Why Your Emotional Quotient (EQ) May Matter More Than Lesson Plans

We know that learning is influenced heavily by emotions. When our students feel safe, included, supported, and confident, learning thrives. When they feel fearful, worried, isolated, or uncertain, learning suffers. Students’ emotions influence whether they choose to engage, take risks, and persist in learning. 

Of course, we do not and cannot control every emotion students experience. However, our emotions and the ways in which we communicate them matter. Students pay close attention to the tone of our voice, our body language, the expressions on our faces, and other emotional clues, and what they “read” in our emotions often influences how they feel about learning—and whether they choose to engage with it.  

Our ability to read and respond to students’ emotions can also significantly influence students' openness to learning and their choices regarding it. When we recognize that a student is struggling, needs reassurance, craves understanding, or is experiencing other influential emotions, we can make choices, employ strategies, and communicate in ways that lessen the extent to which emotions might interfere.  We can also encourage positive emotions that support and lead to learning. 

We are talking here about our emotional quotient (EQ) and how we can use our EQ to build trust, nurture a sense of belonging, bolster confidence, encourage curiosity, and foster persistence. Let’s explore five examples of this influential force and how it can support learning.  

We can start by being self-aware. Before engaging with students, we might ask ourselves, “What emotions am I bringing to the classroom today?” When we are feeling tired, stressed, frustrated, or distracted, we risk letting our emotions get in the way of learning. Students often pay more attention to our emotional messages than to the words we speak. To shift our mood, we might take a micro-break, focus on something positive, commit to pausing before responding negatively, or at least avoid letting our emotions become the message. 

We might activate our emotional radar. We can remind ourselves that being conscious of students’ emotions can influence how we relate to them and how they respond in kind. We might look for nonverbal cues and be curious about unexpected and unexplained shifts in behavior. We might engage students in brief emotional check-ins if we feel the classroom tone or mood is off. Our awareness of and readiness to respond to students’ emotional states can prevent many distractions, conflicts, and other unproductive behaviors.  

We can lead with empathy. When students struggle, seem distracted, or are uncooperative, we might be tempted immediately to push, direct, and insist. However, doing so may overlook important information that could provide insight into the emotions causing the behavior. Armed with better information and understanding, we might find better, more productive options for responding.  By listening and being curious, we are more likely to reduce the defensiveness and pushback we experience while opening the door to problem-solving and solution-finding.  

We can seek motivational alignment. Student motivation can be influenced by a wide range of emotions. They may fail to see meaning and purpose in the learning task, or they may be delighted and ready to approach the task using their creative energy. The key for us is to understand how students perceive learning tasks and to help them align their motivation with the task at hand. We may need to help them see the value and purpose of what they are learning, offer options and choices, or make other adjustments depending on their needs. 

We can build confidence. Fear of failure can be a powerful emotional barrier to learning. Some students need to feel confident before they will even begin a task, others need a boost in confidence to persist, and still other students need us to help them gain the confidence to take learning risks, trust themselves, and stretch beyond what they have tried before. To bolster confidence, we might break tasks down into achievable steps. We may help students focus on the importance of the right kind of effort and the best strategies. Or we may need to increase the frequency and forward focus of our feedback. The hope and sense of self-efficacy we nurture in students can become the keys to getting started, persisting, and finding success.    

Emotions can be the “hidden hand” in learning success. We can plan the best lesson and deliver what feels like perfect instruction, but if we fail to attend to and respond to students' emotions, we can fall flat. It is our EQ that often makes the crucial difference in whether students choose to learn.