EQ vs IQ: What is Emotional Intellegence?

This past week in our YESS program at Shaw Heights we wrapped up our projects on the four key skills--Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, and Relationship Management--by having each group present their poster to the class. Our mentors and mentees did a wonderful job working together on their presentations, and I was quite impressed with how outspoken and confident our mentees were during their presentations.



Yuliana and Ximena hold their group's poster on Social Awareness

All of the groups from each class were able to answer questions about their subject in addition to being able to provide a personal account of a time when he or she either used or ignored that particular skill, citing their experiences with evidence. It was so impressive to see our scholars apply information such as relationship management and social awareness to their own lives, especially in relation to how they will act in the future now that they are equipped with this knowledge. (For instance: one of our YESS scholars referred back to a fact we learned last week when I asked how social awareness may help us succeed; he was able to recall that 85% of us do not feel valued/respected by our peers, and that if we are aware of this, we may be able to approach a situation at work or school more sensitively, which may increase our chances of succeeding).

Once we completed our presentations, we moved on to a discussion centered around EQ (emotional quotient). Many of our scholars were familiar with the term IQ, though only a handful had ever heard of EQ (and many of these scholars were in YESS last year). We went over a packet of information about EQ and IQ, including a map that details which countries around the world have the highest and lowest EQs.




Isai shows off his results from the EQ Self Assessment

Our scholars were then asked to take a self-assessment to determine their current level of emotional intelligence. The assessment consists of four categories--self-awareness, self-control, empathy, and responding with integrity. We had a couple of scholars who scored perfect scores in some of these categories, and most of our scholars scored well in all of these areas. It seems, however, that self-control is the category our scholars need to work on the most! We will continue to work on skills to increase our self-control.

We are all looking forward to break next week!