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We have always heard of intelligence, just intelligence and very related to related to school performance, if you pass your exams and get good marks, if you are good at certain subjects, above all, Mathematics, then you are an intelligent person. However, being a good student is not a guarantee of success in life. Recent investigations point out that this kind of intelligence, the academic one, has nothing to do with happiness. There are different types of intelligence and emotional intelligence matters. We could give many examples about brilliant students who were " poor pilots of their private lives" : - A high-school physics teacher was stabbed with a kitchen knife by one of his star students. Jason H. was fixated on getting into the medical school of Harvard and he thought that because of a bad grade given to him by his teacher his dream would not come true. - When ninety-five Harvard students with high IQs were followed into middle age, those with the highest test scores in college were not more successful or happier in their lives compared to the other ones with lower scores. An interesting study done with sons of immigrants and boys from families on welfare showed that 7 percent of them with intelligence quotiens (IQs) under 80 were unemployed for ten or more years, but so were 7 percent with IQs over 100. There were some other characteristics such as being able to handle frustrations, control emotions, and get on with other people etc that much better explained the different destinies of people. So, as we can see data given, if IQ is not a good predictor of success, what is really important? In a experiment carried out with four-years-old children, a psychologist offered them a sweet, then he pretended he had to leave the room on an errand and told them that if they could wait till he came back and the sweet was still there he would give it to them and another one. On the contrary, if they ate it before he got back there would not be another. What happened? Most of the children ate the sweet while the experimenter was away but some children did many things to resist impulse, they covered their eyes, talked to themselves, sang, played games with their hands and feet and even tried to go to sleep. They managed to have self-control. Fourteen years later, the study showed that the children, now as adolescents, who did not have the sweet were more socially and even academically competent, they were better able to cope with the difficult situations of life and they were showing more signs of success in their studies. Why? Because they were able to delay gratification in order to get their goals in the long term and this is an ability that plays an important role in life. Emotional intelligence is important and the development of some habits might help us in this task.
Goleman´s emotional intelligence For Daniel Goleman, this ability together with some others are what he calls emotional intelligence. We do need them in order to live happily, and they are even more powerful than IQ to predict success. The list of these abilities includes: - being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustration Our schools and our culture fixiate just on academic abilities, ignoring emotional intelligence. Goleman expects that one day education will include inculcating these essential human competences so important for our personal destiny. And we agree with him : working on emotional intelligence in our schools is a must if we want to improve our student´s capacity to learn and to achieve a much more holistic approach of education. For this author we have two minds, two different kinds of intelligence: rational and emotional. Both of them are important but it is not just IQ, but emotional intelligence that matters. In this sense intellect can not work as its best without emotional intelligence, our ability to learn is related to it and they come together. "And while there are those who argue that IQ cannot be changed much by experience or education... emotional competences can indeed be learned and improved upon children if we bother to teach them.". Goleman´s work is accepted nowadays by a lot of people, but, regardless the success achieved by this theory, we can´t forget that, there are some critical interpretations of his proposal. And now ... would you like to test your emotional intelligence?. Have a look at these tests :
Gardner´s interpersonal and the intrapersonal intelligence Instead of emotional intelligence, Howard Gardner, in his theory of the multiple intelligences, distinguishes two kinds of intelligence related to emotions. He calls them "personal intelligences" and they are : the interpersonal intelligence and the intrapersonal one. The interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people, it is just the capacity to be sensible to the moods, motivations, feelings and desires of others. It enables us to work with them and listen to them in an effective way. Gardner identifies four abilities as components of interpersonal intelligence : - leadership. The talent of organizing groups , deciding what everyone has to do and say. - negotiating solutions. The talent of the mediator preventing conflicts or resolving them - personal connection.The art of relationship making and keeping friends - social analysis. Being able to detect and have insights about people´s concerns. The intrapersonal intelligence, according to Gardner´s definition, is the capacity to form an accurate, veridical model of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life. It allows us to reflect on our own experiences and understand our feelings. It is crucial for our lives the ability to get to know about our emotions and manage them. Being able to recognize feelings as they happen and name them helps us understand the cause and distinguish between emotion and action; if we can think about different alternatives and reflect on it, it will be easier for us to control them. Empathy and social competence play a crucial role in order to promote emotional intelligence anywhere, for example in the workplace. Being able to put ourselves in someone else`s shoes is an excellent way to learn about ourselves and others. We can see things from a different point of view and we have the opportunity to imagine what the other person might be feeling. Besides, the sensitivity to other´s concerns and the ability to act on that knowledge with the others is an important way to interact effectively with them, respect them and learn from them. And it is a good way to improve
The technique of the "spotlight" and more practical ideas. A twelve-year-old girl told in a class that someone had told her that her best friend wanted to fight her, instead of jumping to conclusions, she decided to find out what was going on. So, she went to the girl and asked her about it and her friend told her that she had never said anything like that. So they never had a fight. It was a real victory since the girl had already been expelled from another school for fighting. She had put into practice the technique of the "spotlight": Red light: 1. Stop,calm down and think before you act This a very practical technique for the classroom, but there are many more practical ideas for your lessons you can try out !
As we can see, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences are much more important than IQ. They are a better predictor of life success and our learning ability is determined by them. We will have to start by taking into account their emotions, by humanising our classes. Otherwise we will not be able to optimize our results. And it is not only isolated teachers' work. It is a much more global and coordinated work. Have a look at Edutopia's web site to find more information about the importance to involve the different sectors of the educational community and even society in this task. You access further information about the topic in the Wikipedia or the BBC website. There is interesting information in John D. Mayers's site too. And as Gardner says : "The single most important contribution education can make to a child´s development is to help him toward a field where his talents best suit him, where he will be satisfied and competent.We´re completely lost sight of of that. Instead we subject everyone to an education where, if you succeed, you will be best suited to be a college professor.And we evaluate everyone along the way according to whether they meet that narrow standard of success.We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competences and gifts,and cultivate those. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed, and many, many different abilities that will help you get there."
Goleman, D. , (1996). Emotional Intelligence. London, Bloomsbury Publishing. Goleman, D. , (2000) Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York, Bantam Books. Gardner, H, (1983). Frames of Mind: The theory of Multiple Intelligences. Nueva York, Basics books Branden, N. (1983). How to Raise your Self Esteem. New York, Bantam Books. Bandler,R., & Grinder, J. (1979). Frogs into Princes. Real people Press.
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