READING Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Golemanin 1995 caused a seismic shift in my career as apsychology professor. According to Goleman,

“Emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacitythat profoundly affects all other abilities, either facili-tating or interfering with them” (p. 80). I became fas-cinated with the challenge of whether emotionalintelligence could be taught. Goleman argued thatemotional intelligence encompasses five characteristicsand abilities: self-awareness,mood management, self-motivation, empathy, andmanaging relationships. Ayear before the publicationof Emotional Intelligence,Goleman made the follow-ing observation about thecurrent state of what hecalled “emotional literacy”:“In navigating our lives, itis our fears and envies, ourrages and depression, ourworries and anxieties thatsteer us day to day. Eventhe most academically brilliant among us are vulnera-ble to being undone by unruly emotions.The price wepay for emotional [il]literacy is in failed marriages andtroubled families, in stunted social and work lives, indeteriorating physical health and mental anguish and,as a society, in tragedies such as killings.”

In 2000, I had the opportunity to teach a course onemotional literacy at the local women’s prison that hadbeen developed by Robin Casarjian in her Houses of

Healing program. I witnessed firsthand the extraordi-nary power of such a course for incarcerated women ofall ages and ethnicities. As stated in the syllabus, thecourse was designed to “foster self-understanding andemotional and spiritual growth; and encourage respon-sibility and accountability towards oneself and others”;it succeeded beyond my imagination.

I began to ponder the possibility of developingsuch a course for my traditional-age students at the

women’s college where Iteach. Had I not had thisexperience of teaching thecourse in the women’sprison, I would not havepersisted. My colleaguesmet my discussion of such a course with skepticism;the course, they said, was“not appropriate,” or col-lege faculty were “not qual-ified,” or it was “too late.”

In spite of the skepti-cism of my colleagues, Idecided to develop an

emotional literacy course as a section of our first-semes-ter seminar at Marymount College, a course called“Women’s Voices,Women’s Choices” that was requiredfor all first-year students in women’s studies.After muchsearching, I settled on two texts: Scott Peck’s The RoadLess Traveled:A New Psychology of Love,Traditional Valuesand Spiritual Growth and Pythia Peay’s Soul Sisters:TheFive Divine Qualities of a Woman’s Soul. I knew from pastexperience that Peck’s book still speaks to young adults

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Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/abc.255 © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

CAMPUS COMMONS

ARE YOU EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT?

A legitimate question for the college classroom

By John D. Lawry

I BECAME FASCINATED WITH THE

CHALLENGE OF WHETHER

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COULD

BE TAUGHT.

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ABOUT CAMPUS / JULY–AUGUST 2008

about the need for discipline and the importance of loveand grace in one’s life. Peay’s book was new to me, but Iliked her emphasis on the “feminine face” of courage,faith, beauty, love, and magic as “the five divine qualitiesof a woman’s soul.” I titled my course “The Road LessTraveled:A Feminine Journey of the Spirit.”

CONSISTENT with the emotional literacy theorythat facilitating group process is as important as teach-

ing content, there are a couple of aspects of my coursethat made it unique and, I believe, successful. First, Ibegan each class with at least a minute or two of silence.Second, I insisted on each person learning everyone else’sname.This task was facilitated by sitting in a circle andplaying a name game at the beginning of class for thefirst couple of weeks.Third, I invited each student tobring a personal (that is, meaningful or precious) objectto the second class in a paper bag. The studentsunwrapped their objects and placed them on a table inthe center of the classroom.The students then circled thetable and on cue selected an object other than their ownthat attracted them.After saying what attracted them,they returned the object to its owner and asked for thestory behind the object.This continued until all of thestudents had told their stories.This technique may soundsimple, but it was an extremely powerful way to intro-duce the students to each other and began a bondingprocess that evolved throughout the semester.

Three requirements of the course were also signif-icant. First, every student had to volunteer to lead oneof the class discussions on predetermined topics fromthe two texts (preferably solo, but I allowed duets whenanxiety made it necessary).Topics included delayinggratification, accepting responsibility, dedication to real-ity, balancing, the discipline of love, the miracles ofgrace, and the five divine qualities of a women’s soul.

The second requirement was a journal on the stu-dent’s thoughts and feelings in response to the readings(or anything else) before and after the class discussion, tobe handed in at the end of the term. Nothing in thecourse requirements caused more initial resistance thankeeping a journal.Typical responses were “I hate writ-ing”;“How can I be personal if you are going to readit?” and “I don’t have time to keep a journal.”Yet nothingseems to match the journal in its power to teach self-exploration, as some of the student comments given laterin this article will testify.

The final project was a self-evaluation paper withthe following guidelines:

This final evaluation is . . . an opportunity to eval-uate to what degree this course has facilitated theprocess of self-knowledge and personal growth. . . .

Please be honest. . . .The evaluation . . . representsyour attempt to verbalize what this course hasmeant in terms of your own experience, as a . . .supplement to what you have said in class and inyour journal and as a capstone statement. (We donot do enough self-observation of our own learn-ing!) . . . Some students find the personal letter for-mat helpful, but that is your choice.

THE POWER of the techniques described and of thecourse in its entirety is made manifest by the student

feedback and final papers.The first thing to report is thatthe students seem to really appreciate the silence. I wasn’tsure how they would respond to such a foreign experi-ence in most students’ lives. One student shared that itwas the only silence in her day and that she needed it andreally appreciated it. Sometimes students would ask theclass to pray for an intention at the beginning of thesilence—for example, that a student’s sister who had runaway from home would be found.The name game intro-duced a note of levity as well as the opportunity to get toknow each person’s name. Several students remarked thatit was the only class in which they got to know all thenames of the other students (twenty-nine in all) and thatthey valued the opportunity.

