By Margo Herman How are we preparing our youth in terms of social and emotional growth? Daniel Goleman , one of the emotional intelligence gurus of our day, calls this educating the whole student by "bringing together mind and heart". Goleman speaks about the journey of bringing intelligence to emotion and keeping distressing emotions in check. Emotional intelligence is: Being self aware Being socially aware Being able to manage feelings Having empathy for and awareness of others Being able to bring this awareness into relationship skills, as illustrated by Jean Hammink's emotional intelligence model These are life skills for all people, young and old. But how do youth workers go about intentionally nurturing these competencies? I learned more about this recently when I attended the Building a Grad Nation Summit 2013 in Washington D.C., put on by America's Promise Alliance . The summit focused on the potential we have to impact the achievement gap in ...
Our youth development educators bridge research and practice. In this blog, they offer their views on what's happening in the field of youth development, with an eye to evidence-based research written by themselves and others in our field. We welcome your comments.