WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EDUCATION? - ECONOMÍA - 2024

The emotional education is an educational, ongoing process, which aims to promote the emotional development as an essential complement cognitive development, constituting both the two essential elements of the development of integrated personality.

On the other hand, Fernández (2016) characterizes it as “… emotional education is precisely to lead us towards that personal and social well-being that we seek”.

Throughout history, educating has corresponded to the family, as a fundamental pillar. While the transfer of knowledge has mainly fallen on the school as a substantial means and a merely formal source of knowledge.

However, at present, teaching has undergone a radical change, leaning mainly towards a training that is not only academic but also social, since the importance of relationships with the closest environment of the students is beginning to be considered (including here the family, friends and colleagues, among others).

All this entails looking away from the excellent and impeccable academic records to put the spotlight on the effectiveness of the relationships that the person establishes with their surroundings.

It is about observing the feeling of happiness of human beings, that feeling of happiness considered as utopia from previous decades.

To respond and locate the feeling of happiness, which we have indicated above, we must inquire about what we need to achieve it.

If we look at the necessary elements that the recipe for happiness raises, we can come to find some factors that have some weakness and / or several strengths of these elements, which are considered necessary to achieve it.

These elements are made up of emotional self-awareness, emotion regulation, emotional autonomy, and social skills.

With the acquisition of these we can find the expected result, happiness (Fernández, 2016).

Happiness is not a gift that suddenly falls from the sky. Happiness is something that is built, day by day, this construction being the responsibility of each and every one of us. And among the best tools that human beings have equipped themselves with is communication (Muñiz, 2016).

Why is emotional education important in childhood?

Ensuring that emotional education is a lasting learning over time and that these skills are developed in students implies lifelong learning.

Therefore, it is essential to start as soon as possible to promote the learning of emotional education as an essential content in the school curriculum.

The rapid learning capacity observed in childhood is a sign that it is beneficial to provide this content to students at an early age.

In other words, the sooner we start learning, the faster it will take place and excellent results will be obtained, which will be used throughout the students' life trajectory.

For all this, the idea that teaching is, without a doubt, for parents and teachers alike, a moving and vocational activity that requires great effort and dedication to solve it cannot go unnoticed.

However, teacher training is still in force in the same guidelines as for many decades, where purely conceptual intelligence was in force and had a position unattainable due to other achievements.

Many parents and teachers consider themselves unprepared and, therefore, do not accept the possibility of effecting a change in the teaching styles of the 21st century.

That is why Fernández (2016) opts for greater training in regard to social and emotional competencies, since the teacher must be the model to be followed by all his students, from their own inter- and intrapersonal relationships, to thus being able to establish and manage goals at an emotional, social and academic level

Useful strategies for the practice of emotional education

As we have mentioned previously, the Family and the School are two fundamental pillars that go hand in hand in any educational execution.

That is why we must keep in mind the great teaching media that, today, the knowledge society provides, through Information and Communication Technologies, the media, social groups, among others. that make up the communicative network to which society is continuously exposed (Gutiérrez, 2003 in Serrano, 2016).

Next we are going to expose a series of aspects with which the teacher can work both with the students and with the family, using any means that requires it (Fernández, 2016).

Thus, it is necessary to provide a balance in learning, so that students achieve the state of well-being that we indicated at the beginning, which must be contributed by both the school and the family from the practice and training of the latter, from of verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal communication (Fernández, 2016).

1. Emotional Education in Students

First of all, we must point out that the teacher needs to master the social and emotional skills that he has to transmit to the students, without giving rise to improvisation. The teacher must be a social-emotional role model and a driver of learning.

As a Socio-emotional Model we must point out that it is the mirror where the student observes himself, from where he obtains the closest emotional examples that will later leave a mark on his development.

And as a promoter of learning, he is the one who perceives the expressed needs, individual motivations, own / group interests and the objectives of each of his students.

In addition, it helps to establish the goals that each child should set himself; It is the ideal figure to speed up the timely choice in the decision-making process, it has an impact on personal orientation (Fernández, 2016).

Therefore, it establishes a positive emotional climate giving support to increase the self-esteem and self-confidence of the students (Fernández, 2016).

