Education is one of the key building bricks of society as we know it. What else could ensure the passing on of knowledge from one generation to the other? Education ensures this. No one individual is capable of passing on what he has learnt to generations to come, since our time is limited. It is thanks to education that our civilization has grown to what it is today. As with everything else, different people have different views on the education system in place today.

Some feel that the system has too many loopholes, and that instructors are not as effective as they could be since they do not always pass on first hand information. Others feel that the carefree atmosphere of today's classrooms allow for a great learning atmosphere to the students.

One of the key factors that help people with this debate today is that of emotional intelligence. It has always been speculated that the emotional state of mind could well play a large role on the learning process, but this wasn't really researches. All that changed when Daniel Goleman published his book on the topic. Thanks to this piece of work, society has today accepted the effect of emotions on learning.

This eye opening book called Emotional Intelligence therefore showed us that it is not true that emotions have nothing to do with how well a student learns a subject. It is today widely accepted that a healthy emotional state does help with healthy and successful learning. Before this publication, it was widely accepted that a person's level of IQ determined his level of success in education and work. However, post this publication we see that even people with high IQ levels could not see high levels of success, if they did not have a healthy emotional state of mind.

When a person is not happy and connected to himself, this is an unhealthy state of mind. How can you get yourself to give your best when you are not content with who you are? An unhealthy emotional state limits what you can learn, and at work place it limits people to work for money and not for satisfaction. This is how emotional intelligence comes into play at school and at work.

Earlier systems of educations disregarded a student's emotional intelligence completely. Students were encouraged to leave emotions out of their learning processes. However, thanks to Daniel Goleman's book, students are today encouraged to get in tune with their emotions. Emotions are now looked on as wild horses which you can tame and ride to victory, rather than stay away from and walk to the finish line.