Showing posts with label order. Show all posts
Showing posts with label order. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The class thug punched out the class clown, but made straight A's

What do the class clown and class thug have in common? Emotions! How successful each of them becomes depends on their ability to express and manage their emotions.

The inability to manage emotions can create a situation where the smartest boy in the class is also the class thug who punches the funniest boy in the class for being funny.

While reading the premise of Dr. Daniel Goleman's book "Emotional Intelligence" I thought about the number of smart youth I have mentored over the years who were emotionally impotent. I have seen so many smart boys who could not control their tempers or others who were academic whiz kids but could not express themselves openly or relate to other people.

Dr. Goleman contends that EQ is as important as our IQ. A smart man who cannot express himself emotionally or manage his emotions doesn't go very far. If he has risen, his demise is lurking somewhere in the near future. He says managing emotions is something that should be taught in school, especially since it is crucial to career success. He has his critics of course; they claim that there is no "right" or "wrong" emotion and such things should not be taught.

Somehow I tend to think there would be fewer fights, less violence and more creativity if children are taught, from childhood, how to express emotions properly and how to manage their emotions.

Maybe fewer people would get punched in the nose.

Emotional management is best taught to children and as they mature the qualities will exhibit themselves in every aspect of life.

Dr. Goleman thinks schools should do the training but the bible puts the responsibility on everyone who has any dealing with a child beginning with its parents.

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

What's next? Along with our IQ we will probably get an EQ number as well.

Many who pass the IQ test may flunk the EQ, get angry, storm out of the meeting and curse out the test administrator for being so dumb!

Monday, May 24, 2010

A fight, bullhorns and shouts at a graduation?

A fight and shouts at a graduation? Believe it.

I attended a graduation last week but couldn't really enjoy the moment because of the distractions. I sat behind man who held a half dozen helium filled balloons that blocked the view of the stage of about 100 people behind him. To my left, two women were pulling on each other, fighting over something that must have been senseless; they stopped before it escalated too far. On the podium, the graduates marched across the stage but their names were inaudible as their "fans" blew bull horns and screams. It all made the graduation less enjoyable because of all of the distractions.

I always thought that graduations were joyous but extremely dignified events. For the parents and grandparents in the audience graduations have even more importance because many made great sacrifices to for their family graduate to walk across the stage. To have that moment stolen by foolish antics, fighting, and shouting is disheartening. They worked so long to hear that name called, only to have it drowned out or upstaged by the undisciplined.

Those who did their own thing and stole the moment from others had fun themselves, but they did not act wisely or prudently.

There is a bible verse that says,(Proverbs 10:23) It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.

Those who act foolishly at graduations, might deserve a few days of detention; at least until they learn wisdom.