day something - tues persuasion class

Emotional Intelligence - I was both fascinated and repulsed by the readings. The discussion helped, though. Why repulsed? I brought up this issue in class, but I still can't get over it. Emotional control seems very gender, race and class based. I hate to just throw out those words that make it difficult to digest or even "unpack" but I am really wondering if anyone has done research on this. The psychologist I referred to in class today got her Ph.D. at Harvard and has been doing media research - she has some great things to say about shows like Jerry Springer -which are diss'ed by a lot of folks but that attract, she claims, more working class and African-American sensibilities because they honor (my word) revealing full emotions. I guess it's all about agora. I think I'm having a knee jerk reaction to the K school experience, which has mostly white, male faculty - and, therefore, case studies that reflect that. I would like to see less business-oriented readings since my work is in the non-profit sector - yes, there is a lot of crossover, but why not a case from the perspective of a union, rather than a ceo?

But I do feel like I am becoming the broken record at school and in this class about these issues - though it was fun in class today to get a chuckle out of folks when I raised the issue of one presenter's similarity/likeness principle when he was addressing congress and he talked about being a businessman - and since congress is a bunch of rich, white men that they could relate - I do like the general open-ness in class to these various viewpoints, but I wish I weren't so isolated - this point was found funny - probably b/c I didn't "know my audience" very well in delivering it - but there's an element of it that is not so funny. When we learn these principles, do we end up shaping our message too much (sacrificing) to make it salient - I love the two circle principle. It's really helped our group - but if the people in power have just a small slice of that circle in agreement with the vast majority of citizens - what type of pie do we really have?

It was fascinating in our group discussion/preparation today. We had a long discussion on the logos question - two guys in our group were very logos focused - and couldn't get beyond the numbers and focus on them - there was a little openness toward the end, and I was won over to keeping some of the logos in our presentation, but I felt like I was in some type of persuasion class catch 22 - trying to use statistics to convince the logos guys that we needed more pathos. I like to think I have a balanced approach - the syzgy effect - but I'm sure I have weaknesses in some areas. And I found myself arguing a bit too much and not listening enough to the logos guys' concerns....

So back to my utter fascination with EQ - how do we teach kids to have this? Example? Curriculum? Parental instruction? There is a constant debate at the preschool where I send my son a lot of elite highly educated parents - who insist on more academics at this young age. The teachers insist on teaching social skills - I think this term is very similar to EQ. How do other educational programs address EQ - i.e. other cultures, areas of the country, etc.

Small anecdote. I was trying to get my son into his carseat yesterday. He likes to play in the drivers' seat. I thought outloud and said, "Liam, I could use my power to put you in, I could negotiate or I could persuade you to get into your seat. Which would you prefer?" He exclaimed, "Mommy, don't take away my legos!"