An Emotionally Unintelligent Approach to an Article about the Importance of Emotional Intelligence

This is very interesting. The attached article talks about the importance of social and emotional learning which sounds fine, but when you read the comments section you will see that at least three educators who wrote became quite upset after reading the article. As a recognized expert in the field of emotional intelligence, and a colleague of Marc Brackett, I know the importance of social and emotional learning and at least in the approach taken at Yale, the learning is designed to be integrated with existing curriculum. I also am a leadership consultant and I have worked with Marc and others from Yale and created what I call an Emotion Roadmap.

This is what is so interesting to me. The writer of this article wanted to share something important to the field of education and I imagine, hoped to inspire educators. At least in these initial responses she failed to understand how the article might make other educators feel. It is ironic that an article about such an important topic creates exactly the wrong, or at least unintended emotional response, among the first three educators to comment.

In my Emotion Roadmap I ask how are people feeling, and what would ideal for them to feel, and then put a plan together to create the ideal feelings. So if I were writing this article and had wanted to make a good impression with educators, I would have started by stating the obvious, "As excellent classroom teachers all over the world have known, the importance of social and emotional learning is critical to the overall success of the student experience. Researchers Brackett and others have now provided statistically proven evidence that this is the case." Then I would have added the rest of the text. Think how that would have or may have changed the responses. Chances are these three educators might still be somewhat annoyed that money was spent on this study but they would be satisfied that what they knew to be truthful is now supported by data from prestigious universities.