OVERCOMING DESTRUCTIVE EMOTIONS 3/19/03 4A-1 7/12/04 .html

We humans are the supreme survivors and the dominant predator. These assets have allowed us to survive through the millennia and rule the planet. We have killed off most of the other animals and now seem to be bent on annihilating ourselves. No matter where we look around the world today we find hate, anger, revenge, killing and war. Even here in the United States we are seeing more of these same problems with more killings per capita happening here than anywhere else in the world. With the mass killings by teenagers we have received a wake-up call.

The time has come for us to include dealing with our emotions as a part of the regular school curriculum.

Daniel Goleman is in the forefront and leading in finding a solution to this problem. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his M.A and Ph.D in clinical psychology and developmental studies from Harvard University where he is a member of the faculty. He co-founded the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at the University of Illinois, Chicago a research group that evaluated and disseminates school based programs for effective self-mastery.

Mark Greenberg is also prominent in creating a solution. He received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his M.A. and Ph.D in developmental and pediatric psychology from the University of Virginia. He hold the Bennett Chair of Prevention Research in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University where he is also director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development.

Both Dr. Goleman and Dr. Greenberg feel that the solution lies in becoming aware of and aquatinted with our emotions from as early an age as possible. Both are researching and promoting the inclusion of learning to be comfortable with and master of our emotions in the regular school classroom. Teachers would be trained and become models for the students to emulate.

Successful programs are already available and rigorously tested. The Nueva Learning Center, a private school, has been holding a class in Self Science for over 20 years. The Nueva Self Science class is leaving its mark in the gritty chaos of the inner-city public school of Augusta Lewis Troup Middle School in New Haven. Not a separate class but instead infiltrate the lessons into the very fabric of school life is the Child Development Project based in Oakland, CA. This approach is being tried in a handful of schools across the nation.

Dr. Mark Greenberg co-developed an emotional curriculum called PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies). This curriculum originally helped deaf children learn how to use language to better understand and manage their emotions and recognize and become aware of the feelings of others.

The next step is to take the lessons learned from such highly focused programs and generalize them as a preventive measure for the entire school population taught by the regular teachers. (SEE OVER)

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS IN SUCH A CURRICULUM AS PATHS ²

First programs are far more effective when they teach core emotional and social competences such as impulse control, managing anger, and finding creative solutions to social predicaments.

In Mark Greenberg’s PATHS program there are five characteristics and the specifics are made age appropriate. And there are four Guidelines or Rule Structures, ideas to live by taught to the teachers and children about how emotions work.

THE FIVE CHARACTERISTICS

First: The focus is on helping the children calm down.

Second: Increase the awareness of the emotional states of others.

Third: Involve the children in the outward discussion of feelings as a way of solving interpersonal difficulties.

Fourth, A very important skill: Planning and thinking ahead so that one can avoid Difficult situations.

Fifth: Consider how our behavior affect others; this is what empathy and interpersonal concern are about.

GUIDELINES OR RULE STRUCTURES

First: Feelings are important and should not be ignored but investigated. Help the children to understand that their feelings are separate from their behavior. All feelings are OK but behaviors can be OK or Not OK

Second: Separate the feelings from the behavior. Teach and show what behaviors are OK and which are NOT OK. Feelings are natural and we all have them, they are.

Third: Emphasize that you can’t think until you’re calm. This is made a mantra in the classroom. Emotions conditions the mind and we must calm down to see clearly what is happening.

Fourth: Is the “Golden Rule”. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Billy Deane Lilly, Instructor

“Building Self Esteem”

TO RETURN TO SESSION 1, PART 2 CLICK ON THE BACK ARROW