‘Raise your hands if you think emotions matter’
Emotional intelligence researcher Marc Brackett spoke Thursday about the importance of teaching emotional intelligence in the classroom. He presented at the Young Child Expo & Conference via Skype after his flight out of New York was canceled.
“I’m on a mission,” Brackett said. “Raise your hands if you think emotions matter.”
He was one of the keynote speakers for a three-day conference hosted by Gonzaga University School of Education and Los Niños Services.
Brackett’s talk emphasized the importance of understanding what children are feeling instead of focusing only on behavior. For example, he said, many boys act out of anger when in fact they’re feeling disappointment. These are two very different emotions and it’s important a distinction is made, he said.
“That’s why we say it’s so critically important to understand what’s going on inside the child,” he said.
Brackett is a senior research scientist at Yale’s Edward Zigler Center in Child Development & Social Policy, he’s also the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Brackett, along with others, have developed emotional intelligence tests and resources. His program, RULER, is being used in schools across the nation, including Seattle, Bellevue and Tacoma.
RULER helps students and staffs recognize, understand, label, express and regulate emotions effectively. According to Brackett, schools that emphasize emotional intelligence have higher test scores and less disciplinary problems.
“Classrooms with higher emotional intelligence (scores) have students that are more engaged,” he said. “I hope that you believe integrating emotional intelligence into your schools can make a difference.”
Aftan Lissy is studying counseling at Gonzaga. She said Breckett’s theory or emotional intelligence makes intuitive sense to her. She hopes she can integrate it into her career when she graduates.
“Just understanding why the children are having the emotions they have is so important,” she said.
Wendy Dominguez works for Family Services near Moses Lake. Like Lissy she said she hopes to implement aspects of Brackett’s research into her own work.
The conference continues through the rest of today and tomorrow. There are about 500 registered attendants.