Therefore, according to Albendea, Bermúdez and Pérez (2016), it should be noted that an excellent emotional education provides the child with numerous benefits in their own socio-emotional development such as:

• High levels of self-esteem.
• Ability to detect their own emotions.
• Identify ideas and express feelings.
• Competence to defend your rights and your social relationships.
• Ability to assimilate negative situations as learning.
• Emotional self-regulation strategies

Likewise, prevention is obtained in the consumption of substances such as drugs, facilitates a good atmosphere of coexistence, has an ideal relationship between their peers and their teachers, in addition to having a minimum percentage of violence and depression.

Taking into account the exposed literature, we must point out several strategies to work on the emotional self-regulation of students (Fernández, 2016):

Role-Playing

• Assuming negative emotions as natural and in turn favoring positive internal messages, such as: "I'm going to have to work hard, but I'm going to get it", "I'm not going to raise my voice", "I'm going to relax before speaking.", etc.
• Adopt a positive point of view of situations, identifying the negative factors and looking for a way to make them positive and fruitful.
• Eliminate all negative emotional responses, such as reactions to problems, at first. It is about looking for the positive side and waiting until generating a timely response, without giving emotionally negative and altered responses.
• Normalize assertive responses in everyday life, using the correct use of verbal and non-verbal communication.
• In addition to knowing that negative emotions are not bad and it is necessary to have them. They must accept that it is beneficial to externalize them. For this, it is ideal to recommend physical exercise as a release of accumulated tensions.
• Have the support of peers to express these emotions. Support is needed in certain situations to externalize the problems so that they are extracted and not left inside.

Relaxation Techniques

In this way, emotional education can also be promoted. To carry it out, it is appropriate that there is rest at the muscular and sensory level.

Using relaxed music, such as the use of ocean waves, and doing the relaxation in a logical order of the body.

2. Emotional Education in Families

In all affective relationships there must be an emotional balance, whether school or family, and in most cases there is no awareness of it.

Verbal manifestations with high emotional connotation are constantly made, transmitting an affective message that the child perceives, interprets and experiences a certain state of mind.

Therefore, we must bear in mind that in terms of the family environment, affective ties take on special relevance in the practice of communication skills.

Communicating effectively as a family favorably increases emotional intelligence, without reaching great extremes, since a wide involvement will lead to great emotional wear and tear and a minimization would imply the depersonalization of the individual, losing much of the value and human quality of the person (Fernández, 2016).

Taking into account all that has been argued, we must emphasize that teacher-family relationships are scarcer than those that the student has with his classmates and with the school itself, it is important to have family participation and, therefore, it does not stop The treatment that the center has with this context so close to the students is relevant.

These relationships can give rise to problematic situations, on some occasions, when there is no reciprocity between the work of the teacher and that of the family, without showing collaboration for the task that the professional is performing.

Without a rapport and understanding between both parties, great results cannot be expected.

Therefore, we must bear in mind some indications that teachers should use to bring their work closer to families and, in this way, speed up the teaching-learning process of emotional intelligence. (Fernández, 2016):

• Analyze the family context that surrounds / where the student develops. Where do you live? What is your socioeconomic status?
• Know what is the bond of attachment of the student with the family. Are you involved in your family? Do you go about your day without sharing family moments? Do you have the same treatment with all members of the family?
• Establish a common and priority objective between the teacher and the student's parents. Do parents consider emotional education necessary? Is there a common interest between the family and me as a teacher?
• Encourage collaboration between the family and the school, based on the objective set by both parties. Could they participate in activities where the presence of the family is required? Can you propose ideas to carry out the collaboration between the two?
• Reciprocity of information. Maintain a constant exchange of information between both parties, where the teacher must make reports where the reciprocity of information is perceived, the student's learning and the goals achieved by the child are analyzed.
• Show serenity in the face of problems and situations that may arise. The possibility of establishing a climate of trust will lead to greater harmony and a climate of work and collaboration between both parties. It is about teaching emotional intelligence, so Take the situation with calm and serenity to transfer calm and create bonds of trust.
• Give assertive answers to the questions raised.
• Express appreciation for the work carried out and thank the collaboration provided.

References

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