Daniel Goleman’s new book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (Harper) was published on Oct. 8, 2013. One of CASEL’s founders, Goleman is a formerNew York Times science writer and the best-selling author of numerous books including Emotional Intelligence (Random House, 1995) and Social Intelligence (Bantam, 2006). Recently Goleman talked with CASEL about the implications of Focus for educators.
Among the key points that you make in Focus, which do you think are most important for educators to know about in their role as facilitators of young people’s learning?
One of the main concepts in Focus that every educator should know about is cognitive control. It’s the ability to focus on one thing and ignore distractions, to keep your mind from wandering. Cognitive control is the basis for delaying gratification and emotional self-regulation. The strongest evidence for the importance of cognitive control was a longitudinal study done with more than 1,000 kids born over the course of a year in one New Zealand city. The children were assessed for cognitive control between the ages of 4 and 8 using a sophisticated battery of measures as well as teacher and parent reports. Then they were tracked down in their thirties. Cognitive control turned out to be a better predictor of their financial success and their health, and also whether or not they had a prison record, than their IQ or the wealth of their family of origin.
Did the study determine how individual kids developed better cognitive control than others?
No, but many other studies have looked at how children master cognitive control. The first teachers are the child’s parents. When you have a child wait for a reward or do something in order to get a reward or simply resist impulse, you’re teaching cognitive control. When you read a story to a child at night and you keep that child’s attention on the story, you’re teaching cognitive control. You’re teaching it if you play Simon Says or musical chairs with toddlers.
Given the importance of cognitive control and attention skills, how do you regard the role of electronic media?
Every parent and every teacher knows that kids today are highly challenged by the onslaught of the digital world. Whether it’s video games or Facebook or texting your friends, kids are more distracted than maybe ever before in history. That’s why it’s so important that we make a greater effort to teach them the core skills that will allow them to pay attention, which is a prerequisite for learning.
What’s your advice to educators about this?
In terms of getting students to pay attention to the work at hand, sometimes the digital media are the enemy. If kids are sneaking peeks at their texts during their time in the classroom, the technology is undermining teaching. On the other hand, more and more schools are using media to engage students in the learning process. But if you let students roam on the Web, you’re opening them to distractions as they search. It’s a complex question, and it will only become more complex as time goes on. If you hold as fundamental the ability of students to pay attention, it sorts itself out pretty quickly.
You have written Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence, and Focus. How do the three books complement and build on each other?
In Emotional Intelligence I make the case that human abilities like self-awareness, self-management, empathy and social skills matter enormously in life and should be taught in school. That became social and emotional learning (SEL). Social Intelligence explores the neuroscience related to two components of emotional intelligence, social awareness, or empathy, and managing relationships. Focus adds a new dimension by emphasizing why attention matters so much for all the core skills of emotional intelligence. It’s a new lens.
In Focus you repeatedly refer to the findings of neuroscientists. Why do you think neuroscience is so important for education, learning and the development of social-emotional competencies?
When you see the different phases that children go through as they age and grow, what you’re observing are the external behavioral signs of the growth of the brain. The brain is very plastic. It doesn’t reach its final form and size until the mid-twenties. SEL helps children develop their brains in the best way because we’re paying attention to children’s social and emotional skills in addition to their cognitive skills. What’s often missing is attention skills. That’s an independent developmental line, one that schools need to do a better job of helping children with.
So SEL programs need to work on that more?
SEL programs already have many lessons that help with attention skills. For example, a lot of the self-management tools in SEL curricula are also helping children develop attention. Developing the actual attention circuits in the brain can be done very simply. At a school in Spanish Harlem I write about in Focus, I saw a second-grade class doing what they call a session of breathing bodies. The children lie on the floor with a favorite stuffed animal on their belly and watch it rise and fall, counting 1-2-3 with each breath. That strengthens the circuits for concentration and brings the mind back when it wanders. That’s exactly the kind of activity that could be added easily to SEL curricula. Some SEL curricula are already doing this, particularly under the rubric of mindfulness.
You co-founded CASEL in 1994. What are the most important things that CASEL has accomplished? What would you like CASEL to accomplish during the next decade?
CASEL has done a remarkable job of bringing SEL to schools not just within the United States but worldwide. CASEL’s help with implementation is particularly important. I love that CASEL has focused on helping schools address implementation issues by establishing best practice standards and the like. In the next ten years I’d like to see CASEL go global. I think SEL is a powerful way to level the playing field when it comes to economic inequities, which are only growing worldwide. As the New Zealand study showed, when you help children master themselves and their relationships, you give them skills that will help them enormously during their adult life, not just during their school years.
Cultivating Focus: Techniques for Excellence, is a series of guided exercises to help people of all ages hone their concentration, stay calm and better manage emotions.
FOCUS for Kids: Enhancing Concentration, Caring, and Calm provides exercises to sharpen children’s attention skills while enhancing their emotional intelligence capability.
FOCUS for Teens: Enhancing Concentration, Caring, and Calm provides exercises designed to sharpen teens’ attention skills while enhancing their emotional intelligence capability.
Videos featuring Daniel Goleman on the Edutopia website
The Moment I Knew We Have a Focus Problem
Why the 10,000-Hour Rule Is a Myth
Rich People Just Care Less
Books:
Emotional Intelligence
Social Intelligence
Among the key points that you make in Focus, which do you think are most important for educators to know about in their role as facilitators of young people’s learning?
