This may be a bit off the beaten path, but I don’t think it makes the subject any less relevant. And I know Millicent St\. Claire will agree. More about her in a minute.
I believe that in order to have any measure of success one of the things that should to be in order is your emotional state and, oftentimes, that state isn’t given as much attention as other areas. For instance, individuals spend a lot of time and attention on their physical appearance, on their intellect and other areas, but ignore what’s happening within their head and heart.
Why am I talking about this? Because ensuring that our college students are straight emotionally plays a huge part in their academic success – and eventually their career and life success.
Let’s set up a scenario: There’s a young college female who’s in the first semester of her second year of college life. Over the summer she experienced a medical emergency, her parents are going through a divorce and she broke up with her boyfriend of two years. How hard do you think it is for her to focus on her assignments? If you think it shouldn’t be a problem then you may need a little emotional help yourself (Yes, I said it and thought it was funny).
Millicent is an accelerated learning specialist, and one of the top PhotoReading Instructors in the world. She recently submitted the post, “The Heart is Wiser Than the Head” here on CampusTalkBlog, where she talks about a study that discovered the link between your emotional state and the brain’s ability to learn. She says, “Your cognitive ability or higher order thinking centers can’t be activated if you are dealing with drama.”
Whatever our students are dealing with we have to make a way for it to be okay. When I say “we” I mean the parents, the school, etc. If we want them to succeed then we have to help them heal emotionally.
As parents, administrators, educators, advisors and folks in students affairs we should do all we can and provide all the resources necessary to place students well on the road to being emotionally healthy young adults. Reminder: They will be running our world one day. I’m just saying.
About Petula Wright
Petula,
This is definitely not off the beaten path and I’m excited that you shared your perspective about emotional health in college. I also see more of a need for it in our public school system as well. Thanks again for your post!