1.

What do you think is more important in understanding the capabilities of our

students, IQ or EQ? Justify your answer by citing examples from your own
teaching experience. (25 pts)

Gauging a learner’s knowledge on whatever you teach him only takes a matter of numbers
that you input into your class record, but it will not allow you to discover and understand
his capabilities. An intelligent teacher can easily think of ways to obtain valuable outputs
from learners and compute them to see how well they do in his subject but grading
learners’ understanding and retention does not actually make a teacher see how capable
his students may be. All the time we face learners with varied personalities, needs,
intelligence, and understanding. If we are to rely only in grading their academic scores it
will not make us excellent teachers. We need to help our learners discover their potentials,
and to do that, we need to be more emotionally intelligent because an emotionally
intelligent teacher is more discerning. I am so used to learners who would rather cut class
than learn numbers. I know that students either love Mathematics or hate it – only a very
few of them are in between. Will the grades of the learners who hate Mathematics
determine how good they are in my subject? If I have a poor EQ, I would say “yes” but since
I care for my learners, I wouldn’t settle to poor grades and no understanding. I usually dig
to the reasons of their aversion to Math. Most of them do not really understand the
importance of learning the subject, and if that is the case, I make my lessons relevant. Some
simply do not understand the basics, hence I let them go back to the basic until they can
catch up. Some are not interested at all, if so, I strategically assert pop culture to my lessons
(but mostly I just used my good looks!). These really help in making me see how capable
my learners are, some even get better grades than those who were already doing okay in
my subject. So, to sum these up, I would say, my EQ is more important in understanding my
learners’ capabilities than my IQ.

2. As an educator and a professional, which do you think will help you succeed in
your career, IQ or EQ? Why? (25 pts)
As a teacher, the subjects I teach and my approach in teaching them are already an art I’ve
mastered since I took my bachelor’s degree. I know what and how to teach like the back of
my hand. My IQ prepared me to be the master of any branch of Mathematics I’m teaching
and it also allowed me to understand a foreign language well enough to be able to teach it.
But then again, my IQ only measures how good I am in the subjects I teach, it is not going to
make me an effective, empathetic, and a well-adjusted educator. Hence, having a higher EQ
than IQ is better to make me succeed and be happy with my chosen profession. Teaching
isn’t an 8-5 job. Unlike other professions, an educator’s job isn’t confined in a four corner
room nor end after logging out from the time keeping system. It is much more than
imparting knowledge and most of the times it already gets so stressful. Our professional
lives revolve around facing diverse learners, catching up with loads of paper works, and
building healthy relationship with colleagues. All of which take a person who manages his
emotions very well. My IQ might get me the degree and the position I am striving to reach
but it is not going to make me love teaching like my EQ does for me now.