Emotional Intelligence

Learning Objective

Students will understand the meaning of this character strength to then apply it in their lives.

Mục tiêu học tập

Học sinh sẽ hiểu được ý nghĩa của điểm mạnh tính cách này để áp dụng vào cuộc sống.

What Does This Character Strength Look Like When Applied?

Those who engage their emotional intelligence understand their emotions and how they can affect their behavior.

Definition: Understanding your feelings and using them wisely. Connecting to Social Intelligence also involves noticing how others feel.

"We all need skills to recognize and understand our emotions, label and express them, and regulate them to achieve optimum wellbeing and success at home, school, and in the workplace." (Character Lab)

Think of the last time that you paused to think about your feelings. One way to do this is to use the sentence starter "I am feeling (list emotion) right now." Go to the added step by analyzing what thinking or activities lead you to experience the emotion(s).

What it Looks Like and How to Encourage:

• I notice how I am feeling and think about why I feel that way.

• I look at others’ facial expressions and body language to know how they are feeling.

• I generally understand what causes my feelings.

• I have a wide and specific vocabulary for talking about my feelings.

• I am comfortable expressing my feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant ones.

• I have a lot of different strategies for handling my feelings.

Unpack the Strength¹:

• What does the strength look like in action?

• What does this strength feel like in action?

• When and where can you use it?

• What is the "shadow-side" of this strength?

Five Components of Emotional intelligence>

• Self-awareness – the knowledge of what we feel and why we feel so

• Self-regulation – the ability to express our feelings in the right way (Self-Control strength)

• Motivation – the internal drive to change the way we feel and express ourselves

• Empathy – the ability to relate to others’ emotions and see the world from their perspective

• Social skills – the power to communicate effectively and build strong connections at home or in school (Social Intelligence strength)

Điểm mạnh tính cách này trông như thế nào khi được áp dụng?

Mindfulness As A Strategy to Support Emotional Intelligence

Definition: Being present in the moment, experiencing what is around you. You are not thinking about the past or the future. Distractions are at a minimum.

Mindful Practices: Being mindful is a skill that you practice. Over time you become more mindful without needing to think about being mindful. :) Here are some ways that you can practice mindfulness.

• Meditation is when you take the time to sit, not be distracted, to focus on your breathing. You feel your body while being aware of your environment. Let thoughts come and go in your mind, always returning to the breath. You can find apps and websites that offer guided meditation when a person talks you through a meditation practice.

• Mindful Walking - Walk, feeling your feet strike the ground. Feel the muscles in your legs move you as your knees bend. Notice your arms and how they sway. See and smell your surroundings as you walk while feeling your body move you forward.

• Mindful Eating - Choose something to eat—just one thing at first. Touch, smell, and see the item of food. What tastes are you experiencing? Feel your mouth prepare for the food by possibly watering. Bite into the food slowly, chewing and moving it around your mouth. Smell the next bite and put it in your mouth. Stay focused on your senses, helping you to experience the food.

• Mindful Mantra - One way to be present and to calm ourselves if we are feeling overwhelmed is to have a sentence to repeat in our mind several times that brings us into the moment. It might be something like "I am (insert pleasant experience)," as I hear the birds chirp, I feel the sun on my skin and air going in and out of my nose.

• Flow - Do you do some activities in which you are so engaged that you lose track of time? These times usually involve doing something you are passionate about (connects to Meaning in PERMAH) about where we are in our Growth/Stretch zone experiencing a need to improve your skill level. In many cases, we have a set goal that often deals more with personal growth than a final feeling of accomplishment. We call these times being in a state of flow when we are focused on doing one thing. Some examples are playing a sport, practicing a skill like art, dance, music, cooking, writing, programming, or perhaps yoga. The character strength of creativity and the PERMAH pillar of Engagement can also be in play. Our grit pushes us to stretch ourselves in the activity to go deeper into the flow state.

Learning Activities (Choose from the Following)

1. Personal Emotion Spotting - Work with a partner for three minutes to write down as many emotions you can that you felt in the past day or so. Use the Plutchik Wheel of Emotions to get started. Share with your partner. Then choose two emotions to analyze what led you to experience them. What were the situations, activities, or possibly other emotions that led to the two emotions? How did the emotions affect you and possibly the people around you? Goal> To recognize and label emotions in your life. To make connections to what can lead you to experience various emotions.

2. Making Faces! - Take turns acting out using your body and face to represent different emotions. See if your partner can guess what they are. Goal> To learn to recognize emotions in others.

3. Charting Our Emotions - You and your partner will draw two flow charts with pictures. Flow charts show a sequence of events moving from the left side of the page to the right. Think of a runner standing and getting ready to run at the start of a race. She then leans down into the ready position. The race starts, and she starts running. You can add pictures of her running with a final picture of her crossing the finish line. Please do the same for someone experiencing one or more emotions. Add speech bubbles to your drawing.

• • You start with the person not experiencing any emotions, and then something happens that leads him to experience one or more emotions.

  • The following picture shows his behavior in response to the emotion(s).

  • Have your person interact with someone else while he is expressing the emotion(s).

  • Your chart continues by showing how that second person received the emotion and reacted.

  • Extension: Understand that your flow chart is a story, much like a cartoon. Draw what happens next! If you like stories, consider continuing your story with more interactions and emotions.

4. Sharing Time: Work with your partner to share either an emotion you experienced and what caused it and its possible effects on others, or you can share your Charting Our Emotions flowchart. Take turns sharing your results with the class. Goal> To remind everyone that we all experience various emotions and that others can react with their own emotions.

