April 24, 2023
Hundreds of professionals require guidance or support because they feel alone when going through hardships or difficulties that may seem too difficult to overcome. Some of us have tried many ways to solve the problems but they seem not to go away or perhaps it seems like you want to quit trying and you become very discouraged. Many times, you may feel that you are not meant to continue to pursue your career or maybe you are thinking of changing careers. One very effective way that many teachers or professionals have tried and were successful is to choose a mentor or become one to provide support for their colleagues. According to Ed Week survey about 37% of teachers received one-time professional development with no follow-up training. One of the survey's results also discovered that teachers stated that they have received insufficient training to teach students social-emotional skills. I strongly believe that if schools have a mentoring program with a coach facilitator in emotional social learning for teachers there will be better consistent outcomes towards meeting their student's engagement. motivation, and social-emotional learning.
Mentoring is critical.
I think it is important to define the concept of mentoring which is necessary before I begin to explain the amazing opportunities it brings to our careers and life. A mentor is the one who is an experienced and trusted adviser. The role of a mentor is to provide guidance, advice, feedback, and support. When you mentor your colleagues or someone in your life you have the chance to listen, communicate, provide constructive criticism, practice empathy, given the chance for the person you are mentoring to make their own decisions and take action to become an effective leader for their students and the world. When we share our stories with others it helps us to relate our thoughts and feelings that need to be throughout to keep us emotionally engaged. The other opportunity we get from mentoring others is motivation. When feeling vulnerable and having limited motivation one of the best practices is to reach out to mentors and colleagues to coordinate times for mentorship monthly or in some cases every week or every month. You may be asking how mentoring others allow me to help my student’s engagement, motivation, and social-emotional. Let me answer that question by bringing you to teaching students in the classroom.
Having limited beliefs
Going back to John Dewey‘s principles which were unity, interest, experience, and integration proved and provided a very important practice and theory that gave so much more emphasis and validation to mentoring in education and life in general. John also provided an example of how to implement those principles in the classroom setting. An example is when a student does not complete the work because of the limited belief that he or she cannot do the difficult task given. Taking this example of the student having limited beliefs we can see ourselves sometimes having limited beliefs that prevent us from learning to provide social and emotional support to ourselves and others. When we mentor others, it brings us to this vulnerable state of mind and places us together to resolve this set of limited beliefs that are holding us back to continue to grow as effective teachers. Mentoring one of your colleagues allows you to provide support to get out of feeling discouraged, stressed or not feeling connected. Mentoring provides individuals to interconnect with each other. How do we possibly get to encourage, motivate, engage, and help others socially and emotionally when we have not resolved those limited beliefs? The answer to this question is that it will be very difficult. When you are mentoring others or others are mentoring you then you will have plenty of opportunities to learn to listen to each other carefully, communicate meaningfully, and provide constructive feedback to help them to resolve their limited beliefs. Also, when you mentor them it creates a relationship where empathy and connection, help them to make their own decisions and lead them to take action or work on their beliefs and emotions that are preventing them to be effective leaders when teaching. What other practices does research recommend doing to be successful in our careers and life? Research showed us that our EQ is critical to developing to be successful in our jobs, families, and life. We could set up times to meet with our colleagues, friends, or family members to mentor one. My advice is to find one of your colleagues and start mentoring them. When you start your mentoring sessions have the requirements to follow. Requirement number one is to identify the one thing they are having difficulties dealing with at that moment. Requirement number two is to clarify your direction. One example when you clarify your direction is to make your schedule clear to have boundaries for your self-care, family time, mentoring time or business time, and other activities you want to manage. Requirement number two is to strategize your actions and this means to get focus on your feelings and desires of one thing and having an action plan of a timeline is very important. An example is to work on managing your students focusing on their social/emotional more strategically and effectively for the next 1 to 3 months and the action you will take like listening to your student's limited beliefs and keeping mindfulness in your instruction. You will need to also share that goal with your mentor and feel free to share your feelings and desires of why that goal is important for you. Requirement number three is to identify skills you need to upgrade. An example is for you to start listening to podcasts, setting up a time for yourself, and start writing your limited beliefs and changing them to empowerthoughts in your daily journal. You may want to share the skills you want to upgrade with your mentor for accountability.
High school student who almost dropped out of high school. After receiving our mentoring support along with the academic support, she passed state tests and was able to complete all assignments and had no more limited beliefs.
I recommend that you set up a goal of mentoring one time or twice per month. Mentoring one another gives you the amazing opportunity to work on our limited beliefs. If you are a teacher in schools, you might want to create a mentoring program with stakeholders to prevent from teachers getting burnout and to give them the emotional and social supports they need to become effective teachers.
I am posting my blog page for May 2023 about EQ emotional intelligence to increase awareness and I hope that you will develop your level of emotional intelligence to be able to succeed as leaders for your family, community, and organizations.
When mentoring one another gives us the opportunity to develop our emotional intelligence (EQ)
Setting up times to do mentoring once a month with your colleagues, friends, or family members can help you meet goals to increase your EQ skills together. Completing an assessment is very important to get an idea of your score for each skill and dimension of EQ. The best way to learn to be successful as leaders, and others is to evaluate our level of emotional intelligence and to use those skills in our careers and life in general.
