The Thoughtful Learning blog features articles about English language arts, 21st century skills, and social-emotional learning. Insights come from the teachers, writers, and developers at Thoughtful Learning, who have been creating top-notch instructional materials for more than 40 years.
We can't accomplish much in a second. Blink. Breathe. Take a step forward. We can do 60 times as much in a minute, and 3,600 times as much in an hour. Our truly great accomplishments come from combining the little things we do in seconds into long, complex processes that take days or weeks or months.
Social-Emotional Intelligence allows us to negotiate our own and others’ emotions and feelings. No wonder it is vital to success in relationships, academics, jobs, sports, and other life activities. Employers, for example, have discovered that 67 percent of the skills they are looking for in new employees are directly related to Social-Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence). Yet schools spend only 1.6 percent of the school week developing these skills in students.