Learning Resources

Collaboration To Offer Educators an Emotional Intelligence Toolkit

• By Michael Hart
• 10/26/15

Facebook, the Six Seconds nonprofit and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence will collaborate on a new educator toolkit designed to help students understand and manage their emotions.

The projected, titled InspirED, was launched during the October 24 Emotion Revolution Summit at Yale University.

Along with online resources created by high school students and educators, there will be an award established to recognize projects that bring social emotional learning to schools.

Six Seconds is a nonprofit that that teaches the skills of emotional intelligence. Social and emotional learning is intended to help children and adults acquire the skills to manage emotions, feel empathy for others and make responsible decisions.

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence conducts research on emotions and the role of emotional intelligence in important life outcomes. The center also develops approaches to teaching emotional intelligence in school systems and other organizations, and studies the influence of emotional intelligence training on student, teacher and leader effectiveness.

Facebook will provide a conduit to teenagers who might be interested in the project, along with business, technical and design expertise.

Along with about 200 high school students at the Emotion Revolution Summit was Lady Gaga of the Born This Way Foundation, which is dedicated to finding solutions to bullying in schools.

The InspirED Educator Toolkit includes more than 20 online lessons that teachers can use to foster school environments where children learn from their emotions, rather than keeping them hidden.

"This collaboration with major players in the fields of emotional intelligence and social media has huge potential to change the ways schools integrate emotional knowledge into their programs," said Six Seconds CEO Josh Freedman.