PASSION
Emotional Intelligence and Competitive Achievement
Academic achievement is mainly about memorizing content in three specific areas: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Traditionalists throughout the twentieth century have called it the 3 R's of learning. Most standardized written tests consider these three areas the heart of learning. Over the years academic high school graduation has required the 3 R's, social studies, and science courses. For entrance into some colleges and universities the addition of a foreign language is a requirement.
The questions for the achieving high school student are, “What do academic degrees mean to me, and what am I going to do with them in my life's work?” For most students, an academic degree or degrees from a respected institution of higher education means an opportunity for a respected job with a decent salary, benefits and retirement package. From preschool through graduate school, most academic administrators feel they are doing well when they graduate students from their respective institutions, balance their annual budgets, and operate their respective educational systems within the rules and regulations of their respective state departments of education.
Will students entering the 21st century need more information than academic degrees provide? There are some authors that have written volumes about emotional intelligence, and the priority of emotional intelligence over academic and athletic competition. Others promote a two-year high school with students entering the workforce or entering college at age 16 thinking that most of high school academic time is spent “treading water.”
The parents who are advocates of home-schooling report that they can cover the academic material at each grade level with three hours of work daily. Parents who home-school their children report on average that they can complete their home school responsibilities from 8:00-11:00 a.m. Monday through Friday. Students who are home-schooled are taking standardized tests as prescribed by the respective state departments of education to affirm that they are at grade level and achieving at the appropriate level. I have yet to find a home-schooling situation that was not working. Either the home-schooling situation works or the child moves into a full time school situation.
The primary teachers of each child are their parents and their extended family. These relationships for each child are the most powerful and the most convincing. Only when this relationship is strong can the child effectively move out of the family and into other learning environments like school, church, and community activities. Families are looking for opportunities where their child can receive strong teaching and guidance in their family's values, mores, and priorities in life. The church or synagogue is one source for many families, but most children spend much more time in school-related activities than church-related activities.
Some schools are involved in “affective education” with “Quest” programs where students and teachers can share life on a deeper emotional level and begin looking at the importance of emotions and relationships in life and how to effectively express one's feelings about a variety of relative topics. Students and teachers can greatly enhance the quality of their learning environment within the school setting by exploring and learning about the importance emotional intelligence and the quality of the relationships between people in their environment regardless of age, race, gender, economic status, or religious preference.
For decades students have established an informal "caste system" or "pecking order" of their peers within their school based on a variety of observations including: academic achievement, athletic accomplishment, physical appearance, group commitment, economic status, and social popularity. As a result, students organize cliques based on interests and status. In some schools, formal clubs, informal clubs, fraternities or sororities enforce the concept of separate and unequal which makes high school terrific for some students and horrific for others.
Schools continue to re-enforce this concept with elite team competition in both athletic and academic pursuits further alienating students by ability levels. These elite teams remain “extra-curricular” and outside the school day curriculum but have high priority among administrators, coaches, students, and families. The most successful students in these elite extra-curricular school programs many times return to re-enforce this concept as coaches of the next generation of students in this philosophy.
As we enter the 21st century, schools continue to be primarily about academic achievement and academic testing in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics during the academic day schedule. However, schools may be strongly encouraged by families and by local town employers to expand their focus beyond the basics of academic and athletic competition and begin to look towards the higher thinking skills that prioritize interdependent thinking, emotional intelligence, listening skills, and group dynamics.
For most students, the major problems and stress they face from day-to-day originate with their emotional reactions to their feelings about specific situations in their life. The rite of academic achievement from elementary to middle school, from middle school to high school, and from high school to the university is important towards building a career, but many psychologists have noted that seldom do victims of terminal illness talk about their career, job, or problems that remain in their in-basket at the workplace. At this dramatic time in their lives, individuals focus mainly on the quality of their personal relationships and their contributions to family, friends and community.
Many authors have said that we live in a left brain world while seeking right brain goals and objectives. Others have said that the left brain was created to figure what the right brain is doing. Others report that the right and left brain are not so simple and so clearly distinctive. It is all about balance in life. It is often quoted that the only enemy in life is ignorance. Thus, academics have a prized place in our culture as primarily a left-brain pursuit, but the students of the 21st century are looking in new directions for higher level right-brain experiences that extend far beyond the old legally required academic requirements for graduation.
In hindsight, the 1983 education report titled, A Nation at Risk, should have encouraged local school districts to design new entrees for high school graduation, rather than recommending larger portions of the same old menu. The outgrowth of this report and the state mandates for more of the same has been a growing expansion away from the public schools towards home schooling, charter schools, Edison Schools, and private schools.
An education that has value has to provide a total experience for the total child who is going to experience the totality of life. Families, schools, churches, and communities must continue to work together as a beautiful rainbow to pool their local resources to provide every child in their care the best comprehensive education possible. There has to be more concern about the emotional development of children, especially in grades 5-9. The challenges of the 21st century are going to require students to know more about emotional problem-solving and not just academic problem-solving.
How will students reflect on their education in 2020 or 2040? One's education is surely about the long term return on the investment of time, energy, and achievement. It is difficult for young students to understand the long range implications of their commitments and responsibilities at school, home, in the community. This is where parents and teachers must be most concerned about the lives of students after 3:00 p.m. and not just what happens between 8:00 am. and 3:00 pm.!
The topics of love, caring, giving, forgiving, sharing, and sacrificing for the right reason are the major topics for long range thinking. Grades in English, mathematics, science, social studies and foreign language are important for survival thinking, but the goal is to balance the knowledge in one's life in order to see the value in both survival and higher level thinking.. The spiritual values of each family, church, and community must balance with the academic and social expectations of each local school district. Only with this balance can society meet the needs of each child in the next century and each generation for the next millennium.
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