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Authors: Ian Gilbert
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whether or not to sue the doctor depended on the extent to which the patient liked them. ‘People just don’t sue doctors they like’, according to a lawyer quoted by the author. In other words, their EQ saved them from where the GP-related IQ had let them down. This, and other such research, prompted Dr Curran and Independent Thinking to put a programme together for medical undergraduates which is in its third year, taking the trainee GPs through an EQ-training programme that runs parallel to their traditional medical training. We called it HiOP to see if anyone would ask what it stood for. Only one or two have. (Hell is Other People. After Sartre. But before Big Brother.)
We all know doctors whose ‘bedside manner’ is exemplary, teachers whose ability to get on well with people changes lives for the better and bosses you just love to work for. So, we know combining EQ with IQ can be done. And it can also be taught. What, then, are you doing at your school to develop EQ in your children and your colleagues? What are you doing to be the embodiment of an emotionally intelligent adult? Some of your children may never have seen an emotionally intelligent adult. They’ve seen grown-ups but that’s not necessarily the same thing at all.
Remember the UK research I mentioned above on gifted and talented students? This is how it closes:
After innumerable hours of interaction and investigation with the individuals in this sample as they grew to adulthood, I had to conclude that many influences on happiness and success are like love – it is possible to say how it feels and what happens because of it, but there is no sure recipe to apply to others. For the rest we do have very clear information about what the gifted and talented need by way of support towards self-fulfilment – an education to suit their potential, opportunities to flourish and people who believe in them.
Amen to that.
Chapter 7
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only idea you’ve got
Teacher: What did the Vikings come in, children?
Class: Longboats, Miss!
Teacher: No, no, now come on, we did this last time, remember …
Class: Er, ships, narrowboats, er, don’t know, Miss!
Teacher: Oh come on, we did this! They came in ‘hoards’, class. What did they come in?
Class: ‘Hoards’, Miss …
This, as told by comedian Mark Steel in one of his ‘lectures’ for the Open University and the BBC, 1 is a great example of the ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’ game we so often play with children, encouraged to do so by the nature of the schooling system. As we prepare them for the right or wrong ‘zero sum game’ of the exam system, we drill them in our classrooms, almost without being aware of it, in getting the ‘one right answer’, that is to say the one answer we are thinking of to the question we have asked. I know there are many teachers out there who don’t work that way, but I’ve been in too many classrooms in all sorts of schools to ignore the fact that it happens and has a pernicious effect on children’s creativity and, linked to that, their self-esteem.
The game is a quick and easy way of playing the bigger game of school, quickly sorting out those who ‘know’ from those who ‘don’t know’ and efficiently ending up with winners and losers and a set of scores in a mark book. It is a game that is replicated in most game shows, quiz shows and crossword puzzles across the world. But can we really say that the
Brain of Britain
is just that? Or should it be called
Memory of Britain
? Along with
Mastermemory
?
Who Has the Memory to be a Millionaire
? At least
Deal or No Deal
makes no obfuscatory claims about the nature of its vacuousness.
But, as the title of this chapter points out, nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only idea we’ve got. If all we are skilled in and duly rewarded for is the one right answer then we seriously narrow down our creativity and significantly reduce
We all know doctors whose ‘bedside manner’ is exemplary, teachers whose ability to get on well with people changes lives for the better and bosses you just love to work for. So, we know combining EQ with IQ can be done. And it can also be taught. What, then, are you doing at your school to develop EQ in your children and your colleagues? What are you doing to be the embodiment of an emotionally intelligent adult? Some of your children may never have seen an emotionally intelligent adult. They’ve seen grown-ups but that’s not necessarily the same thing at all.
Remember the UK research I mentioned above on gifted and talented students? This is how it closes:
After innumerable hours of interaction and investigation with the individuals in this sample as they grew to adulthood, I had to conclude that many influences on happiness and success are like love – it is possible to say how it feels and what happens because of it, but there is no sure recipe to apply to others. For the rest we do have very clear information about what the gifted and talented need by way of support towards self-fulfilment – an education to suit their potential, opportunities to flourish and people who believe in them.
Amen to that.
Chapter 7
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only idea you’ve got
Teacher: What did the Vikings come in, children?
Class: Longboats, Miss!
Teacher: No, no, now come on, we did this last time, remember …
Class: Er, ships, narrowboats, er, don’t know, Miss!
Teacher: Oh come on, we did this! They came in ‘hoards’, class. What did they come in?
Class: ‘Hoards’, Miss …
This, as told by comedian Mark Steel in one of his ‘lectures’ for the Open University and the BBC, 1 is a great example of the ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’ game we so often play with children, encouraged to do so by the nature of the schooling system. As we prepare them for the right or wrong ‘zero sum game’ of the exam system, we drill them in our classrooms, almost without being aware of it, in getting the ‘one right answer’, that is to say the one answer we are thinking of to the question we have asked. I know there are many teachers out there who don’t work that way, but I’ve been in too many classrooms in all sorts of schools to ignore the fact that it happens and has a pernicious effect on children’s creativity and, linked to that, their self-esteem.
The game is a quick and easy way of playing the bigger game of school, quickly sorting out those who ‘know’ from those who ‘don’t know’ and efficiently ending up with winners and losers and a set of scores in a mark book. It is a game that is replicated in most game shows, quiz shows and crossword puzzles across the world. But can we really say that the
Brain of Britain
is just that? Or should it be called
Memory of Britain
? Along with
Mastermemory
?
Who Has the Memory to be a Millionaire
? At least
Deal or No Deal
makes no obfuscatory claims about the nature of its vacuousness.
But, as the title of this chapter points out, nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only idea we’ve got. If all we are skilled in and duly rewarded for is the one right answer then we seriously narrow down our creativity and significantly reduce
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