Emotional Intelligence – skill needed to succeed in life

THINK about the most successful, happy, well-rounded people you know. According to psychologists the chances are that one of the things these people have in common is Emotional Intelligence (EI), which experts now say may be a greater predictor of success than intellectual intelligence (IQ), despite a previous assumption that people with high IQ will naturally accomplish more in life. Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions and those of others, and to act appropriately using those emotions.

People with a high level of EI are comfortable with who they are and they make good friends or partners. They are able to show love, empathy and compassion; they’re good communicators and are pretty good at saying the right thing at the right time. They can express anger and are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in; they’re motivated, resourceful, creative, focused, good at working collaboratively and at setting and achieving goals. They’re positive about themselves, those around them and the future, and they understand the link between emotions, thoughts and actions.

Simon Percival sums up the skills emotionally intelligent people possess as being “peoplewise”. He believes we’re all born with the potential to be highly emotionally intelligent and says the skills can be developed with careful coaching rather than teaching in the traditional sense. After 10 years teaching in secondary schools and several years since in the field of self-development, coaching and training teachers in accelerated learning, he thinks emotional intelligence is an important piece of the educational jigsaw, and its use in the classroom will help teachers to develop happier, better-adjusted students who can thrive and gain fulfilment not only in the here and now, but also in their future life.

Percival has studied how children learn and the best ways of absorbing and retaining material for exams, work which he gathered into the popular book A Practical Guide to Revision Techniques. In among all of that, he wrote a children’s novel and became a life coach – helping people to understand goals and how to achieve them in different areas of their lives.

“I was going to conferences, reading research on teaching methods and became interested in the professional development of teachers”, says Percival, who lives near Skipton.

“My colleague Steve Bowkett and I developed coaching sessions in schools to show teachers and children how coaching EI fits into the so-called ‘wellbeing agenda’ and also fits into what education is all about – that is, helping students to help themselves to be the best they can be, including the best possible citizens.

“Emotional intelligence is important at home but also in school. You can be a very bright school leaver with lots of good grades, but if you lack emotional intelligence then you lack awareness of yourself and those around you, which means you won’t get the job you want because, for instance, you know nothing about working within a team.”

Lucky children will imbibe a certain amount of EI from their parents; others may not, so incorporating it into classroom activities is important, in his view.

Percival suggests that the games and activities outlined in his new book Coaching Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom fit in well with the agenda of Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education (PSCHE), or could be laced into subject teaching. One such activity is for the students to organise a debate in which individuals must discuss topics from a point of view that is different or opposite to their own. Many of the activities have a playful element (think of 70 questions about an everyday object like a mug; which of zebra, tractor, duck is the odd one out?), others involve improving observational skills, such as studying body language or learning how to understand meanings and feelings better by listening properly without distractions.

“The sessions we’ve done in schools have have been very successful”, says Percival. “Heads can see that fostering people skills, understanding feelings behind behaviour and encouraging a creative attitude all help to remove obstacles to learning. They develop interesting ways of thinking and bring children out, giving skills for life.”

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Coaching Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom by Steve Bowkett and Simon Percival is published by Routledge, £19.99. To order from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call 0800 0153232 or go to www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk