Develop students’ EI thru Life Skills curriculum

Teachers should focus on students emotional intelligence

From right to left: Dr Ali Albloushi, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, Dr Shaima’a Al Jaber, Mrs Seema Bhatnagar, Ms Abby Bell-Harville, Adnan Zuka, Dr Fahad AlJarah, Dr Oana Al Najjar, Ms Bandana Lazarus, Mrs Dawn Lee, Abdullah Al-Mahmeed, Denes Csulak, Dr Yasser Abdo Salm, and Joseph Aning.

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 18: Principals, school directors, and other officials participated at a workshop on developing students’ emotional intelligence (EI) through the Life Skills education conducted at Radisson Blu Hotel in Kuwait by Dr Oana Al Najjar, accredited Life Skills country trainer. Interesting information and interactive activities kept the participants engaged for the whole Saturday morning. The audience was divided into groups and involved in impromptu presentations, answering questions, illustrating concepts, and coming up with projects.

Life skills is an innovative educational program for schools created by Shahnaz Bahman, Bahraini writer and scholar. She has been in the field of education for more than 25 years and believes that Life Skills curriculum is a milestone in adding a new dimension to children’s education by teaching children how to be emotionally and socially intelligent. Educators should give serious consideration to children’s social emotional development and not to overlook it. Of course, teaching academics is important, but Mrs Shahnaz’s call is to go beyond academics. If social emotional development is neglected, it can have a huge negative impact on students. It can affect the quality of their lives and their performance at school. In some cases, they can suffer from depression, anxiety, pressure and become unhappy, and fail in relationships not just as children but later as grown-ups. Schools should graduate students with a well-rounded personality. It’s not just about teaching subjects, it is about teaching the whole child.

Awareness

Life Skills aims at developing children’s social emotional intelligence, creating safety awareness and keeping them safe online in general and on social media in particular. It is the region’s leading curriculum in children’s social emotional development, offered both in English and Arabic. Life Skills curriculum is currently being taught in over 30 schools in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Research shows that Emotional Quotient (EQ) is as important as Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in qualifying to secure a healthy career and life. Success depends 20 percent on academic intelligence and 80 percent on emotional intelligence, according to studies.

The main aim of Like Skills is to develop children’s social emotional intelligence and make them aware of their emotions and how to manage them in the right way. For example, if a child is getting frustrated, we want him to know he is getting frustrated. We teach the child how to calm down because when they are angry, they cannot act wisely. One needs to calm the brain first. By doing nothing, the child calms down. Life Skills also teach different types of calming down, including belly breathing. Students practise it in class, reflecting on something else or just counting 1 to 10, shifting their attention away from the matter, going for a walk or playing a game takes them out of the situation. When one calms down, one can look at the options available. Children are smart, they can think of options. With calmness, they are able to choose the right options. It takes time for children to move from a reactive mode to active mode and they need tools and skills.

Education

Life Skills curriculum is based on Goleman’s framework of emotional intelligence to ensure a strong theoretical foundation. Clear standards and learning objectives have been designed to achieve that. The standards are achieved through fun interactive activities such as stories, games, role plays, as well as arts and crafts, to mention a few. It consists of six activity books and a Teacher’s Guide and Assessment Tool Kit with each book. Teachers practising life skills tools in schools testified that the subject fills a huge gap in education. The act of sending children to school is to prepare them for real life, and real life is not just about reading and writing, said the educator. Real life is preparing for the challenges that life throws at us. You need to be emotionally stable to understand how you think and how you feel and most importantly how to manage these feelings. If you can manage your feelings, then you can manage your actions and your decisions. It is absolutely important not to ignore the social and emotional development of children. But if you are too busy with finishing the curriculum or completing books, then you lose focus. The focus should be on children’s development and learning, not on finishing the textbook.

The hours that children spend in school are priceless, as the children of today are the leaders or parents of tomorrow, and schools have a responsibility to prepare them for their future roles.Workshops on Life Skills can be conducted by the country trainer free of charge for the schools which are interested to develop their students’ emotional intelligence by applying the Life Skills curriculum. For more information you can contactadminkuwait@ lifeskills.email