We are social emotional beings. It is critical to focus on and teach emotional intelligence skills because not every student learns social cues or the awareness of their own emotions. When we as educators and parents focus on teaching emotional intelligence most likely we are helping ourselves, and our students to be healthy and successful social-emotional beings for the future. Learning how to manage your own emotions and others, being aware, and examining your thoughts and emotions count for 70% of your rate of success in any aspect of your life. You may be asking what is emotional intelligence? Another question is, how do we measure emotional intelligence? EQ is based on the performance of behavioral changes and you can pick one skill and start to work on it. It is important to provide the 5 skills with dimensions to be able to view each level of EQ.
Emotional Intelligence and 5 Skills with dimensions
Emotional intelligence is defined as a set of emotional and social skills that makes people great in managing themselves and interacting with others. Emotional intelligence is the conduit of influence and collaboration with others.
Emotional intelligence consists of self-regard which refers to respecting yourself having confidence in your abilities, believing in your own self-worth, and knowing that you matter and have inherent value. When referring to self-regard is having motivation where you take action on your own and independence is thinking and acting towards determining the course of your life and avoiding inappropriate obligations to other people.
Self-Awareness is the recognition of your personality, disposition, and temperament. Perception of your behavior and interaction with others, awareness of your motives, beliefs and values. Consciousness of your own feelings and desires. Openness which is
to listen and receive feedback, open to different opinions and points of view without bias or prejudice. Self-knowledge which is the awareness of your personal performance and potential consciousness of your thoughts, feelings, and motives. Discerning of your strengths and weaknesses and recognizing your own mistakes is part of self-awareness. Self-knowledge is the awareness of your personal performance and potential. Consciousness of your thoughts, feelings and motives. Perception of the way your behavior and body language influence others and discerning of your strengths and weaknesses.
Self-Control- Controlling your emotions, especially under stress, showing restraint over your impulses and mastering your person, will help you to develop more disciplined desires and appetites. Under this skill you will need to have impulse control which you resist or delay an impulse and avoid rushed behaviors and decision making. Impulse control is exercising restraint over an abrupt inclination which means thinking before we act. Stress tolerance which means positively dealing with stressful or difficult situations. Having impulse control means not becoming overwhelmed by adverse or demanding circumstances, and the capacity to endure hardship or pain and be able to perform in stressful situations with minimal anxiety. Emotional stability means being steady when faced with stress or pressure, demonstrating a calm mood and disposition, avoiding emotional swings and outburst and maintaining composure even when you go through difficult situations. The next dimension of self-control is emotional stability which refers to you when faced with stress or pressure. Also it means when you show a calm mood and disposition. Avoiding emotional swings and outbursts and maintaining composure even during difficult situations. Resilience is under self-control, and it means to recover from difficulties and withstand stress or misfortune. Also it means learning to adjust to adversity and enduring hardship. We lastly have delayed gratification which refers to resisting a small reward now for a bigger reward later. Sacrificing immediate satisfaction for greater satisfaction in the future. One good example to exercise delayed gratification is to not eat certain foods to keep your weight down or keep your weight or maybe save money to meet your investment goal for a better financial future.
Social Perception- Recognize and understand the emotions of others. Being aware of social dynamics around you. Interpret the intents and desires of others. Perceive the mood and morale of social environment. Under the skill of social perception there is the ability to feel what others feel and understand and identify with what others think and do and it is called empathy. Empathy is when you appreciate the emotions and experience of another person. For example, stepping into another person's shoes and viewing the world from their perspective. There is another dimension under social perception which is called observation. Observation is when you notice interpersonal dynamics during social interactions. It also refers to when you listen and view human behavior and learning through evaluation. Anticipation is predicting what will happen and expecting an outcome. Foreseeing the actions of others and accurately projecting into the future. It also refers to preparing and having the expectation of things to come.
Social Effectiveness- Engaging in social interactions to produce mutual benefit Acting wisely and competently in human relations. Shaping outcome through positive interpersonal influence and helping to manage emotions in others. Influence is a dimension under social effectiveness. Influence is having the effect on others and contributing to a change of thinking or behavior in another person. Shaping the actions of others through persuasion and cause change in others without force or intimidation. Conflict management-Limiting or removing conflict from social interaction and addressing and resolving an argument. Restoring harmony, unity, good faith to a relationship and creating a mutually acceptable solution. Relationship management which refers to building a meaningful attachment between two people and maintaining a human connection. The creation and sustaining a social and emotional bond and building relationships. Accountability refers to the process of making and meeting commitments and holding yourself and others responsible. Accountability also refers to ensuring that tasks are completed. Ego management refers to preventing your sense of self-importance and eliminating pride and narcissism which avoids exaggerated notions of superiority.
I am posting my next blog about tips and techniques you can apply to work on your skills and dimensions in EQ for the month of May 29, 2023.
Dr. Tatiana Ochoa
Commenti