How do you feel?
Most of us respond to this in a socially acceptable manner, “Fine, thanks and you?” When was the last time you heard someone reply truthfully, “I’m feeling a bit irritated right now,” or “I’m feeling optimistic.” Did you know that the average adult can only name between 3-5 feelings? Here are a few steps to help your students add a few more of those feelings into their vocabulary—and be able to identify when they’re feeling each one.
Step One: Name it
Helping students to learn to identify their emotions begins with introducing them to a range of emotions. The age of the students in your classroom will determine how many feelings you introduce. With an early childhood group, we can begin with three emotions, and gradually move to six; help them understand what each emotion is by using photos, feelings books, emoji pillows, or just asking them to make a face! Assess your elementary students to determine how many they know and then maybe ask them to hunt for a few more (use a thesaurus).
Sometimes naming feelings can be complicated; to make it simple, you may need to begin with guiding the children to put emotions into one of two categories: “bad” or “good.” Is it making you feel “bad” or is making you feel “good?” Continue with asking questions for clarification to help them name that feeling.
Step Two: Feel it
Once we have helped our children name their feelings, now it’s time to discuss how humans experience feelings. This can be quite a delightful activity as your students role play, pantomime or get creative in their bodies to practice what being happy, sad, mad, or excited might look or feel like. If someone is feeling mad, maybe they need to go for a run around the playground as fast as they can go. If someone is feeling elated, maybe they need to tell a friend and jump up and down with excitement (you may need to invite them to go out in the hall or outside while you do this exercise!).
With older students, you can challenge them to think about what is going on INSIDE their body, is their heart beating faster, do they feel flush, do they feel butterflies in their stomach.
Step Three: Recognize it (in others)
Finally, engage your students in a conversation about empathy. How do you think others are feeling? Can you imagine yourself in a situation like this? When reading novels or stories to your students just pause and ask questions, a lot of questions. Keeping it real and relatable is the best way to get the point across.
When discussing empathy on an episode of NOVA, Jamil Zaki from Stanford University said,
“There’s psychological evidence from laboratory studies, that reading fiction can build our care, even for different groups of people, groups who we might not care that much about otherwise…You think of reading a novel as a very personal thing that’s just, ‘oh, you’re just, you know, sitting on your couch indulging in something.’ But no, you’re doing something a lot more profound. You’re, kind of, going to the empathy gym.”
While at times it may feel as if we are not making progress in developing empathetic children or compassionate communities, research has shown that we ARE evolving. As our brains are getting more compact, and skull size smaller, our sense of right or wrong, and ability to control impulses is getting better.
A Quick Tip
Marc Brackett’s book, Permission to Feel, has just been released in paperback. We highly recommend picking it up! His work at Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has outlined an effective plan for teachers to understand and then guide students in developing strong emotional intelligence.
Additional Resources
Dive Deeper
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By Spramani Elaun & Kristen Richter
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