Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is often overlooked as a way to manage behavior in our schools and classrooms. What is emotional intelligence? It is the ability to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions. It is also the ability to handle interpersonal relationships with fairness and empathy. The five areas of emotional intelligence are social awareness, self-regulation, empathy, motivation, and social skills. 

Developing emotional intelligence among our students may give them the skills needed to contain certain behaviors. Imagine if educators are more understanding of their emotional intelligence and how it may affect teaching and learning in schools. It’s unchartered territory that is worth exploring. 

Learning Styles

One more step to eliminating chaos in classrooms is to address the learning styles of our students. One size doesn’t fit all. Using one or two instructional strategies will not meet the needs of all of the children sitting in front of you. If we do not match a student’s learning style, and he or she is bored, what will happen next? The student will eventually begin to act out or misbehave.

As educators, we should strive to understand how our students learn best or their modalities. The VARK modalities include: visual, audio/aural, read/write, kinesthetic, and multimodality. Adapt and modify lessons and activities to cover the learning styles and to decrease the temptation to misbehave. 

Self-Reflection

Teachers and administrators, we must be reflective about how we contribute to chaos in the classrooms. We are in a time where teacher wellness and self-care is becoming a priority. Burnout has many school districts scrambling to figure out how to keep teachers on the job. No one has a definitive answer yet. However, teachers blame students and school administrators. Principals blame teachers and district administrators. Blame is everywhere, but self-reflection gets lost. 

Most important is that educators strike a healthy balance between managing schools and classrooms and their wellness. Let’s self-reflect and see how we can eliminate as many stressors as possible and also be a support to our students. 

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