Preparing Students Emotionally as Well as Cognitively

This week’s article summary is Today's Students May be Unprepared Emotionally.

About five or six  years ago I heard a report on NPR that the three primary indicators of future student success were cognitive ability (IQ), parents’ economics status, and self control. Of those three, the only one that was malleable and teachable is self control.

This was a major ‘a-ha’ moment for me as a teacher. Throughout my teaching career,  I had tried to foster whole-child (cognitive, physical, social emotional) development in my students, yet I still placed IQ at the top of the list for why kids succeed in school and life. 

The NPR report followed by Paul Tough’s book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character radically changed my view of education where today I know that while IQ matters, emotional intelligence (EI) matters more.

The article below focuses on how much pressure and stress students (especially high schoolers) are under and how little we all—parents, schools, society in general—do to help them develop a healthy perspective on life and achievement within today's expectation of  a 4.0 GPA, 1600 SAT scores, and a plethora of extracurricular activities. 

While students today run themselves ragged trying to check off all the boxes above in competition to get into the most prestigious college/university possible, the result is often a child emotionally unprepared to deal with college let alone a global workplace. They’ve focused so much on external achievement while neglecting to develop their sense of self.

Getting As is achievable, but doing the following is a mystery to many students: finding work/play balance in life, embracing the ambiguities/grayness of America and the world at large, productively working with others who have different experiences and beliefs. 

As the article below attests, we aren’t doing enough to help today’s students develop their EI.

Joe

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Regardless of all the honors classes and A.P. courses they took in high school, or the science, technology and engineering classes they cram into their college curriculum, students today will not be fully prepared to compete in an increasingly global business environment.

The problem — and the solution — is not intellectual. It’s emotional.

American teenagers are in psychological trouble. For the first time, college students today are facing more stress than their parents, according to a recent report by the American Psychological Association.

The evidence is all around us. American teenagers attempt suicide more often than youths in most other countries, and they are among the world leaders in violence, binge drinking, marijuana use, obesity and unhappiness.

A  recent survey  found that more than half of college students experienced overwhelming anxiety and about a third felt deep depression during the academic year.

How can they learn and thrive if they do not have the skills to handle their emotions or feel safe and supported enough to talk about them?

Emotions drive learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships and health. Mastering the skills of emotional intelligence paves the way for greater well-being, better relationships and overall effectiveness — for college students, for students from kindergarten through high school and for the adults who surround them, including educators and parents. The Nobel laureate James J. Heckman has written that teaching “noncognitive” skills, including recognizing and regulating emotions, would be a cost-effective way to increase work force productivity and quality.

Teaching emotional intelligence — or what’s more broadly referred to as social and emotional learning — to children and adults has proven effective—-and sorely needed.

Given that, it’s frustrating that policies to mandate and finance evidence-based approaches to social and emotional learning are slow to come. A few states, including Illinois and Alaska, have acted on their own. Leaders in Washington and across the nation need to listen to youth and work to change education to equip America’s youth to be competitive for the global century well under way. Our future — and our children’s future — depend on it.