Emotional intelligence, is the ability to manage feelings
and relationships. Emotional intelligence refers to as “intrapersonal” and “interpersonal”
intelligences. Intrapersonal intelligence is an awareness of one’s own
feelings, motivations, and abilities. Interpersonal intelligence is an
awareness and understanding of other people and how to interact with them.
Emotional intelligence requires abstract reasoning, including the ability to
perceive and understand emotion, and the ability to understand how emotions
facilitate and influence thought. Researchers have found that emotional
intelligence can be taught and that children can be coached to develop the
tools and skills needed to manage their positive and negative emotions.
When testing for intelligence there are five skills
involved in emotional intelligence: being aware of one’s emotions, man aging
those emotions, motivating oneself, empathizing, and relating well with others
in a group. He explains that these skills can be learned just like any other
subject. By modeling, direct instruction, and coaching, teachers can help
students learn to monitor their own positive and negative feelings, handle
difficulties and frustrations calmly and without giving up, channel their
motivation to learn in positive ways, and relate to others in a supportive manner.
Self-awareness is an important component of
emotional intelligence that should be measured and assessed. Among the
attributes of self-awareness is the ability to recognize one’s own feelings.
Students and teachers may not always identify what they are feeling or
understand why they feel a certain way, much less what to do about how they
feel. . Teachers can facilitate this discussion during class meetings or during
one-on-one conversations with students, or as students work together in pairs
and groups. For young children, stories can provide opportunities to talk about
different emotions; for older students, journal writing may be a productive way
to help them identify complex feelings.
Being aware of one’s emotions is only one aspect of
emotional intelligence. The emotionally intelligent individual also knows how
to manage these emotions. Students will sometimes be frustrated or anxious when
they try to learn something that is difficult. Conflict resolution education
involves helping students process their emotions in productive ways when
disputes or disagreements occur.
A third area of emotional intelligence to be
measured and assessed is self-motivation, which is the ability to generate
feelings of enthusiasm, zeal, confidence, and persistence, especially during
setbacks. To be motivated, people need to value a goal and feel that, with
effort, the goal is attainable. Teachers motivate students when they develop
engaging lessons that connect to students’ lives, help students to see how they
can meet learning goals, and provide opportunities for their success
For productive exchanges in the classroom, and in
life, we need not only to be aware of our own feelings, we also need to be
aware of other’s feelings. Teachers can foster empathy by encouraging students
to remember what it was like for them when they experienced a similar
frustration. Teachers can also choose texts and select activities that enable
students to explore multiple experiences and different points of view.
All of the previous skills described being aware of
emotions, managing emotions, self-motivation, and having empathy for others are
involved as we engage in social relationships. Positive social relationships in
school working well with others and developing meaningful personal
relationships are often associated with positive academic achievement.
In addition, students who develop social skills
become team players and team builders, which is important both inside and
outside of the classroom. Teachers can facilitate positive relationships and
effective group interactions when they encourage a commitment to working as a group,
valuing each other’s participation, being mindful and caring of others, and
showing appreciation for team members (Preskill & Torres, 1999). Teachers
can also model ways to have students work together in groups, including taking different
roles, sharing responsibility, active listening, developing consensus, and reflecting
on one’s own and the group’s work (Johnson & Johnson, 1991).
Assessment is at the heart of education. Teachers and parents use text scores to gauge a student's academic strengths and weaknesses, communities rely on these scores to judge the quality of their educational system, and state and federal lawmakers use these same metrics to determine whether public schools are up to par. The demands of the today's world require students learn many
skills. A knowledge based, highly technological economy requires that students
master higher order thinking skills and that they are able to see the
relationships among seemingly diverse concepts. These abilities recall,
analysis, comparison, inference, and evaluation will be the skills of a
literate twenty first century citizen. And they are the kinds of skills that
aren't measured by our current high stakes tests.
In addition, I believe that skills such as teamwork, collaboration, and moral character traits that aren't measured in a typical standardized tests are increasingly important. We all know that the typical multiple choice and short answer tests aren't the only way, or necessarily the best way, to gauge a student's knowledge and abilities. Many states are incorporating performance based assessment into their standardized tests or adding assessment vehicles such as student portfolios and presentations as additional measures of student understanding.
It is my belief that these rigorous, multiple forms of assessment will require students to apply what they're learning to real world tasks. These include standards based projects and assignments that require students to apply their knowledge and skills. With these formative and summative types of assessment will come the ability to give students immediate feed-back. They also allow a teacher to immediately intervene, to change course when assessments show that a particular lesson or strategy isn't working for a student, or to offer new challenges for students who've mastered a concept or skill.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western
Hemisphere, has one of the worst education systems in the world. The current
education system functioning in Haiti is doing so with virtually no Government
involvement. Over 50% of school aged children, averaging well over 1.3 million,
do not have access to an education. Less than half the population of Haiti can
read and write, and Haiti has the lowest enrollment rate for primary education
in the Western Hemisphere. How can a country be expected to get out of poverty
and develop as a nation, if the majority of their population does not have
access to even a basic education? The country needs the support of Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) and International Organizations to provide support in
mending the Haitian education gap.
This is a school in Haiti
According to the most recent World Bank Haitian
Education Report, public schools can accommodate less than 10 percent of the
school age population. Unfortunately, the Haitian Government lacks the
necessary funds to provide a free public education to the Haitian children. It
is well acknowledged that the Haitian education system is far below
International standards and that the majority of school "facilities"
are beyond inadequate to provide a suitable learning environment. School
structures range from being made out of coconut and banana leaves to corrugated
metal roofs and concrete blocks. Many lack electricity, bathrooms, clean water,
food, first aid, benches, chalkboards, and daily classroom necessities. Haiti
is still incapable of educating over 50% of her school aged children an
enormous number of boys and girls with no hopes of receiving even the most
basic of education. Measuring and assessing children under these conditions can
be very challenging.
The point I would like to share with all my colleagues is that all children deserve to be served equitably by early care and educational services and, if needed, by intervention services. This requires that there e fair and effective tools to assess their learning and development and identify their needs. Conducting assessments for all children has
both benefits and challenges, but when it comes to assessing young children
from a cultural, ethnic, or racial minority group, unique concerns apply
related to issues of bias. There is a long history of concern.
References:
Reskill, H., & Torres, R. T. (1999). Evaluative
inquiry for learning in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1991).
Classroom instruction and cooperative learning. In H. C., Waxman & H. J. Walberg
(Eds.), Effective teaching: Current research (pp. 277-294). Berkeley, CA:
McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
