At an early we are taught how to do various different things, during our time with our families and then at school. We are taught to read, write, arithmetics and many other subjects that are deemed important, tested often for spelling, grammar, mathematical proficiency but our we learning what is in the text books or are we thinking for ourselves?

I came across a group of three sisters a few years ago, two of which were incredible smart, achieved scholarships at grammar schools the third was intelligent but excelled at sport, instead of celebrating her innate ability on the hockey field, her parents had her tested for all sorts of learning disabilities. Several years later and a lot of rebellion they have caved and registered that their daughter is a fantastic sports woman, who has more common sense and street smarts that the other two put together.

I’m not saying that education isn’t important it serves a purpose but I am saying is academia the only smarts? Common sense and life experience are just as important, learning about emotional intelligence even more so. Emotional intelligence allows us to understand ourselves and in turn those around us. It allows us to intrepret situations and understand another person.

As I watched Greys Anatomy this week  several of the surgeons  were working on a person and literally all of them were showing insecurities about their personal lives; (Yes I know its a television program),  I commented on the fact that Shoda Rhimes writes fabulous emotionally unintelligent but high achiever characters. All of the main characters are highly skilled, highly qualified doctors but when it comes to relationships they behave like they are at nursery school and does this translate in to real life?

Understanding ourselves and allowing us to identify, experience our emotions, to learn at our own pace, to be encourage to think about what is true for us, surely should be just as important as the certificates?