Getting In Touch With My Inner "Chi"

I'm a guy, which be traditional definition means I have a license to "not give a darn" when it comes to emotions. But, I'm also a guy who wants to teach others, which means I have to be able to pretend to care. I'm also married, which means I better be able to pretend that I care convincingly.

I think it's safe to say that generally men are regarded as less emotional as women. Despite the previous paragraph, I would like to denounce that claim and confess that men have as many emotions as women (though we are sometimes more successful at hiding them). Some of you females out there may ask "Why don't the men in my life show their emotions?" I don't know, for starters, but I have theories. These theories range from "shut up and let the man get in a word" to "yes, that man does have the emotional capacity of a rock". The bottom line is this:people on a whole have different emotional levels and intelligences.


Wait, what?!?! EMOTIONAL Intelligence? That's a new term. Remember, I am a student. I learn cool new words like that all the time (here's a cool one: Hippocampus--I swear I'm not making that one up). It turns out emotions play a large part in human development and growth (sorry Spock).


Say, for example, you're walking down the street and you see a lone child crying. You might think, Hmmm, 'crying = sad' and 'sad = not happy'. . . maybe this child isn't happy. Hopefully you would take the time to find out why the child is unhappy. Congratulations, you've just used what you knew about emotions to begin resolving a situation. It's at this point the child stops crying, hugs you, then steals your wallet and runs off. Kids do the darnedest things.


Emotional Intelligence, like regular intelligence, depends on many factors. The most important, I feel, are your sense of self, your social skills, and what your morals are. Each of these three things affects the others. In order to teach, I need to be keenly aware of all three in my students.


Real life example: One of my older brothers has a very tumultuous past. It was debatable whether he would graduate high school or not. Heck, I'm amazed he never did any hard time in jail from the stories I've heard. However, it comes as no shock to me why he did some of the things he did because I grew up in pretty much the same environment and circumstances. The primary difference was that in his teenage (rebellious) years he tried some things which were self-destructive. Thankfully he later realized this and got back on track. I saw the results of those actions and decided to not try them when I reached his age. I think I should point out our morals were always the same. We had been raised by the same parents and in the same culture. How we ended up living by them was a different process, but ultimately we ended up with very similar outlooks on how to live our lives.


Emotional Intelligence, in my opinion, can only be developed by getting out there in public and letting life happen, trying new things, all while holding on to what you know is correct. In the future, when I'm in the classroom, I think the best thing to do in order for that emotional intelligence to kick in is (1) Know the individual's background/history, (2) Know their current circumstances, and (3) try and relate to the individual or at least something I'm already familiar with.