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1. Personal Strength Spotting - Work with a partner to share one or two examples from your life when you engaged the character strength of emotional intelligence. You can approach this by your looking inward or outward toward others.

• • Inward Perspective - This means that you were aware of your emotions, labeled them, and were motivated to express them healthily.

  • Outward Perspective - You were motivated to feel understanding and possibly empathy for another person expressing emotion(s) to you. You used your communication skills (remember that listening is a communication skill) to show your understanding of the other person's emotion(s). We call this "acknowledgment," which means showing the other person that you understand their emotion(s). This is often shown by being a good listener who says, "it sounds like you are feeling (emotion) right now."
    

Goal> To deepen your understanding of how we use our emotional intelligence strength in social situations.

2. Strength Spotting - Work with a partner to share one or two examples from your life when you saw someone else engaging the character strength of emotional intelligence. It could be your parents, a teacher, a friend, etc. Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength through personal reflection.

3. Sharing Time: Each partner decides which example of "strength spotting" they would like to share with the class. It can

either be an example of strength spotting in yourself or others. Then share it with the class. We will do lots of strength

spotting in ourselves and others! Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength through the social

connection of sharing.

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Let's create a Character Card!

1. Decide whether you want to use paper and drawing pencils or if you want to use technology.

2. The ultimate goal is to create cards for all 27 character strengths, so decide on the card size for this and your future creations.

3. You decide on the layout of your card. Think about having sections that contain a picture of the strength, a definition, and ways to exercise the strength in real life.

4. Create your card and save it to your growing collection.

5. Share your card with a partner or the whole class.
   

Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength by engaging your spatial and artistic skills. To also exercise your character strength of CREATIVITY!

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Extension - Don't think of emotions as being either positive or negative. Sure, many emotions are very comfortable and we enjoy feeling them. And yes, some emotions are uncomfortable. They at times can make us feel unhappy. But the full range of emotions is what we experience as a normal part of living a rich life! There are times when we need to feel unpleasant emotions because they help us stay safe and help us to reflect and make good decisions. An example is fear. Think of how fear helps you make decisions about your safety. Task> Work with your partner to create two or more scenarios of people experiencing what we could call negative emotions that in fact help them in their lives. Be ready to share one of your stories with the class.

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Taking Action - Use the WOOP goal-setting system to plan how you will engage this character strength more often in your life. It can be helpful to work with a partner to complete the WOOP worksheet to then coach and support each other to reach your goal. Goal> To exercise this character strength more often with intention in your life! To also exercise the character strength of PROACTIVITY!

Hoạt động học tập (Chọn từ những hoạt động sau)

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Hãy tạo một Thẻ nhân vật! Mục tiêu> Để hiểu sâu hơn về sức mạnh của nhân vật này bằng cách tham gia vào các kỹ năng nghệ thuật và không gian của bạn. Để cũng thực hiện sức mạnh SÁNG TẠO của nhân vật của bạn!

1. Quyết định xem bạn muốn sử dụng giấy và bút chì vẽ hay bạn muốn sử dụng công nghệ.

2. Mục tiêu cuối cùng là tạo ra các thẻ cho tất cả 26 điểm mạnh của nhân vật, vì vậy hãy quyết định kích thước của thẻ cho việc này và các sáng tạo trong tương lai của bạn.

3. Bạn quyết định bố cục của thẻ của bạn. Hãy suy nghĩ về việc có các phần chứa hình ảnh về sức mạnh, định nghĩa và các cách để rèn luyện sức mạnh trong cuộc sống thực.

4. Tạo thẻ của bạn và lưu nó vào bộ sưu tập ngày càng tăng của bạn.

5. Chia sẻ thẻ của bạn với một bạn kh.. và / hoặc cả lớp.

Self-Enrichment > Setting Healthy Boundaries

This section is offered as an extra opportunity for you to learn more about using your emotional and social intelligence. You might have heard others mention the term "healthy boundaries". We use this term when we talk about taking care of ourselves especially in making healthy choices that we make for ourselves and how we interact with others. A big part of making the transition from high school to young adulthood is in learning to set boundaries in your life to be healthy and safe. The following chart lists seven different boundaries for you to become aware of in your life.

Learning Activities

1. Research - Use the internet to search for resources in Vietnamese that can help you learn more about setting boundaries.

2. Build Understanding - Look to work with a friend to talk about what each of the seven boundaries means to you. By sharing your ideas you will help deepen your understanding.

3. Practice - Try setting some boundaries in the coming week. You don't have to do all seven. Maybe start with a couple that you feel you really need to work on. At the end of the week talk with a friend about how effective your effort was. What did you learn?

4. Taking Action - When you are ready, you can choose a couple or all of the boundaries to set goals on how to place them into your life. Use the WOOP goal-setting system to plan how you will set your boundaries and make them a part of your life.

I Want To Learn More

• Emotional Intelligence video

Tôi muốn học nhiều hơn

• (chúng tôi sẽ cần xem liệu có tài nguyên nào bằng tiếng Việt có thể giúp học viên tìm hiểu thêm về thế mạnh này không)

¹ Niemiec, R. M., & McGrath, R. E. (2019). The power of character strengths: appreciate and ignite your positive personality. Cincinnati, OH: VIA Institute on Character.

Vietnam Image Source

Plutchik Wheel of Emotions Source