The Importance Of Emotional Education In School

It is said that social and emotional skills are indicators of a person’s ability to adapt to their environment and to change. It is also said that emotional skills are a good indicator of an individual’s future success. We will therefore take a look at why emotional education in school is so important.

Basic skills such as social ability, emotional stability, sympathy and awareness can be as important as intelligence, perhaps even more so – especially when it comes to what a person will do in the future.

It can be difficult for teachers to find effective ways to prioritize emotional and social skills in school. It is not easy to know how to teach these abilities or how to evaluate them. However, it is important to keep in mind that teaching emotional skills is not just a transient trend. We need to learn to pay more attention to emotions and treat them as another priority in the classroom.

Emotional education for life

Children should always have the opportunity to learn social skills and how to manage their emotions during their education in school. Emotions are a part of every moment of life, around the clock. We handle and live with emotions all our lives. They need to know how to handle them.

Emotional education directly contributes to the success and happiness that the child will experience as an adult. In addition, the school for many children is the only place where they can compensate for any shortcomings in these areas. They may come from loveless or troubled families or may for some other reason lack certain resources at home.

Combine emotional education and academic development

The education can combine teaching of both emotional abilities and academic subjects. This would, on the whole, improve the quality of learning.

The students then learn how to become more efficient in school and also when they then enter working life as adults. Better emotional control and awareness would generally also improve tomorrow’s society.

Studies on emotional education in school

In Ready to Lead , a report produced by an organization called the Collaborative for Social, Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL) in the United States, the researchers presented the results of their study on emotional and social intelligence.

They found that emotional intelligence helps prepare children for life and that it can have a positive effect on schools. There is plenty of data that supports the importance of emotional education in school, especially in connection with academic development.

The report also cites a meta-analysis from 2011 where it was found that students who work with their emotional education in school perform better academically. Their grades are 11% higher than those who do not receive any education focused on their emotions.

The report also addresses advances in neuroscience that show how important it is to teach emotional intelligence during childhood for an individual to feel emotionally well for life and to be able to handle trials in the right way.

What do teachers think about working with emotional education in the classroom?

According to the CASEL report, there is great interest in developing emotional intelligence among teachers, educators and school leaders. Principals in particular seem to be showing great interest in developing methods for teaching emotional intelligence.

When will it be a priority?

Although the majority of stakeholders in the school agree that emotional education is important, the subject tends to fall into the background. Teachers normally show a greater interest in the purely academic than in children’s overall development.

It is hopefully only a matter of time before more focus is placed on emotional education. We hope that in the near future we will be able to see it more integrated in the school.