Emotional Intelligence
The ability to recognize, understand, and manage one's own emotions and those of others to make better decisions and relate effectively.
To the extent that our emotions get in the way of or support our capacity to think and plan, to pursue learning toward a distant goal, to solve problems, they define the limit of our capacity to use our innate mental abilities.
— Daniel GolemanMastery progression
Reacts to emotions without identifying them. Struggles to distinguish what they feel from what they do. Emotions overwhelm them or they deny them.
Can name some of their own emotions in safe contexts. Starts recognizing that emotional state affects their decisions and relationships.
Identifies what they feel, regulates their reactions, and adjusts their behavior to context. Recognizes emotions in others and adapts their communication.
Uses their emotions as information to act with intention. Creates emotionally safe climates and helps others recognize and process what they feel.
- Name basic emotions in themselves when the context is safe
- Recognize when something bothers, pleases, or causes them anxiety
- Identify physical changes associated with an intense emotion
- Distinguish the emotion from the behavior: 'I feel angry' vs. 'I slammed the table'
- Use emotional vocabulary more precise than just 'good' or 'bad'
- Recognize what triggers their most intense reactions
- Read emotional signals in others during an interaction
- Regulate intense emotions in the moment they occur without leaving the situation
- Sustain empathy with someone they are in an active conflict with
- Use their emotions to make ethical decisions under pressure
Questions that activate it
Tap a card to see the coaching guide
What are you feeling right now?
Tap to flipInvites pausing and naming before acting. Many problematic reactions occur without the person having named what they feel.
Tap to returnWhat does that emotion tell you about what matters?
Tap to flipReframes the emotion as information, not interference. Emotions have a function: they signal values, needs, or threats.
Tap to returnAre you responding to what is happening or to what you imagine will happen?
Tap to flipHelps distinguish reaction to the present from anxious anticipation. Most intense reactions have more to do with prediction than with fact.
Tap to returnWhat do you need to think more clearly right now?
Tap to flipIntroduces the idea that emotional state affects cognition. Sometimes the answer is time, space, or acknowledgment.
Tap to returnHow do you think the other person is experiencing this?
Tap to flipActivates the empathic perspective. Useful when the situation involves conflict or misunderstanding with another person.
Tap to returnIn a 6-year study with primary school students, social-emotional learning programs produced an average improvement of 11 percentile points in academic performance — not because they replaced content, but because they created conditions for learning.
Durlak et al. (2011) — The Impact of Enhancing Students' Social and Emotional LearningIdeas for developing it
- Use the Emotions Card Deck at the start of class to name the emotional state before beginning
- Expand emotional vocabulary beyond 'good/bad/angry': work with emotion wheels or intensity-based classifications
- Use I Used to Think / Now I Think to record how perception of a situation changes after processing it
- Close activities with emotional closing questions: how did I arrive? how am I leaving? what did this activity create in me?
- Analyze situations where emotion led to a good or bad decision — without judging, identifying the mechanism
- Use Dilemma Cards to explore how different emotions lead to different choices in the same situation
- Incorporate a start-of-class ritual that allows students to arrive emotionally before learning: a 1-5 scale, word of the day, brief check-in
- Model emotional language as a teacher: name aloud what you feel and how you manage it