Emotional intelligence in the classroom

Academic Exchange Quarterly, Summer, 2002 by Melody D'Ambrosio

Abstract

Due to the increase of students with learning disabilities, emotional disorders and behavior disorders, there are more students in the classroom lacking self-control and having higher frustration levels. This article addresses the importance of Emotional Intelligence and the integration of it in the classroom in order to help these students cope with their everyday lives. The importance of these skills, which contribute to success in life and the ability for special education students to learn them, are discussed in research presented in this article. Finally, specific techniques for implementation in the classroom are presented.

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The special education population is increasing especially in the areas of specific learning disabilities, health impairments and students with emotional disturbances ... the number of students with specific learning disabilities has more than doubled since the 1979-80 academic year (Whorton, Siders Fowler and Naylor, 2000, p. 290). There is also the issue in special education due to Public Law 94-142, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which creates the mandate to educate these students in the least restrictive environment (McLeskey, Henry and Axelrod, 1999, p.55). The combination of the increase of students and the need to provide services in the least restrictive environment creates a complex problem for teachers in classroom management and social interactions.

Emotional Disturbance (ED) is the term used in Federal law and regulations to describe those receiving special education services for emotional and behavioral disorders as taken from the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (LaRocque, Brown & Johnson, 2001, p.60). These children are at risk for traumatic stress disorder, mood disorder and anxiety disorder. Students with learning disabilities have normal or potential normal intelligence but manifest disabilities of perceptual, conceptual or coordinative nature (Learning Disabilities Association of America, 2001). This disability includes those with ADHD. Those students with this specific disability can "exhibit substantial social competence deficits and difficulties in interpersonal relationships" (Gresham, Sugai & Hornet, 2001, p.331).

Students with emotional disturbances and learning disabilities can lack self-esteem, display poor social skills and experience troublesome interpersonal relationships with peers and and with authority. They are prone to impulsivity and immediate gratification, making classroom interactions quite difficult. Their deficiencies in academic performance compound the problem raising the level of frustration for student and teacher. The increased presence of students with disabilities coupled with the current laws for servicing their needs produces a problem for teachers in classroom management. These are students with specific academic needs but also who lack coping skills and social skills for productive classroom interaction. This dilemma challenges both the special education and general education teacher.

Goleman (1995) investigates emotional intelligence as a different type of knowledge. Emotional intelligence is the ability to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and to empathize (Goleman, 1995, p.34).

   Emotional intelligence is a different way of being smart, it includes
   knowing what your feelings are and using your feelings to make good
   decisions in life. It's being able to manage distressing moods well and
   control impulses. It's being motivated and remaining hopeful and optimistic
   when you have setbacks in working towards goals. It's empathy; knowing what
   the people around you are feeling. And it's social-skills-getting along
   well with other people, managing emotions in relationships, being able to
   persuade or lead others (Goleman, 1996, p.6).

Social skills is one element of emotional intelligence (Pool, 1997). Social skills instruction targets very specific skills and try to improve behaviors and enable emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's own thinking and action (Mayer & Salovey, 1990, p.433). Howard Gardner (1983) similarly describes this essence of intelligence with the Interpersonal and Intrapersonal intelligences of his Multiple Intelligence Theory. Gardner (1983) states that the Interpersonal intelligence is to know oneself and the Intrapersonal is to know others. "The personal intelligences amount to information-processing capacities- one directed inward, the other outward ... and is inalienable a part of the human condition as is the capacity to know objects or sounds ..." (Gardner, 1983, p.243). "A person with good interpersonal intelligence has a viable and effective model of himself or herself" (Gardner, 1993, p.25). This is essential for modern daily living.