Today there is a large percentage of educational centers raised as spaces for the transmission of knowledge for the intellectual development of their students. Many times they are based on a system increasingly outdated, ill-adapted to the needs of today’s changing society, and especially in relation to the mental health of its students.
Advances in neurodidactics and psychology show that no education is complete if it is not accompanied by a fundamental and transcendental process for any human being: .
In this article we explain why emotional learning is essential in any teaching process and the main benefits it offers, both to teachers and their students.
“Tell me and I’ll forget, teach me and I’ll remember, involve me and I’ll learn.”
Benjamin Frankling
In this video, Víctor Villalobos shares the main characteristics of an inspiring teacher, focusing on connecting with oneself, and explains how we can begin to be reference models of what we want to transmit to our students.
Why is emotional learning necessary?
Practical example: The case of Iván
Iván is in his third year of secondary school, first thing in the morning he has to give a talk in Biology class. He has been waking up intermittently for five nights, staying up late and eating at odd hours, like every time he is nervous about a situation that he does not know how to manage emotionally. If he does not pass, he may have to repeat the school year.
Your brain, like everyone’s, is designed to act in the shortest possible time and make decisions in the most effective and efficient way. He has interpreted this situation as “dangerous” and has triggered a series of physiological responses that prepare you for fight or flight. To do this, his body is invaded by biochemical substances that temporarily keep him in this exhausting state of alert.
What we call crisis is unmanaged learning
Ivan is going through a internal crisis or conflict, he is torn between what he thinks of himself and his real abilities, he must make a decision: in this case he chooses to fight and prepares to present his exhibition despite the fact that he is embarrassed to speak in public. He is focused on passing the course, knowing that his classmates can make fun of him, but at what cost?…
They have never taught him what to do in this situation, has skills and abilities too much to pass but their emotional state blocks them, inhibiting their academic performance.
Do you identify yourself or someone in your environment with this example?
What is Emotional Learning?
Definition of emotional learning
The Pennsylvania State University defines Emotional Learning as “a process through which children and adults effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand the management of emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive bonds, and make responsible decisions.. And it stresses the need for research into the practice and politics of emotional learning.
“What really matters for success, character, happiness, and life achievement is a defined set of social skills, not just cognitive skills…”
daniel goleman
The conflicts that we experience internally or with other people, arise from our way of perceiving what happens to us and to ourselves. Our perception is always an interpretation based on our unconscious beliefs. (“I am not worth enough”, “I do not deserve”, “I am not intelligent”…) and the emotions that emerge come from intrusive feelings and thoughts that we do not know how to manage, forming a loop that reinforces the belief, leaving us in a state of defenselessness. and paralysis.
It is therefore worth asking ourselves: What came first, the chicken or the egg, the thought or the emotion? How can we transform our unconscious beliefs?
What comes first, the feeling or the thought?
To answer this question, it is essential understand how our mind works.
In childhood there is no questioning of the family belief system, We take insecurities, wounds and as absolute truths. We accept everything taught as true, without a filter, since we depend on our ability to adapt to the environment to survive.
When we are adults, despite not being aware of them in many cases, These manifest in the form of emotions (sadness, anger, fear…) and we rationalize them through feelings and thoughts. We justify them through explanations, points of view and automatic reactions that we even come to identify as part of our personality. There comes a time when we realize that, although they can be useful in some cases, in others they limit us and get in the way.
Train emotional learning
How can we influence our emotions?
In this rational circuit, in this “realization” of the beliefs that we continue to hold since our childhood, it is precisely where we are able to intervene, on those traumas that sabotage us and lodge in the depths of our psyche, manifesting in the form of stressful or conflict situations.
This training is part of what we call Emotional Learning or socio-emotional, which initially starts from a awareness or a “realize”.
Is about identify the stressful situation, intervene on the thoughts that originate it and act progressively on it until achieving the necessary emotional balance to deal with it adequately.
This is where the intervention of a effective teacher, interested in going beyond the curricular plan. One that intervenes as that filter between the student’s beliefs and the outside world, a inspirational mentor that generates physical and mental spaces to experience emotions in a different way and act on them in favor of one’s own development.
This process of evolution and learning involves the use of a series of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills such as: self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, social skills and responsible decision-making, among many others.
3 Benefits of Emotional Learning
1. Increases academic performance
Emotion is one of the greatest learning resources
Neuroscience has shown that the emotions keep us curious They serve to communicate and are essential in reasoning and decision-making processes.that is, emotional and cognitive processes are inseparable (Damasio, 1996).
The emotional brain is responsible for creativity, memory and motivation, in the same way that it favors action, it makes changes in our lives last over time.
“… emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence… it is the intersection of both.”
david caruso
2. Its influence on the emotional well-being of the teacher and the students
The teacher plays a key role in the classroom, given his role as an example and a reference it is essential that he learns to manage his own emotional states, only then will he be able to guide and accompany his students to do the same. Human beings are a process in constant change and evolution: “we are not fully made” even as adults.
This openness to gives us the humility to recognize that not everything is said or done and, in this context, emotions serve as a calibration instrument that tells us where to tip the scales to achieve balance.
It is often said that: “Educating is teaching to fly while you are flying”, which is why it is so important to be aware of both processes that take place in parallel and in a bidirectional way, the teaching-learning that is generated, the personal responsibility that this implies and the opportunity to grow and teach that is in every teaching action.
“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning”
Diane Ackermann
An inspiring mentor is capable of:
- Motivate your students through a significant learning.
- Make your students feel that there is a genuine interest in them.
- employ a flexible and transversal methodology so that the knowledge is restructured and organized through the own interpretations that arise from the students.
- To promote values such as the collaboration and the cooperation by using various connection strategies.
- Invite your students to becomeexperts in themselves” by means of his own example.
- Generate the practice of intra and interpersonal skillsamong them: sincere and assertive communication, understanding of themselves and others, the capacity for forgiveness, the establishment of healthy limits, as well as respect for oneself and others.
- promote the critical and independent thinking as well as the free expression of ideas.
- Create a trust environment where he sits support for enough as for the student to show his abilities and personality.
3. It is applicable to the school system
For any student, the fact of being in a demanding academic environment where they must also interact with dozens of peers is a great challenge but, at the same time, a great opportunity to develop the skills that will enable them to function in society in the future.
The Aspen Institute (USA) National Commission for Social, Emotional and Academic Development has successfully implemented Emotional Learning through a project in some schools.
Thus, it has been verified that it can be effectively incorporated into a context of bonds of trust directed by competent and committed adults, including fathers, mothers and representatives of the community, through a mentoring focused on the student as a whole.
Conclution
Everybody sometime we exercise the role of educators or referents of others: whether at work, in our social system or in our own family, in one way or another we are participants in and responsible for the emotional health of our environment, hence the importance of self-observing ourselves, of doing an internal reading, identify our emotionsand with it break the habit of reacting automatically.
Without proper self-observation and self-criticism, we can continue feeding the same limiting beliefs throughout life, so crises and conflicts are welcome as they are the main excuse that drives us to question the usefulness and veracity of our convictions.
through the Emotional Learning are stimulated a series of intra and interpersonal skills that can be extrapolated to all vital areas and states, and thus have a positive impact on ourselves, as well as on our personal and professional environment.
In this line of work, from Institute of Emotions we have created the…