school management number of days of the month , and you ’ ve got to make that whole pivot again . You are standing there worried about your own health . Will you catch COVID ? Will you take it home to your elderly parents , or your partner , or your children at home , and so on ?
So I think you had a profession that was already under high levels of stress , we know that from years of looking at levels of occupational stress in teaching . And then we lay on top of that large changes , and concerns about health that affected not only the workplace , but the home life , as well . And that ’ s really what ’ s contributed .
How do you define emotional intelligence ? And why is it an important skill for everyone , not just teachers , to have ? To really answer that question , I ’ d like to invite everyone to step back and think about the important role that feelings play in our lives . There are three very important parts of ourselves that feelings influence . Firstly , the way we feel influences our thoughts and the decisions that we make . You wouldn ’ t go and ask your boss for a pay raise or more resources if your boss was in a bad mood , right ? They ’ re much more likely to say no .
Secondly , the way we feel turns up in our behaviour . It shows up in our tone of voice , in our facial expressions , in our body language . And because of that , feelings are fundamental to how we connect , how we collaborate and how we communicate with each other .
Decades of research in organisations , both within and outside of schools , has shown that the way staff feel at work influences the way they perform . People perform at their best when they feel valued , cared for , consulted , informed and understood . People perform their worst , on average , when they feel worried , depressed , inadequate , uncertain , stressed and mistreated .
Because of this link between the way we feel and the way we think , behave and perform , being aware of the way you feel , the way others feel and being able to manage and respond to your emotions effectively , and being able to positively influence the way others feel , is something that ’ s just fundamental and tantamount to your enjoyment at work . It also influences your skill at work , your skill at communicating effectively , collaborating effectively and performing effectively .
Research on levels of emotional intelligence in workforces have shown that organisations with high levels of emotional intelligence amongst their workforce generally show improved productivity and efficiency gains over their colleague organisations . But they also see intangible asset values improve , like lower levels of stress , and emotional wellbeing and burnout . We see greater levels of employee engagement and satisfaction with their work . We see less absenteeism , less stressrelated leave claims and so on .
Why do you believe that developing educators ’ EI skills , in particular , is critical for our education system right now ? For two reasons . Number one , students learn best at school when they feel valued , cared for , consulted , informed and understood . And many different students have different learning styles . The window into whether a teaching style is working for a student is in the subtle emotional displays that a teacher sees in a student .
You know when a student ’ s not engaged in their work because it ’ s evident in their behaviour and how they ’ re carrying themselves . It ’ s evident in their body language , their tone of voice and their facial expressions . They ’ re all emotional signals . So these skills help a teacher pick up on the emotional state of their students , and either change their approach to best meet the learning styles of the student , or indeed , help them think about the fact that they need to do something differently for their student in order for that student to reach their potential . And that on scale , and on mass , leads to better student academic outcomes at school .
The second reason why it ’ s so critical is because teaching involves high levels of emotional labour . It involves empathy . It involves this intunement , if you like , with the emotional state of students and being able to influence it accordingly . That level of stress and emotional labour requires high levels of emotional intelligence in order to cope well with it , and in order to perform well within that environment .
What kinds of activities are involved in EI training ? Is it an ongoing process , or a one-off experience ? I find schools and organisations that do this well do it in a longitudinal development journey-type program , as opposed to a one-day event . That ’ s simply because
These skills help a teacher pick up on the emotional state of their students .
in order to really develop emotional intelligence skills – being more emotionally self-aware , more empathetic and emotionally aware of others , being able to regulate and manage your emotions effectively , to express how you feel effectively , and being able to positively influence the way others feel – if you start giving tools and techniques for each of them in a one-day event , by the end of it you ’ ve just absorbed so much information .
The analogy I like to use is that it ’ s like turning on a fire hose to try and quench your thirst : there ’ s just so much water coming out of the tap that you can ’ t absorb it in the proper way .
Schools that are doing it well are firstly educating teachers on the science of emotions , educating teachers around how important it is to be in tune with the emotions of students and the emotions of one ’ s self . They ’ re giving tools and techniques for that , getting teachers to go out and practise it , then getting to the next part : how do you actually demonstrate empathy ? How do you pick up on the way others feel ? They ’ re getting them to go out and practise that , and come back , before giving them strategies around what effective emotional expression looks and sounds like . How do you help a student express how they feel effectively ?
We have R U OK Day ? in Australia as a national event because we are not very good sometimes at expressing how we feel to colleagues , particularly when we ’ re under emotional duress , and secondly as a way of just heightening awareness of the importance to tap into how people are going and how people are feeling .
Do you believe EI training could be a beneficial unit of study in initial teaching courses , or do you think it ’ s best left to the workplace ? I think it should be a part of all teaching curriculum , in universities in particular . I think we benefit greatly from introducing it at that level . And I see no reason why it shouldn ’ t be introduced at that level . ■
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