EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE@ THE WILLOWS
ANGRY EXCITABLE ASSERTIVE OUTRAGED EXPLOSIVE INTENSE OVERWHELMED UPSET LIVID
HAPPY PROUD BRAVE EXCITED CURIOUS JOYFUL CHEERFUL ECSTATIC ELATED
MISUNDERSTOOD EMPATHETIC PENSIVE INDEPENDENT AFRAID DOWN SCARED SEDATE HOPELESS
CALM RELAXED HOPEFUL REFLECTIVE CHILL MINDFUL FRIENDLY MELLOW GRATEFUL CONTENT SERENE MEDITATIVE
Emotions matter, and they matter a great deal in school. Everyone needs emotional intelligence and opportunities to be brave and kind.� Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Director, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
The Harvard Business Review has hailed emotional intelligence as
a ground-breaking, paradigm-shattering
idea.
The importance of emotional intelligence in the development of the child has always been recognized at The Willows. Character and heart are emphasized as essential to The Willows’ definition of a ‘great mind.’ Emotional intelligence, the ability to manage one’s own emotions and perceive the emotions of others, has been proven to improve academic and classroom performance, health, success, and conflict resolution. “ The case can be made scientifically,” writes Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. “Helping children improve their self-awareness and confidence, manage their disturbing emotions and impulses, and increase their empathy pays off not just in improved behavior but in measurable academic achievement.”
RULER is an acronym that stands for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulating emotions.
ecognizing emotions in self and others understanding the causes and consequences of emotions abeling emotions accurately xpressing emotions appropriately egulating emotions effectively
Š copyright Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence RULER
“ In addition to academic studies, The Willows educational program focuses on communicating honestly, practicing inclusivity, working collaboratively, contributing meaningfully, and expressing empathy,” says Lisa Rosenstein, The Willows Head of School. “ When I heard Marc Brackett, Ph.D., the Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, speak at the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) and discovered RULER, I immediately knew that this program would be a perfect fit with The Willows’ mission and philosophy. It was apparent that it would integrate well with our DK-8 curricular and developmental goals for our children.” In 2015, The Willows embarked on intensive training with Dr. Brackett and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence staff to integrate RULER, an evidence-based program designed to incorporate emotional intelligence skills into learning communities, developed over a 20-year period at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, into The Willows classrooms and curriculum.
RULER offers a flexible framework and versatile tools that our faculty, staff, administrators, parents, and students can use and adapt into daily life. This unique, effective social emotional curriculum offers our school a unified, sophisticated language and method to identify emotions in ourselves and others, to appropriately manage and communicate feelings, and to build respect and stronger connections, resulting in a more engaged learning environment and personal well-being. Emotionally intelligent students exhibit greater leadership skills, are more attentive, perform better academically, and are less aggressive and less likely to bully.
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence responds to the vital question, ‘Why Emotions Matter?’
Emotions influence everyday life, including: • Attention, memory, and learning • Decision making and judgment • Relationship quality • Physical and mental health • Everyday effectiveness and performance
© copyright Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence RULER
“ Words mean more than
what is set down on paper.� Maya Angelou
American Poet and Author
ANCHORS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The RULER Anchors of Emotional Intelligence four primary tools are the Charter, Mood Meter, Meta-Moment, and Blueprint. CHARTER The charter is a mission statement for the classroom and school that teachers, students, and staff pledge to maintain. Each class charter is a collaborative document that promotes a productive, nurturing environment. The focus is on how each person wants to feel, and what needs to happen for those feelings to be consistently present. The charter outlines how they intend to treat each other, suggests strategies and guidelines for preventing and managing uncomfortable emotions and conflicts, and establishes methods for creating and sustaining a positive classroom climate. By building the charter together, a class formulates common goals and ways to hold each other and themselves accountable for maintaining the classroom environment. A Willows Middle School Class Charter:
As a class we want to feel amused, happy, intrigued, excited, and passionate. In order to have these feelings consistently, we will give each other high fives, crack a joke to make someone laugh, share good vibes, and give our full attention, and get really excited about something that we’re learning. When we do not live the charter, we will have empathy, check in with our own feelings, talk it out with each other, and seek adult help when needed.
A Willows Kindergarten Class Charter:
A Willows 4th Grade Class Charter:
THE MOOD METER
“I’m in the yellow!”
What? You may ask, does that mean? ‘Yellow’ refers to one of the four colors on the RULER mood meter a tool of the emotional intelligence program describing moods associated with colors. *
The mood meter, also an app*, is a simple but dynamic tool designed to teach emotional intelligence, and the key skills of self-awareness and self-regulation, by helping students to recognize and communicate their feelings. Using the Mood Meter, students and teachers become very aware of their emotional changes and the effects of emotions on actions. Teachers and students use this tool to label a feeling, express it verbally, and respond to each other, building empathy and showing they care. Mood Meters are found in some form in all our classrooms. Developmental kindergarten, kindergarten, second, and fourth grade classrooms have interactive, felt mood meters with student photos or sticky notes attached. Throughout the day, the students are able to place their photo in one of the four quadrants to demonstrate how they are currently feeling. The Mood Meter expands vocabulary and enables students to more fully examine their emotions.
