Image: ei.yale.edu
Kathy Minardi, a school leader for 40 years, has distinguished herself as an expert in community building and socio-emotional development within the educational setting. A certified trainer for RULER, an education framework from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Kathy Minardi is preparing to begin a full-time consulting practice to train educators in these areas.
Defined as having the skill to recognize, understand, label, express and regulate one’s own emotions, emotional intelligence requires both an understanding of and a literacy ability to describe feelings. Authorities have historically believed that such skills are innate or developed naturally through contact with others, but recent research and observational data suggest that they can and should be formally taught.
In one study, children who participated in a preschool social-emotional learning program presented with fewer aggressive behaviors and less internalized anxiety for up to two years after completing the program. Many authorities attribute such improvements to the role that emotional intelligence plays in preventing emotions from taking over and regulating behavior.
Children who receive formal emotional intelligence training learn instead to reflect on their emotions. They learn to develop management plans to handle intense feelings, while developing the skills to choose appropriate response behaviors. Though more research is necessary to track the effects of such educational initiatives, data and experience suggest that regular and continuing attention to emotional intelligence skills can help children to handle their own emotional realities and function better in community.
Kathy Minardi 