Argentina schools add ‘emotional education’ to curriculum

By Worldcrunch/Buenos Aires

Emotional education is a teaching concept that helps students learn self-awareness (recognising their emotions) and self-regulation (managing their emotions).

While employed by some teachers to help children to gain more confidence and learn more efficiently, “educación emocional” has recently become so popular among educators in Argentina that a debate has been opened up about whether to officially incorporate it into the national school curriculum.

“We don’t talk about this.” “Boys don’t cry.” “Nothing happened.” “It’s for adults to talk about...”

Eliminating these kinds of outdated expressions is the first step that emotional education recommends. The idea is to talk about everything, cry if necessary – give schoolchildren the tools to express their emotions, understand them, value them and self-regulate them.

Emotional education is an approach linked to the notion of emotional intelligence, a concept popularised in 1983 by American developmental psychologist Howard Garner with his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences and in 1995 by American psychologist Daniel Goleman with his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

According to them, a person’s success depends not only on traditional types of intelligence, but also on emotional and social intelligence.

However, in later years, this school of thought has become less popular. Even though it has been updated to reflect the modern world, many experts say that the concept is more suited to the 19th and 20th centuries, and does not reflect the needs of young people in the 21st century.

For instance, there is one issue that is sometimes overlooked – the fact that each individual brings with him or her the emotional baggage accumulated from birth.

“We are integral beings. If a boy lives in a violent environment at home and is frustrated because of it, it will be hard for him to concentrate and study,” says Cecilia Gomez, Clarin’s education and psychology specialist.

A boy with attention deficit disorder or who is withdrawn, violent, flunks school or has behaviour problems, carries a huge bag of raw emotions. Providing children with the necessary tools to cope with their feelings, value them, understand them, and express them is the key to emotional education. “When students faced with a difficulty throw tantrums or are paralysed, it is necessary to provide them with a range of options and alternative solutions,” says Gomez.