Killer Statements

"A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a
child."
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change."
-- Ingrid Bengis

The last few weeks I have had the pleasure of teaching an emotional
intelligence class in an inner city middle school near our office. When I
first visited this classroom three months ago I was shocked at the
hurtful statements the students made to each other. I found myself
sitting, dumbfounded, as one boy yelled, "David is stupid, stupid,
stupid, stupid!" at the boy who was sitting next to him struggling with a
math problem. The teacher and I agreed our first and most important
task was to help these students realize that their words can cause deep
pain in others.

In a middle school classroom, words can undermine confidence,
reinforce negative stereotypes or, when used correctly, help a student
understand herself and her classmates better.

In one lesson we asked the students to make a picture of a time they had
a strong emotion. David, the student who was brutally teased and judged
for "being" stupid, made a picture of how he felt when called that. The
other students where shocked. They asked, "Do you really get mad every
time someone calls you stupid?" David answered a calm, "Yes."
"Really, EVERY time?" Again David answered, "YES, every time."
There was a brief moment of understanding and compassion in the
group. But, just to keep the emotional intelligence teachers from
becoming complacent the silence was broken by a student yelling, "Your
mama’s on crack." Well, the empathy was nice while it lasted, but the
job is far from finished. For awareness to increase and for compassion
to become a habit, we must all be role models and teachers daily,
hourly. The students are watching.

Research says...
In a behavior modification study, Ronald Kotulak, and UCLA
psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Baxter, report that words can have as powerful
an effect as prescription drugs.


Try this...
This week keep a positive statement and negative statement score card-
how many positive statements do you hear? How many do you say?
What about negative? What does your score say about you? How could
you change it?


'till next week,
- Kate


**************************************************
Handle With Care: The EQ Learning Journal
A workbook for adults who want to get more from life by practicing
emotional intelligence. http://www.6seconds.org/hwc/
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This was a Weekly EQ Byte from Six Seconds
http://www.6seconds.org/mail.php3

Feel free to copy or forward so long as you keep this bit:
©2001 Kate Bedford, Six Seconds
http://www.6seconds.org