Intelligence is a multifaceted concept and many researchers concur that it has several components, including emotions. Hence, it is imperative for everyone to have a balance of IQ and EQ in order to be healthy functioning individuals. While IQ is something most of us have read and learned about as well as worked tirelessly to strengthen, today the focus on enhancing our EQ is becoming increasingly important too.
So, how did the words Emotional Intelligence come around? What is EQ or EI? EI otherwise known as EQ was a term coined in 1990 by two psychology professors, John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale and was later popularized in 1996 by Dan Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence. It was Daniel Goleman who termed EI as the ability to recognise, understand and manage our own emotions, and those of the people around you. He further suggested that EI is learned and not inherited, which is one of the reasons why many schools across the globe have felt the need to incorporate a curriculum that focuses on building social and emotional learning needs for its learners.
International schools in Mumbai too, have come to an understanding that learners who have a higher EI foster better resilience, awareness, and empathy. These learners emerge into leaders who are then able to take control of their emotions and actions, thereby, growing personally as well as professionally.
Also read, Striking a balance- It’s time to integrate emotional intelligence into our school education policy.
With this view in mind and emphasising on the importance of an emotionally stable individual, the Aditya Birla World Academy, best a level school in Mumbai, is constantly working towards balancing a learner’s IQ and EQ. We strongly believe that EI or EQ is just as important as IQ. Our team of mental health professionals, keeping this vision in mind, have developed and deliver a mental health as well as social and emotional curriculum called Minds Matter. This curriculum has been influenced by the 5 key characteristics of EI as shared below:
- Self Awareness – The ability to identify one’s own emotions and their impact on others. Self-aware individuals are able to navigate through life’s challenges more effectively and build stronger relationships as they are able to respond to situations efficiently. With the help of the Minds Matter curriculum, the learners are able to keep a track of their emotions, identify them and observe different responses. It also encourages them to be open to different ideas and experiences. Our school also celebrated the Happiness week, which looked at releasing happy hormones through different activities for its stakeholders. Happy individuals = aware individuals.
- Self Regulation – It includes being flexible, coping with change, managing conflict and impulses. It also refers to managing one’s negative or disruptive emotions and being aware of how one’s actions affect others and taking ownership of those actions. Apart from the curriculum, which also looks at building resilient, flexible and accommodating individuals, ABWA also holds events that motivate the learners to look at strengths and weaknesses through a different lens. One such event the “Failure Week” carried out for our stakeholders, focused on helping the learners identify their limitations and regulate their thoughts, behaviours, and emotions in a way that would help them see their failures positively and celebrate failure.
- Social Skills – The ability to manage the emotions of others through emotional understanding and using this to build rapport and connect with them through skills like active listening, verbal and non-verbal communication. ABWA emphasizes the importance of EI not just for its learners but also for other stakeholders – like parents and teachers. Through various workshops and seminars, it ensures that parents develop a sense of understanding towards their children and are well abreast of ways to connect with the ‘now’ generation. This helps in building a safe space and rapport between them, which strengthens their bond and builds happier relationships. Learners at ABWA took to conducting different campaigns and activities, which allowed them an opportunity to connect with others in the society on an emotional level.
- Empathy – It is the ability to recognize and understand how others are feeling and consider those feelings before responding in social situations. This is one attribute and skill that we constantly foster in our children right from the primitive years because we firmly believe in its value in one’s life. We have for this reason created a team of learners (Mental Health Champions) and trained them in providing preliminary support to their fellow learners during tough times. These learners support our team of mental health professionals at ABWA by helping them identify those learners who need support, but are not able to break away from the stigma surrounding mental health issues. It is a pivotal role in not just identifying but also extending the initial support that would bring in comfort.
- Motivation – Motivation can be two-fold: extrinsic and intrinsic. At ABWA, we are constantly striving to aid our learners to focus on achieving internal or self-gratification as opposed to external motivation. This is simply because self-motivated individuals are those who are able to motivate themselves and hence, are more focused as well as committed. This is something the school extends for its teachers too, who undergo the Connect 101 program to motivate the learners to set and achieve goals. The teachers push them to identify their skills and achieve their goals with a desire to excel, which is not solely based on the rewards it will bring in, but also on their abilities as well as potential.
