academic achievement, there are other various factors which also play an important role in the success process. Many educationists claim that emotional quotient is crucial to a student’s personal health, college success and claim that students with emotional intelligence skills are better able to cope up with demanding and complex college experience. Apart from contribution to academic success, a person with emotional intelligence is also said to perform better as a worker, contributing to organizations' productivity.
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability of individuals to recognize and understand their own emotions and as well as others’ and respond appropriately to them, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage or adjust emotions to adapt to the environment or achieve one’s goal. Emotional information is used to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and emphatically. According to Peter Salovey and John Mayer, Emotional Intelligence has been defined as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior."
It reflects abilities to join intelligence, empathy and emotions to enhance thought and understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflicts.
Emotional intelligence is the gateway to living a more fulfilled and happy life, as it allows us to understand and manage our emotions in order to self-motivate and to creative positive social interactions. All students experience frustration and failure through their academic journey. Managing frustration or failure depends on the strength to control negative thoughts and feelings. Ability to control emotions allows students to handle frustration well. The busy schedule of attending classes, assignments and examinations often make students unable to understand others’ emotions and forget to take care of their own mental health and emotions. Having high emotional intelligence helps to maintain a state of harmony in oneself and finally be more self-confident in dealing with the challenges of living and learning in educational institutions. However, students who lack emotional intelligence can become less connected to school, less confident and it negatively affects their performance in classroom learning. Emotions do affect how and what we learn. Being more aware of our emotions and reaction to it will help us in managing the stress and helps us to communicate better. Thus, emotional intelligence is an important stepping stone to success, both inside the classroom and beyond.
Teachers are the role models to the students and need to have knowledge to regulate emotions appropriately in the classroom. It is essential for them to pay attention to the emotional aspect of the teaching and learning process. The actions like inability to address students by name or to recognize the look of boredom, disinterest and confusion on learners’ faces can lose the opportunity for building a positive learning environment. The lack of emotional intelligence among teachers can seriously hamper the teaching learning activities. Daniel Goleman, a science journalist [1998] has identified five social and emotional competencies which make up emotional intelligence. These competencies are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills. Each of these competencies directly or indirectly affects the teaching and learning environment. Teachers in possession of these competencies can make the experience of teaching and learning memorable, enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. In this high techno driven society it happens to be a challenge for the teachers to be emotionally intelligent.
Acquiring emotional intelligence is a lifetime practice and possible to keep improving every day. Few tips to help improve and enhance emotional intelligence in students are:
# Self-awareness or being aware of one’s own emotions, behavior and feelings; identify and understand the reason for the way you feel.
# Practice the art of responding to the emotions rather than reacting and understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses.
# Have empathy towards others by observing others’ emotions, respond to others in a way that you would want someone to respond to you.
# Being flexible and considering self-evaluation.
# Communicate more to develop and maintain good relationships with others which will lead to positive effects in both the learning and social process.
# Dealing with exam stress as a natural reaction and taking it as a positive stress by focusing on their studies to accomplish their task or priority as a student.
Therefore, teachers need to effectively manage emotions, communicate, resolve conflict nonviolently, and make decisions sensibly and responsibly to help the students build emotional intelligence. Teachers can play a great role in enhancing students’ emotional intelligence, enabling them to handle their negative feelings or emotions effectively. In today’s fast moving society we give less importance to our emotions, and often forget to pay attention to our mental health, unknowingly hampering decision making or critical thinking process. Being emotionally intelligent and guiding students in enhancing emotional intelligence is considered to be a great challenge for teachers. Therefore let’s educate our minds as intelligently as our brains.
“There is no separation of mind and emotions; emotions, thinking and learning are all linked” – Eric Jensen
Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC Accredited UGC recognised Commerce and Arts College. The editors are Dr Hewasa Lorin, Dr Aniruddha Babar, Nisha Dahiya and Meren. For feedback or comments please email: dot@tetsocollege.org