The Willows Kindergarten Class Mood Meter
RULER takes a “You name it, you tame it� approach to social emotional intelligence.
Words are empowering when a student focuses on identifying and expressing the words that communicate an emotion. The Mood Meter helps identify these words. For example, what are the emotions associated with the color blue? lonely, sympathetic, worried, sad, unsure . . .
Regulating Emotions with the Mood Meter
Everyone, children and adults, need social skills, self-control, and empathy to navigate our increasingly connected modern society. Students with stronger emotional intelligence are better prepared to handle interactions with the world around them and to focus, learn and thrive in school and in their personal lives. Regulating personal emotions is an often difficult but necessary positive step in attaining greater emotional intelligence. With RULER students are asked to brainstorm strategies for regulating emotions with the mood meter, and then use these strategies when an emotional situation or conflict arises. Strategies might include: • Meditation • Listening to music • Physical activity • Talking to a friend or adult • Taking a walk • Taking a deep breath • Participating in an activity or hobby • Writing in a journal • Visualization
META MOMENT
The Meta-Moment is a brief step back from a situation when a moment is taken to pause and think before acting. The Meta-Moment process is designed to help both children and adults gain emotional self-control and take effective action in difficult moments. When triggered, fast, emotional, thoughtless reactions may lead to tough situations. By taking a Meta-Moment, pausing to observe and manage a personal reaction, students are better able to be their best selves and respond effectively to any challenging situation. Students develop strategies to improve their reflective practices and problem solving skills so they respond appropriately to emotional experience and expand the space between an emotional trigger and a response. The Meta Moment leads to better choices and healthier relationships, and naturally to reduced anxiety in students and in the classroom. BLUEPRINT
The Blueprint is a tool that encourages a user to take a look at a problem from the other person’s perspective and use healthy strategies to solve a problem, overcome a challenge, or manage emotions.Together or independently, students and teachers consider each other’s feelings and points of view and identify healthy solutions. Conflict, bullying, and challenging interactions obstruct learning, prevent success, and affect the school climate. Using the Blueprint enables students to see the world from another’s perspective, as well as their own, and so may change the course of relationships, lead to reduced aggressions, and lessen the amount of time off task or of classroom disruption.
RULER-based creative projects and artwork are displayed in our hallways and
classrooms reflecting the emotions, the words, and the students’ use of the mood meter. RULER is also integrated into our curriculum. Our eighth grade Core Class recently analyzed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in relation to the Mood Meter. In small groups, students plotted a character from the novel on the mood meter, coming up with emotions in each of the four quadrants, supported by a quotation from the novel. Students had previously created an identity chart for the characters in the novel and discussed the qualities and characteristics of the main characters. As a group, prior to plotting the characters, students discussed the emotions in detail and examined their word choice and the specific emotion that was chosen for their assigned character.
Similar to the eighth grade, students in our second grade classes integrated the Mood Meter in a study of the “Peanuts� stories of Charles Schultz. They plotted a character on the mood meter as they explored the emotions of the character. Our Upper Elementary, third, fourth, and fifth grades, presented their original work comprised of poetry, instrumental music, dance, and movement, The Window of Emotions, on Poetry Night. The piece reflected the work of our students in emotional intelligence and the implementation of RULER in their daily life.
Excerpt from
The Window of Emotions A Performance Piece by The Willows 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grades The window of emotions opens… and the color green bursts out! (GREEN) I have a tree in me that waves when the wind blows, That sits there calmly hoping to be found. That waits for someone to trust its branches. I have a tree in me. Its roots keep me secure. (YELLOW) It’s my birthday! Confetti stars, dancing fireworks, rainbow birds! Smiling clouds, floating sparkles, tornados of fun! It was like a circus in my house. Exactly what I wanted! (BLUE) I have an empty room in me that was once crowded with colors and laughter, that now echoes with disappearing footsteps, that holds the remnants of conversations. I have a steep canyon in me, where the wolves howl until dawn (RED) You never listen You make me want to scream Don’t tell me what to do It’s not fair You’re so mean to me I hate sharing. These emotions are the fuel for the engine of life. We may not always think we need them, but without them, the world would have no color. As this window of emotion closes tonight, somewhere else another window opens.
RULER is
enhancing our teaching practices and the academic performance and self-regulation of our students as well as building empathy and relationship quality. In a sense, we are becoming skilled in an emotional language. RULER assists The Willows in promoting our unique, positive, and vibrant school environment and culture.
How we feel effects our learning, the decisions we make, how we treat others, and our personal
well-being..
Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence RULER
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle
The Willows Community School
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8509 Higuera Street
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Culver City, California 90232