Last update: December 21, 2017
Knowing how we feel and how is not an easy task. The emotional universe is still unknown to us all, to a greater or lesser extent. In this context, emotional literacy emerges as a possibility to fill all the emotional gaps that still haunt us.
No one has taught us what emotions are, what roles they play or how we can identify them. At school we did not have any subject related to this topic and it was not even considered important for our education. So, emotions went unnoticed for years until, little by little, they gained the prominence they deserve.
Today we know that we are emotional beings, as well as social, and that we can find each other based on how we manage this sparkling inner dialogue. Undoubtedly emotions have gained ground and today we want education to take a step forward in this sense. Let's take a deeper look at emotional literacy.
“Socio-emotional learning helps children develop communication and social integration skills”.
-Neva Milic MĂĽller-
What is emotional literacy?
The word "literate" is commonly associated with the process of teaching reading or writing. Basic skills in education. However, it seems that this concept has been progressively associated with different fields depending on the content of the teaching. Some examples are expressions such as computer, science or technology literacy.
Considering these advances, we can't help but think that education seems to face new challenges. Among these, one of the most widespread and interesting for our well-being is emotional literacy: the process of educating emotions, starting from the school environment.
Emotional literacy consists of teaching what emotions are, what they are for and how they express themselves. It is teaching to understand oneself and others on an emotional level. An educational challenge that more and more schools and kindergartens face through programs in which emotional education has been integrated.
Note that the concepts of emotional literacy and emotional education are used interchangeably to refer to the same thing. A train with a different name and with the same itinerary.
"Emotional education is the continuous and lifelong educational process that aims to promote emotional development as an indispensable complement to cognitive development, as both represent two essential elements of complete personality development."
-Rafael Bisquerra-
Authors such as Daniel Goleman and Rafael Bisquerra have shown great interest in this concept and even more so in its development. Goleman points out that an individual's particular character education, moral development, and civilization go hand in hand with emotional literacy and emotional intelligence education.
In this way, emotional literacy presents itself as an opportunity to deal with disturbing behaviors, aggression or conflicts in interpersonal relationships. Since the absence of emotional skills is often linked to these problems. If you educate yourself about emotions, these types of situations will probably decrease.
Goals of emotional literacy
In addition to deepening the knowledge of the emotional universe in which we are immersed, emotional literacy has a series of objectives (Carpena, 2001; Vallés, 2000; Bisquerra, 2000) including:
- Identify cases of low emotional engagement.
- Know what emotions are and how to recognize them in others.
- Learn to classify emotions.
- Modulate and manage the level of emotion.
- Develop tolerance to the frustrations of everyday life.
- Prevent addictive substance abuse and other risky behaviors.
- Building resilience.
- Adopt a positive attitude towards life.
- Preventing interpersonal conflicts.
AOther authors have highlighted additional goals, such as learning empathy, emotional self-control, and delaying gratification. Positive behaviors that, in one way or another, affect not only one's own well-being, but also that of others.
The fruits of emotional literacy
The promotion of the knowledge of emotions starting from the classroom, aims to learn to be intelligent in order to be happy. An intelligence focused on a holistic perspective in which not only the cognitive dimension is important, but in which there is also a need to tap into the emotional and behavioral dimensions.
By this we mean that it's not just important to pay attention to what we feel and how we should experience it. It is also important how we express it, together with how we have to process the information that emotions transmit to us. And finally, the way we manage them affects our psychological well-being.
This teaching and learning process is not only good for children: it is also good teachers and the entire educational community receive part of the benefit. And somehow parents too in case they want to reinforce with their children what they have learned in class.
Emotional literacy is above all a challenge and as such an opportunity. A bridge that facilitates self-knowledge and, ultimately, relationships with others. A dimension that is certainly worth investigating.
