By Sanandi Sachdeva
The first and foremost emotional creatures are, we the human beings. We are driven, motivated, and carried forward by the state of the mind and the emotions that we possess. Yesteryears have taught the importance of intellect and skills; both have been a key requirement for success. Without undermining the importance of both intellect and skills, a paramount element that has come forward in the last few years is emotional intellect.
Management of emotions, developing positive relationships, and self-emotional care, are the need of the hour. Social-emotional learning has been a relatively new concept; however, it has been intricately employed in the field of education for a long time now. The year 1994, as per the research undertaken was the year of development of the concept of social and emotional learning for the goal of student development. Multiple studies including the study undertaken by Chin Ng and Bull, 2018, stress the paramount role of social-emotional skills on academic success and achievement. The current era needs a deep-down contemplation on the steps to be undertaken to attain the goal of student development by focussing on their social-emotional learning further leading to the academic success of a student.
An individual can be a scholar, who will follow verbatim what has been explored by the predecessors, or he can be the one who absorbs and inculcates everything that is happening around, learning through experiential learning. The role of B-Schools is to prepare academically sound students who are emotionally balanced. What is learned simply from the books may fizzle out but what is learned experientially will stay. Research has proven that emotionally sound students always grasp better, perform better, and work employing a synergistic approach, this not only benefits them but also their peer group.
Development of self-awareness, self-control and interpersonal skills leads to a better understanding of the individual goals, promoting milestones including academic success and skill development. In the current paradigm, where the world has seen the worst, emotional balance has become a priority across the world and so is social-emotional learning. An emotionally sound individual possesses the capability to walk on the challenging path and anticipate the barriers.
B-Schools must look forward to promoting SEL instruction in a sequenced, active, focused and explicit manner. Under the B-School curriculum, a semester-wise structured approach can be employed by integrating a Social-Emotional learning module into the curriculum. Following concepts, as well as experiential learning activities, should be introduced to the students:
Self-Acclimatization
The concept of self-acclimatization is a must, the students who are entering higher education do face numerous challenges. The proliferation of issues related to stress, peer pressure, and workload can be dealt with by developing an understanding of self-goals. A crystal-clear understanding of self-goals will lead to successful academic scores as well as an understanding of the concepts pertaining to the domain.
Accurately perceiving emotions
Negative emotions when not diverted may rabble anarchy. Accurately perceiving the emotions of others as well as oneself will facilitate in leading a balanced life, indeed, very important for attaining academic excellence. The faculty mentors need to impart a vision among the students to understand and balance life amid the ongoing chaos. Acquiring social skills and managing relationships with others is salient. The topics under this may include labeling feelings, coping with stress, setting and achieving goals, empathizing, communicating effectively, conflict management, and being assertive
Resilience and Stress Management
Experiencing stress promotes anxiety, psychological pain, and disinterest, consequently, students may lose interest in academics, negatively impacting their grades. Getting away from this psychological pain calls for resilience. The ability to continuously work besides the setback, failures, and mishappenings is a must. Personal resilience is not an inborn trait, it can be nurtured with time through a plethora of activities including resiliency inventory, realistic visualization, and guided visualization. This will facilitate in raising intellectually sound and emotionally balanced individuals.
Responsible Decision making
A management graduate entering the corporate world must acquire the skill of responsible decision-making. Whether it is the decision to optimally utilize time for the betterment of academic grades or going out with peers for a break, an individual must learn to contemplate the consequence of an action undertaken and must make the decision responsibly. Making responsible choices about personal behavior and social interaction is crucial.
For the appropriate delivery of the above-mentioned concepts, explicit SEL instruction along with mentoring will be extremely advantageous. At the onset of this fragile phase of life, the students do require continuous support and inculcation of social-emotional learning for building them academically and emotionally.
