Do you especially remember any of your teachers at school?Yes, definitely! We all remember a teacher who left us a special impression, don’t you think he has a special place among all those who have taught him?
The truth is that the teachers we have in our childhood mark us, without realizing them are models that we imitate and learn from, are there differences between teachers with emotional intelligence and those who do not?
- “Most of us don’t have more than five or six people who remind us of that.
- Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.
- -Andy Rooney-.
In the school stage we develop as people, we learn from math, languages or geography, but not only that, we also start connecting with other people outside our own family, we learn to interact with others and manage our emotions.
In this way, teachers (like it or not, because it is a stage in which we are very influential) become references in terms of attitudes, behaviors, emotions and feelings, helping their students adjust their different emotional and emotional profiles. this task begins at each child’s home with their parents, but continues in school.
Teachers with emotional intelligence will then perform activities of affective stimulation, balanced expression of positive and negative feelings, creation of environments that stimulate the development of socio-emotional capacities and resolution of interpersonal conflicts, exposure to experiences to be resolved through emotional and didactic strategies. empathetic skills.
That is, they will encourage students to develop their own emotional intelligence, fundamental to good physical and mental well-being, discover emotional diversity, have a better perception and understanding of their own feelings and those of others, understand how we move. from one emotion to another and you will be aware of the possibility of feeling opposite emotions.
“The mediocre master counts. The regular teacher explains. The good teacher shows. The excellent master inspires. ? -William A. Ward-
But not only that. They are students who will learn to solve problems in a balanced way, facing them and not avoiding them, will be able to control their own emotional discomfort and feel empathy with others, and not only in school, but also in their daily lives.
In addition to being a beneficial model for our little ones, by helping them develop good emotional skills, emotionally intelligent teachers have another advantage: they suffer less work stress, in fact, this occupation is one of those who presents a high risk of developing this type of psychological discomfort.
The truth is that teachers are subjected to various sources of stress that can destroy their initial enthusiasm, so working conditions, lack of resources that do not meet the high demands required, low social and professional status or pressures will increase discomfort and lead to wear and tear. .
“What a sculpture means for a block of marble, education represents for the human soul. -Joseph Addison-
In this sense, emotionally intelligent teachers can reduce overall levels of work stress by properly managing negative emotional responses, implementing active strategies for confrontation in stressful work situations, rather than avoiding them. Strategies that children imitate, because there is no doubt that they are observers.
But that’s not all, because they also suffer fewer negative consequences from stress, and they feel more personally realized in their work environment and, finally, their mental health and well-being levels are also better.
In this sense, the higher the level of work stress, the more it affects the quality of teaching, so the problem does not stop at teachers or be reduced to an individual dimension, your students will also be directly harmed. In addition to all this, it would be very interesting to launch programs that promote emotional intelligence in our teachers, both for them and for our children.
Images courtesy of Megan Soule, Stephanie Ecate and Zi Jian Lim.