One of the main concepts in Focus that every educator should know about is cognitive control. It’s the ability to focus on one thing and ignore distractions, to keep your mind from wandering. Cognitive control is the basis for delaying gratification and emotional self-regulation. The strongest evidence for the importance of cognitive control was a longitudinal study done with more than 1,000 kids born over the course of a year in one New Zealand city. The children were assessed for cognitive control between the ages of 4 and 8 using a sophisticated battery of measures as well as teacher and parent reports. Then they were tracked down in their thirties. Cognitive control turned out to be a better predictor of their financial success and their health, and also whether or not they had a prison record, than their IQ or the wealth of their family of origin.
Did the study determine how individual kids developed better cognitive control than others?
No, but many other studies have looked at how children master cognitive control. The first teachers are the child’s parents. When you have a child wait for a reward or do something in order to get a reward or simply resist impulse, you’re teaching cognitive control. When you read a story to a child at night and you keep that child’s attention on the story, you’re teaching cognitive control. You’re teaching it if you play Simon Says or musical chairs with toddlers.
Given the importance of cognitive control and attention skills, how do you regard the role of electronic media?
Every parent and every teacher knows that kids today are highly challenged by the onslaught of the digital world. Whether it’s video games or Facebook or texting your friends, kids are more distracted than maybe ever before in history. That’s why it’s so important that we make a greater effort to teach them the core skills that will allow them to pay attention, which is a prerequisite for learning.
What’s your advice to educators about this?
In terms of getting students to pay attention to the work at hand, sometimes the digital media are the enemy. If kids are sneaking peeks at their texts during their time in the classroom, the technology is undermining teaching. On the other hand, more and more schools are using media to engage students in the learning process. But if you let students roam on the Web, you’re opening them to distractions as they search. It’s a complex question, and it will only become more complex as time goes on. If you hold as fundamental the ability of students to pay attention, it sorts itself out pretty quickly.
You have written Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence, and Focus. How do the three books complement and build on each other?
In Emotional Intelligence I make the case that human abilities like self-awareness, self-management, empathy and social skills matter enormously in life and should be taught in school. That became social and emotional learning (SEL). Social Intelligence explores the neuroscience related to two components of emotional intelligence, social awareness, or empathy, and managing relationships. Focus adds a new dimension by emphasizing why attention matters so much for all the core skills of emotional intelligence. It’s a new lens.
In Focus you repeatedly refer to the findings of neuroscientists. Why do you think neuroscience is so important for education, learning and the development of social-emotional competencies?
When you see the different phases that children go through as they age and grow, what you’re observing are the external behavioral signs of the growth of the brain. The brain is very plastic. It doesn’t reach its final form and size until the mid-twenties. SEL helps children develop their brains in the best way because we’re paying attention to children’s social and emotional skills in addition to their cognitive skills. What’s often missing is attention skills. That’s an independent developmental line, one that schools need to do a better job of helping children with.
So SEL programs need to work on that more?
SEL programs already have many lessons that help with attention skills. For example, a lot of the self-management tools in SEL curricula are also helping children develop attention. Developing the actual attention circuits in the brain can be done very simply. At a school in Spanish Harlem I write about in Focus, I saw a second-grade class doing what they call a session of breathing bodies. The children lie on the floor with a favorite stuffed animal on their belly and watch it rise and fall, counting 1-2-3 with each breath. That strengthens the circuits for concentration and brings the mind back when it wanders. That’s exactly the kind of activity that could be added easily to SEL curricula. Some SEL curricula are already doing this, particularly under the rubric of mindfulness.
You co-founded CASEL in 1994. What are the most important things that CASEL has accomplished? What would you like CASEL to accomplish during the next decade?
CASEL has done a remarkable job of bringing SEL to schools not just within the United States but worldwide. CASEL’s help with implementation is particularly important. I love that CASEL has focused on helping schools address implementation issues by establishing best practice standards and the like. In the next ten years I’d like to see CASEL go global. I think SEL is a powerful way to level the playing field when it comes to economic inequities, which are only growing worldwide. As the New Zealand study showed, when you help children master themselves and their relationships, you give them skills that will help them enormously during their adult life, not just during their school years.
Related Links
More than Sound now offers a series of CDs related to Daniel Goleman’s new book that you can order online.Cultivating Focus: Techniques for Excellence, is a series of guided exercises to help people of all ages hone their concentration, stay calm and better manage emotions.
FOCUS for Kids: Enhancing Concentration, Caring, and Calm provides exercises to sharpen children’s attention skills while enhancing their emotional intelligence capability.
FOCUS for Teens: Enhancing Concentration, Caring, and Calm provides exercises designed to sharpen teens’ attention skills while enhancing their emotional intelligence capability.
Videos featuring Daniel Goleman on the Edutopia website
Daniel Goleman on the Importance of Cultivating Focus (Video Playlist)
Selling SEL: An Interview with Daniel Goleman
From Daniel Goleman’s blog:The Moment I Knew We Have a Focus Problem
Why the 10,000-Hour Rule Is a Myth
Rich People Just Care Less
Books:
Emotional Intelligence
Social Intelligence
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