In recent years, fortunately, it has acquired relevance or, at least, there is more talk of emotional education. Although a large part of the institutions dedicated to teacher training do not include them in their study plans, there is a growing interest in learning about the subject and beginning to consider it as an important part of educational work.
Every day education, in its different levels and areas, confirms the need for emotional education to be established as part of the school curriculum and contribute its multiple benefits to the training of future generations and the teachers who accompany them in their training process. We could even point to it as a necessary knowledge to be acquired by families, so that their sons and daughters receive it from the moment they are born and throughout their lives.
From the various definitions that have been emerging for some time, we will stick with that of Bisquerra and Pérez (2012), teachers and researchers at the University of Barcelona:
Emotional education is an educational process, continuous and permanent, which aims to promote the development of emotional competencies as an essential element of human development, in order to train them for life and with the purpose of increasing personal and social well-being (p.1) .
In order to better understand the theoretical construct that supports emotional education, we will try to conceptualize the different themes that comprise it.
What are emotions?
The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines emotion as: ” an intense and fleeting mood alteration, pleasant or painful, which is accompanied by a certain somatic shock ” (RAE, 2019). Although this definition allows us to understand the term in its general meaning, we will investigate a little more about it.
Francisco Mora, Doctor of Medicine and Neuroscience, defines emotion as follows:
Emotion is that engine that we all carry inside. An energy encoded in certain neural circuits located in deep areas of our brain (in the limbic system) that moves us and pushes us “to live”, to want to be alive in constant interaction with the world and with ourselves. Circuits that, while we are awake, are always active, on alert, and help us to distinguish important stimuli for our survival (Mora, 2012, p.14).
Understanding that emotions are an essential part of our life and permanently drive us in it, we will now inquire about another fundamental concept, pointed out by university professors Bisquerra and Pérez (2012) in their definition of emotional education: emotional competencies.
Emotional competencies must be understood as a type of basic competences for life, essential for the integral development of the personality. They are an indispensable complement to the cognitive development on which education has focused throughout the 20th century. Emotional education aims to optimize human development; that is, the integral development of the person (physical, intellectual, moral, social, emotional development, etc. (Bisquerra and Pérez, 2012, p. 1).
finisclapez
Having reviewed the previous definition and assessing the importance of emotional competencies in people’s lives, we will take the next step, which is to know, more specifically, what emotional competencies are.
Emotional competencies
Although there are various proposals in relation to which are the emotional competencies and their fundamental characteristics, we highlight the one proposed by the GROP (Grup de Recerca en Orientació Psicopedagògica) of the University of Barcelona. They point out that there are five fundamental emotional competencies:
- Emotional awareness: It consists of recognizing one’s own emotions and those of other people.
- Emotional regulation: It involves responding appropriately to the emotions experienced.
- Emotional autonomy: It refers to the ability to be affected too much by external stimuli, balancing sensitivity and invulnerability.
- Social competence: It implies having social skills that facilitate interpersonal relationships, since they are directly related to emotions.
- Life skills for well-being: They consist of a set of skills, values and attitudes that contribute to personal and social well-being.
With this brief review of the concept of emotional education, which we hope to continue deepening, we invite families, teachers, institutions and communities in general to learn, promote and value this educational environment, so necessary for the development and well-being of our society.
