| PUBLICATIONS | |
| The
Notion of Intelligent Emotion Chicago Sun Times 11/30/97 By Gary Wisby Staff Reporter Move over,
IQ. A growing body of distinguished scientists and educators is arguing
that "emotional intelligence" counts for much more than innate
brain power. Rather than the ability to perform well on standardized tests, emotional
intelligence includes qualities like zeal, persistence, motivation and
self-control.
Daniel Goleman, who popularized the term with his 1995 best seller of
the same name, says emotional smarts account for 80 percent of what it
takes to be a successful human being.
The concept will be advanced by a major symposium Friday called "Emotional
Intelligence, Education and the Brain" at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Speakers will include Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, the University of Chicago
professor who wrote Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and a later
book on creativity; and Kay Redfield Ja-mison, a Johns Hopkins psychiatry
professor who wrote a book on the relationship between manic depression
and creativity. Also on the program are Jacques d'Amboise, the former
ballet star who founded the National Dance Institute, and the performance
of a "rap ballet" by Chicago's Bryant Ballet.
The daylong event was organized by Andrea Gellin Shindler, a Wilmette
woman who founded the Foundation for Human Potential.
She said "education" is in the title because most of the qualities
that make up emotional intelligence "can be taught to most kids."
Shindler became interested in the subject as a young speech therapist
because of a patient named Carol Frankel. This 20-year-old woman was paralyzed
on one side by a stroke, and could not speak.
Frankel failed to improve until she began taking art lessons.
She had never painted before, and her paralysis forced the right-hander
to work with her left hand. But the oils and watercolors Frankel produced
were remarkably accomplished.
"It was unbelievable," Shindler said. "She seemed to be
using art to communicate instead of speech." Frankel eventually regained
the ability to speak. Twenty years later, she leads an independent lifestyle.
Shindler later discovered the work of Howard Gardner, a Harvard neurology
professor and outspoken critic of IQ tests and standardized tests of academic
achievement.
Gardner, who will speak at the symposium, proposed a list of eight "intelligences"
- linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
interpersonal, intraper-sonal and naturalist.
Shindler decided
to present symposiums based on each. Inspired by Frankel, she began with
"Arts and the Brain" in 1988. "Music and the Brain"
followed in 1992 and "Sports, Dance, Movement and the Brain" in
1995. The upcoming program is not directly related to any of the eight intelligences.
"Whether or not I go on with the rest of the eight, I want to be
sure that whatever I do is of extreme interest to educators," Shindler
said. "What my goal has become is to do what we can to make education
better."
She is pleased that most of the 949 people attending Friday's program
are teachers or school administrators. Tickets, $95 each, were sold out
three weeks ago.
And Shindler is delighted that 20 people are coming from Brookfield Zoo.
It was there in August, 1996, that a female gorilla seemed to demonstrate
emotional thinking when she rescued a 3-year-old boy who fell into the
primate pit.
Unbeknownst to the zoo contingent, Shindler tried unsuccessfully to recruit
chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall for the symposium because of "her
allegiance to emotional behavior in animals," she added.
The big turnout of Brookfield folks, Shindler said, leads her to believe
that "they get it."
|