Emotional Intelligence

Today was a day to take a step back from the classroom frontline and spend some time with my colleagues reflecting on Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is at work in our relationships with our colleagues, parents and students. It is crucial to many of our interactions with parents, colleagues and students and ultimately helps us to understand them and why they are behaving in the way they present.
Something I am a seasoned practitioner at is greeting students in the morning as we start the day. Before the bell I make sure the doors are open and the space is welcoming to parents and students. As each student comes into the space I greet them with a simple good morning or how are you. All students reply, some stop for a small chat, others share a gem of a story about their morning and some just smile. I find this gives me the chance to know before we sit down together who I need to follow up on and catch up with as soon as we are settled with learning. Maybe they have come to school tired or have had a challenging morning at home, maybe they have something they want to share that’s exciting. Whichever it is, it’s a springboard for settling my students into the space with expectations whilst also valuing them and their moods and feelings.
Today’s Takeaway
One of the interesting parts of our day was looking at how a behaviour is like an iceberg. What we see presenting as behaviour is only 10% of what that child is experiencing. The underlying moods, feelings and experiences are the other 90% (just like most of the iceberg is under water)
So next time a child is having a meltdown, take a small moment to pause and think about what might be motivating them and how best you can help them to move through the emotion they are feeling in order to develop their emotional intelligence and become well rounded citizens of our community. Along the way you will have the added bonus of increasing your own emotional intelligence, so it’s a win-win situation.