One of the most inspiring things about working at Lake Forest Country Day School is that we are always looking to improve the School so we can better meet the needs of our students. Not only do we look to the field of education for best practices, but we also read research on human performance, child development, leadership, psychology, and productivity so that we can prepare our students in the best possible way for the future ahead of them.
The more we study modern and historical figures who have a profoundly positive impact on the world, the more it becomes apparent that many of these people have the same things in common; they can manage their emotions and think clearly in highly stressful situations. Whether these people are surgeons, athletes, lawyers, engineers, CEOs, political leaders, or entrepreneurs, they often talk about how one of the keys to their success is to be emotionally nimble and emotionally intelligent.
Susan David and Christina Congleton, in their 2013 Harvard Business Review article entitled "Emotional Agility," discussed how important emotional awareness is to successful leadership.
“Effective leaders don’t buy into or try to suppress their inner experiences. Instead, they approach them in a mindful, values-driven, and productive way—developing what we call emotional agility. In our complex, fast-changing knowledge economy, this ability to manage one’s thoughts and feelings is essential to business success. Numerous studies, from the University of London professor Frank Bond and others, show that emotional agility can help people alleviate stress, reduce errors, become more innovative, and improve job performance.”
Knowing that managing emotions is one of the keys to leading a fulfilling life, we began investigating the best approach we could implement across LFCDS that would positively impact our students. Our journey, led by our social worker brought us to the RULER program developed at Yale University. We were fortunate enough to send six colleagues to Yale over the summer to be trained in RULER. These colleagues came back and trained the rest of the faculty and staff during our opening meetings, so that we were able to begin implementing RULER at the beginning of the school year.
We have been thrilled with the initial introduction of RULER. We have learned a lot as a faculty and staff and believe this program will have a profound impact on our students and the broader LFCDS community. RULER is an acronym that stands for recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating one’s emotions.
We feel extremely fortunate to be able to bring Marc Brackett, the lead developer of RULER and Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to LFCDS to talk to our community and then work with the teachers on Tuesday, September 26. His talk is entitled “Educating the Whole Child: A Community Conversation on Emotional Intelligence." I have watched a number of Marc’s presentations on YouTube. He is an engaging and insightful speaker, and we are excited that he is visiting LFCDS.
