I read an article recently called "Children Need Social & Emotional Skills For School Success" which states that "Elementary school teachers report that it is hard to teach children who are not interested in learning, lack confidence in their own abilities, and have trouble cooperating and controlling themselves."
The article was written for child care professional encouraging them to teach social emotional skills in order to help prepare children for kindergarten. The skills they mentioned were things like following directions, focusing attention, self control, taking turns, working alone and in a group and problem solving without aggression.
Those who decide on our national education policy often refer to social emotional literacy (SEL) and character education as soft skills. "Soft skills is a term associated with Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), the personality traits and habits that characterize one's relationship to themselves and others. These experts contend that while EQ does compliment "hard skills" like IQ and occupational requirements, it can't be tested or quantified so it should have a secondary role in the education of our children.
This is a classic example of putting the cart in front of the horse. Basic character traits are needed for learning to take place. Learning how to read, write and do arithmetic requires that students have a foundational understanding of respect, responsibility and resiliency. A cart without a horse is essentially useless, as it trying to force feed children a curriculum without first teaching them the character traits they need to sit still, focus and pay attention.
There is an ongoing debate about the malleability of IQ but there is no such debate about EQ. IQ represents potential while EQ represents the skills necessary to turn potential into reality. If IQ is basically a fixed point, why not spend more time and treasure on the soft skills a person needs to be a functioning member of society at whatever level they're capable of participating and contributing.
IQ or EQ, which is the cart and which the horse?
I am sorry, but I feel that you people are trying to replace the basic unit of society- the family. Try as much as you can, what a child learns in the loving circle of his parents arms and at his grandparents knee, without any resistance, cannot be taught, nor facilitated nor induced to be learnt in the formal environment of a school.
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to raise strong citizens, invest in strengthening familial ties. Teach your men to be responsible fathers and husbands, your women to be tolerant wives and patient mothers.... everything else will fall in place.