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We came across an article by Courtney Martin on GOOD that explored the inclusion of "social emotional learning" in the education system as a way to reform schools to make teachers more effective and students more successful. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) teaches children how to identify and manage emotions and interactions.  Emotional Intelligence Quotient or EQ is defined as the ability to identify, control and evaluate the emotions of oneself and of others, and use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.  Some researchers claim that EQ can be learned while others say that it is an inborn characteristic.

The article focuses on empathy, a quality that seems to be often neglected in our increasingly interconnected and multicultural society. Marc Brackett, a Yale research scientist, and his team at the Health, Emotion and Behaviour Lab at Yale, developed a training program - called RULER - to instruct teachers in the skills, knowledge and attitudes required for emotional health, and then helps them to shift the focus to children.  He learnt that developing empathy in kids requires working on their teachers first.  Brackett explained, "You have to think about what motivates students to want to learn. If you know how emotions drive attention, learning, memory, and decision making you know that integrating [SEL] is going to enhance those areas.”

Brackett was driven to learn about emotional learning by his own experiences of being bored and bullied in school. “I think back to being 12 years old, sitting in 7th grade, having kids push me, bang my fingers in the lockers, draw on me with a pen, and no one was doing anything about it,” he says. “I didn’t want anyone to stand up for me, I just didn’t want it to happen. We have to make people more empathic.”

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