USEFUL TEACHING IDEAS FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS
Emotional Intelligence
Can we teach our students to become sensitive to their own feelings?
We have an inner sense of equilibrium. It is easy to upset this inner balance. If we hold our breath, the imbalance becomes uncomfortable, then painful….
Within the pulse of life is pain
Where bodies sway and right again
Our bodies are only really wise when they are able to feel unwell; to feel pain. Without this capacity, we cannot respond efficiently to disease. Dis-ease is an imbalance in our internal rhythms. Many meditation and relaxation techniques begin with attending to the body; to the breathing, to noticing aches and pains. In order to deal with a problem, we first have to become aware of it.
The sense of our own inner equilibrium includes the experience of pain and pleasure, gravity and levity, and states of energy and lethargy, which we move through during every normal day.
We often minimise children’s experiences of this inner sense. When they feel unwell, we tell them not to worry. When they are hurt, we do not ask about their pain, but instead ask them, optimistically and suggestively, if they are ‘alright’. The stoic is valued at the expense of the sensitive. Perhaps our ability to express our emotions is limited by this early training.
In literature, emotion often takes centre stage. Are we able to fully access it? Bill and Bob watched TV together as adolescents. Bill grew up without a TV. He was teased by Bob whenever they watched a horror movie, as his whole body would respond to the movie. Sometimes he almost jumped out of his chair altogether. But whose was the inappropriate reaction, Bill’s animation, or Bob’s lack of response?
To watch violence without reaction is to silently agree to it.
Story Medicine, Horst Kornberger 2006
Ayurvedic practitioners say that what makes us healthy or unhealthy is not just our organic diet, but also our diet of popular culture, video, audio, news, and even our own thoughts, feelings, words and the company we choose to keep. In the same sense that poor literature can be unhealthy; good literature, and a well-developed sense for it, can be health-giving. It leads us toward values and themes that transcend cultures and speak to our inner striving as human beings.
Our ability to make good choices in life is supported by our sense of wellbeing. Paying attention to our body’s messages is a practice that can develop our further sensitivity, and thus improve our ability to choose.
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ES011© Sean David Burke 2010. Free to Copy as is.
Sean is the author of Lighting the Literacy Fire: Creative Ideas for Teachers and Parents
Earthside Blog Index
1. Get a Grip: Starting the Day with a Handshake
3. Teach Something Meaningless
5. The Teacher as a Sower of Seeds
8. A Succession of Memorable Experiences
9. Writing Verses for Your Class
