Emotional Intelligence & School Teachers

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Dr. Arun Kumar is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (India). Dr. Kumar possesses M.Sc. (Botany), M.A. (Economics), M.Ed., M.Phil. (Education) and Ph.D. in Education from C. C. S. University, Meerut (Uttar Pradesh). Before joining University of Lucknow, he has served as an Assistant Professor in D.V. College, Orai, Jalaun, Uttar Pradesh. A sincere academic Dr. Arun kumar has research experience of over a decade and has written quite extensively on many important issues of Education including Emotional intelligence in various national and international journals. He has developed a tool for measuring emotional « intelligence. He has presented several papers in national and international seminars and conferences. Besides chairing several technical sessions in seminars and conferences, he has delivered covering large canvass of academic deliberation.

With the unprecedented expansion of knowledge in the recent age, challenges before education have become more urgent and diverse. Perceptions about the content of education, delivery mechanisms as well as the measurement of educational achievement are also passing through a metamorphic change. Moreover, research in psychology and education has opened new vistas identifying and deciphering human capabilities into various physical and psychological traits that constitute an individual’s potential for success in school, college or university and at the workplace, though it still remains a challenge to identify the traits which are more important than others. For example, abstract intelligence, which was considered to be the most important factor of one’s success in education, is just a raw ability that needs to be nurtured. Other variables particularly related to the socio-economic climate at home, in the community and most importantly the schools are getting increasing recognition. Expanding access to education in the contemporary period has proved that anyone who possesses ‘normal’ human capabilities could get an education. However, in order to excel in various walks of life one should have traits other than mere abstract or concrete intelligence. The notion of intelligence has therefor widened and includes emotional intelligence as an important aspect of an individual’s capabilities — innate or acquired. Ever since its recognition emotional intelligence has gained much attention not only in the academic community but in the field of business and management as well. Despite having a recent origin, the concept of emotional intelligence has travelled very fast in the fields of educational and psychological research. The present book makes a significant contribution in advancing our knowledge of this important aspect of human capabilities.

Emotional intelligence is a unique capacity of an individual that enables him not only to make adjustment with others and manage his behavior in the society but also equips the individual to manage one’s own affective domain which primarily includes traits like emotions, compassion, aspirations. Emotional intelligence. is an important indicator of one’s adjustment at home, in the community and at the workplace. Whereas a lot of research has been conducted on the importance of concrete and abstract intelligence in education, knowledge about emotional intelligence is still in the nascent empirical stage. Present study by Dr. Arun Kumar moves a step further in this direction. Dr. Kumar has tried to understand the implications of emotional intelligence in the context of school teachers, specifically focusing on how emotional intelligence affects job- satisfaction of teachers which in turn could be an important factor in student achievement. Findings of the study are relevant in the contemporary context where the definition of school achievement is constantly expanding to include not merely the performance on scholastic variables but students’ understanding of various other aspects of their own behavior, emotional, social and cultural aspects. Adequate knowledge of emotional intelligence significantly helps the teachers to appreciate as to how emotionally mature and stable teachers can contribute to the well-being of the students.

In the year 2002, when the author read a book written by Daniel Goleman (1996) "Emotional intelligence : Why it can matter more than IQ", and another book written by Dalip Singh (2001) "Emotional Intelligence at work : A Professional guide" he felt that the concept of intelligence was changing very fast. Being a student of teacher education, the increased knowledge in the field of intelligence has motivated author to do some creative work in this area than author has decided to further enquire about the genesis of the term "Emotional intelligence", to know about the concept of Emotional Intelligence and role of Emotional intelligence for teachers.

After nineteenth century the concept of intelligence developed very fast. Although in 1935. E.L. Thorndike has given three types of intelligence namely Concrete intelligence, abstract intelligence and Social Intelligence but men being more social than the other races on earth, the knowledge of men regarding their social interaction and the process of handling relations is increasing every day in multiple manner. The concept of intelligence get paradigm shift in the last second decade of twentieth century when Wayne Leon payne (1985) has coined a new term named "Emotional Intelligence". At this stage most of the emerging psychologists including Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1990) have emphasized more on emotional intelligence. Bar-On has also developed a tool for measuring Emotional intelligence in 1997. In this book the author has tried to see the influence of emotional intelligence on the level of job-satisfaction among school teachers. Different studies and observation of the writer clearly reveals ‘that teachers with high emotional intelligence show very high level of job-satisfaction.

The basic purpose of this book is to provide certain specific concept and tool of emotional intelligence to bring improvement to the teaching-learning in Indian environment. This book would prove to be beneficial for the people in education right from the policy makers to the practitioners at the lowest level. Emotional intelligence is an invaluable aspect of personality traits that needs to be included in the test battery prepared to recruit the teachers, particularly at the school level. This book highlights that concrete intelligence need not be over-emphasized and should be supplemented with emotional intelligence as a major ingredient. The curriculum of teacher education programmes should focus not merely on enhancing and examining the lower level of cognitive and conative domains alone but they should also equip the teachers with the emotional maturity to deal with individual differences in the ultimate benefit of the students. The guidance is an important aspect of education. This book might be of great importance for guidance purpose also. Curriculum at school level should also take into account the emotional instability and attitudinal flexibility of students and must include content to train their emotions in accordance with emerging society.

**Contents and Sample Pages**