Many students wrote about how the atmosphere ofthe class helped them overcome their reticence. Onestudent put it this way:

I have never really been a person that talks aboutfeelings, and I knew from others who have had classwith Professor Lawry that he is very much intoreflection.This made me nervous but when Pro-fessor Lawry said that we did not have to share any-thing with the class that we did not want to, thatput me a little bit at ease. However, I found myselfwanting to share my thoughts and experiences withthe class because I felt that it would be good forme. By sharing my inner thoughts I felt that itwould help with the way that I interact in my rela-tionships. I felt that it was a good environment, see-ing how I knew everyone, to aid in my growth. . . .I have learned that I do not have to keep thingsbottled up, that people do care, and are genuinelyinterested in your wellbeing.

Another student praised the commitment to confiden-tiality:“I was able to express myself without fear that my

John D. Lawry is professor emeritus of psychology atMarymount College of Fordham University in Tarrytown,New York. He is author of May You Never Stop Dancing: AProfessor’s Letters to His Daughter (St. Mary’s Press, 1998) andCollege 101:A First-Year Reader (McGraw-Hill, 1999).

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words would be used against me, or spat back at me insituations that occurred outside of the classroom. It ishard for some people to open up and express how theyfeel, and I think that a class like this makes it acceptableto be real.”

The journal requirement was also seen as animportant tool for teaching self-reflection. One studentvolunteered:

On a more personal note, I have learned that myemotions control me more than they should. Look-ing back in my journal, I can’t help but notice howI let everything get to me until one final thingpushes me into sadness. It scares me how little ittakes to get me sad or angry, and that’s something Ineed to work on. I always knew that this was aproblem of mine, and re-reading my journal justconfirmed it. . . .Writing in my journal was a ther-apeutic way for me to get out some of my thoughtsand feelings, and I plan to continue keeping myjournal long after this class ends. Even though Idon’t like the way I seem on paper, uncensored anduncut, it’s the real me and the truth. I have keptabout a billion journals in my life, but this one Iplan to keep for as long as I can. I need all of thehealthy releasers and de-stressors that I can get!

Another student discovered some important positivechanges that were occurring during the semester:“Ilearned so much about myself that I stored within myjournal’s pages that as I look over my words I realize thatall along I was gaining confidence in myself; I wasbeginning to truly peel away the layers and discover thetruth about Christine.”

The class also facilitated female peer bonding. Onestudent remarked on the effect of reading Peay’s SoulSisters: “It made me realize how grateful I am for mynew friends at school because I realize how importantthey are and I believe they came into my life at theexact time that I needed them.”The course also chal-lenged the stereotypes that some students have of pro-fessors. One student commented,“I imagined that theprofessors would be old, snotty, and with attitudes. ButI don’t think I could have been more wrong.”

This last remark reminds me that I, too, havelearned something. In my early years of teaching I wasdefinitely “snotty, and with attitudes.”Years later, I readthe delicious autobiography of Daniel Lindley, ThisRough Magic:The Life of Teaching. In a chapter titled,appropriately enough,“Calling Spirits,” Lindley makesthe following claim: “The goal of teaching is not toteach ‘well,’ or dramatically, or even superbly. In fact totry to do so is actually a problem, an over-involvementof ego.Teaching too dramatically, too ‘effectively,’ takes

up all the space in the classroom.The teacher wouldoutdo the students, so there would be no joining up”(p. 11).Teaching from an emotional literacy perspectivehas helped me to realize the hazards of what Lindleycalls “taking up all the space in the classroom.”As myego needs become smaller and I become wiser, I createmore space in my classroom for the social and emo-tional as well as intellectual competence of my students.

IBELIEVE it is not too late to teach social and emo-tional learning to college students.The majority of the

students wrote in their final paper that the course was abig help in making the sometimes difficult adjustment tocollege. Many volunteered that the course gave themsomething to look forward to, to hang on to, in ways theirother courses did not.To quote from a student’s paper onelast time:“I wish I could take this class every year, for mymind’s sake, but since I am a psychology major I amexcited to get deeper into the science and the field. Nowevery couple of nights, when I go outside to look at thesky, I will always think of your class and the wonderfulgirls in it.Thank you so much for being such an inspira-tional and relaxing teacher, and I can’t even imagine howhard my upcoming weekdays are going to be withoutthose mere two minutes of silence.”

What do all of these stories say about student learn-ing? I think the stories show that first-year students wantto be seen and heard. Students want to share in directcontact with others as they engage with the big questions,and given just a little encouragement and the promise ofsafety and respect in the classroom, they will engage eachother in meaningful learning and self-discovery. More tothe point, I believe that the stories prove that in theunique “we-space” (to borrow from Ken Wilber) of thecollege classroom, emotional learning is not only possi-ble but also welcome and maybe even necessary.

NOTES

Casarjian, R. (1995). Houses of healing:A prisoner’s guide to innerpower and freedom. Boston: Lionheart Foundation.

Goleman, D. (1994). Emotional intelligence, quoted inFunderstanding. Retrieved May 29, 2008, fromhttp://www.funderstanding.com/eq.cfm

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.Lindley, D. (1993). This rough magic: The life of teaching.

Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.Peay, P. (2002). Soul sisters:The five divine qualities of a woman’s

soul. New York:Tarcher/Putnam.Peck, M. S. (1978). The road less traveled: A new psychology of

love, traditional values and spiritual growth. New York:Simon & Schuster.

Wilber, K. Ken Wilber Online–Excerpt C: The Ways WeAre in This Together, Part III.The Crucial Importance ofHermeneutics: What is a “We”? (p. 1) http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/excerptC/part3-1.cfm

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