Emotional Education Could Be Just As Important As Academic Education
We’ve all been there, Smarties: someone next to you at school or during an activity does something that makes you really mad, or sad, or embarrassed. You can feel overwhelmed with your emotion and it can feel impossible to get back to focusing on what you were doing in the first place, whether it’s listening to your teacher’s lesson or concentrating at soccer practice. The good news is that now some people are starting to think that teaching kids (and adults) how to deal with their emotions could be incredibly beneficial to students being able to succeed at their academics, too.
One Washington state school, Lake Hills Elementary, is putting a practice known as The RULER Approach in place to help their students concentrate, lead, learn better behavior, and become more independent as a result of paying attention to their emotional selves. RULER, which was created at Yale University, teaches students how to Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate their emotions. As Stephanie Wright, who is the curriculum developer for social-emotional learning in the district, explained, the need for this kind of education makes perfect sense: “When a child doesn’t read well, we teach. When a child doesn’t do math well, we teach. When a child doesn’t behave well, we what? Often, it’s discipline.” RULER is a way for students to be taught how to process their emotions on the spot leading to less of a consequence after the fact.
The RULER Approach is steeped in science that is years in the making. First proposed by John Mayer and Peter Salovey — psychologists who coined the term “emotional intelligence” in 1990 — RULER is, in part, a product of ongoing research looking at the connections between emotions and learning. And while, according to administrators, some form of RULER has been part of most teachers’ lesson plan for decades, it’s useful that it finally has a name and uses reasearch to back it up. Educator Dan Sakaue explained to the Seattle Times, “You cannot do anything if you have smarts and you don’t have the social skills to pull it off.”
What are some ways that you process your emotions in school, Smart Girls? Do you think it would be helpful to have something like this taught to you and your friends in your classroom? Tell us in the comments.
Visit their website to “Dig Deeper” into The RULER Approach.
Featured Image Credit: Brochure for Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
