MLS - EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

http://mlsjournals.com/Educational-Research-Journal

ISSN: 2603-5820

How to cite this article:

Santos e Campos, M.A., Yayorski, R., Santana Sales, M. V., & Pulgar Buendia, A. (2020). Drawings of Elementary School Students Revealing Feelings and Emotions: an Issue Discussed by Emotional Intelligence MLS Educational Research 4 (1), -. doi: 10.29314/mlser.v4i1.328

DRAWINGS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS REVEALING FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS: AN ISSUE DISCUSSED BY EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Maria Aparecida Santos e Campos
Iberoamerican University Foundation (Mexico)
mariaaparecidasantosecampos@gmail.com

Rosely Yavorski
Iberoamerican University Foundation (Brazil)
rose2013yavorski@gmail.com

Maria Verônica Santana Sales
Not related to any affiliation
jmsmvss10@hotmail.com

Angelines Pulgar Buendía
Not related to any affiliation
angelespulgarbuendia@gmail.com

Date submitted: 20/09/2019 Date reviewed: 19/10/2029 Date accepted: 27/03/2020


Abstract: Psychopedagogical processes study where was analyzed the school learning, related to emotional intelligence concepts in primary students through the evaluation of their drawings. Emotions are associated with significant events, which determine the individual's reactions based on the events that occurred. Therefore, the drawings are the basis for the intellectual and socio-cultural development of the individual as well as the expressing and developing skills. When different types of colors are used, it is a manner of expressing feelings at the time of action and be able to apply to children, youth, and adults. Its use drives the integral development of the person, allowing learning to deal with emotions, life, and personal development processes. Objective: To identify through drawings, feelings, and emotions related to the learning process of primary education. Methods: Bibliographic search and experimental design were carried out, where the drawings that showed acceptable oral communication were analyzed. Exclusion criteria: Children who not belong to the selected schools, suffer any mental or psychic problems that obstruct oral communication. Result: The analysis of the drawings will enable understanding situations experienced by students inside and outside the school, like their fears, anguish, and anger. Furthermore, these could reveal other remarkable emotions for the teaching-learning process.

Keywords: Emotions, Feelings, Emotional Intelligence, Elementary Education.

EL DIBUJO DE ALUMNOS DE PRIMARIA REVELANDO SENTIMIENTOS Y EMOCIONES: UNA CUESTIÓN DISCUTIDA POR LA INTELIGENCIA EMOCIONAL

Resumen: Estudio de los procesos psicopedagógicos que involucran el aprendizaje escolar utilizando los dibujos producidos por alumnos de enseñanza primaria, relacionados con conceptos de inteligencia emocional. Las emociones se asocian a acontecimientos significativos, determinan las (re)acciones del individuo ante los eventos por él vividos. Por lo tanto, los dibujos constituyen desa forma, la base para el desarrollo intelectual y sociocultural del individuo ademas de reflejar y desarrollar habilidades. Cuando se dibuja con colores identifica los sentimientos en el momento de la acción y puede ser aplicado a niños, jóvenes y adultos. Su uso impulsa el desenvolvimiento integral de la persona, permitiendole aprender a lidiar con las emociones, la vida y los procesos del desarrollo personal. Objetivo: identificar a través de dibujos, sentimientos y emociones relacionadas con el proceso de aprendizaje del alumno de enseñanza primaria. Metodología: investigación bibliográfica y de campo, donde se analizaron los dibujos que presentase buena comunicación oral. Criterios de exclusión: no ser alumno de las escuelas seleccionadas, presentar problemas mentales que contaminase la investigación, y portadores de problemas psíquicos que imposibiliten la comunicación oral. Resultado: Se considera importante el análisis de los dibujos en niños de edad escolar, con el fin de entender situaciones vividas por los alumnos dentro y fuera de la escuela, sus miedos, sus angustias y rabia, además de todo tipo de emoción que pueda interferir en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje.

Palabras clave: Emociones, Sentimientos, Inteligencia emocional, Enseñanza primaria.


Introduction

Historical-Critical Pedagogy seeks to develop a critical sense using the knowledge produced historically by humankind. Its aim is a way of teaching based on historical, cultural, and social explanations, understanding that Education is a process built collectively Sarandi (2010).

According to Teixeira (2003, p. 180), historical-critical pedagogy tries to understand education through the context of society, its organization, and its forms that transform society, taking as a starting point the social practices reaching the teaching process. Likewise, in this pedagogy, the student can interfere in reality by transforming it, so that, teaching can collaborate for individual and social development. And the fact of being able to intervene in reality allows them to immerse themselves in working with emotions

Emotions are identified by the individual from a young age. Moreover, from the moment he acquires verbal language, the child can name his own emotions and feelings and of others. For Cardeira, (2012, p. 3), many activities can help in the ability to identify them among each other: children's stories, pretend games, drawings, among others. This makes it possible for the child to generalize the emotions felt through games to other similar situations.

The individual and his emotions are intimately related to the environment in which it lives, according to Cardeira, (2012, p.2). The family and social experiences produce interaction of the individuals with the environment and their emotions. Socialization is a matter shared by the school and the family. In this way, the school needs to be focused on the community and successfully articulate the development and formation of the individual.

Emotions are associated with significant events that determine the individual's reactions to certain situations. These reactions may be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the way he deals with the problem. They can be observed through facial expressions, tone of voice, nervous and endocrine systems that respond through body activities to what the individual is feeling internally (Carocho, 2017, p. 5).

Mayer (2004, p. 4-5; Mayer, Salovery & Caruso (2004, p. 197), write about EI as an ability to represent reactions to certain situations, according to the authors,

We define EI as the capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions to promote emotions and intellectual growth.

And continues,

Emotional intelligence refers to an ability to recognize the meanings of emotion and their relationships, and to reason and problem-solve based on them. Emotional intelligence is involved in the capacity to perceive emotions and manage them.

Therefore, it can be said that emotions are part of human learning and are linked to the capacity of the individual to optimize his intelligence and develop important mechanisms for life. That is to say that they are instruments for the improvement of human intelligence. This creates the theory of emotional intelligence, which generates the so-called emotional education, where the individual learns to control emotions for his well-being (Wedderhoff, n/d, p. 2).

The term Emotional Education is subjected to the idea of making the person more spiritualized, patient, and resigned. Alves, Barbosa, and Siqueira (1999) maintain that emotional intelligence is what moves the individual to have attitudes and decisions that better guide his life in its various pillars.

In the nineties, the researchers Salovey and Mayer (1990) published an article triggering interest in the study of human intelligence, trying to understand the role of emotional intelligence in the development of the individual's well-being. According to Cejudo and López-Delgado (2017), in three decades of scientific life, Emotional Intelligence has gone from being a fashionable concept to becoming an exciting and profitable field of research (Cejudo and López-Delgado, 2017).

Chan (2003), in the study of human intelligence, focused mainly on the attention of cognitive capacity and its use. As a result, several scholars have paid attention to emotional intelligence, especially in the area of the individual's ability to recognize, express, and manage his emotions (Coiser and Picard, 1997). For Eccles and Roeser (2000), emotional imbalance has a strong influence on the learning process. Other authors as Cherniss (2010) states that EI is based on three key concepts. First, emotions are an important part of life. Secondly, how people perceive and handle emotions. And finally, how emotions contribute to the overall confrontation and well-being in all areas of life (Cherniss, 2010).

Scholars such as (Mayer and Salovey, 1997; Goleman, 1998), attribute to emotional intelligence the individual's ability to recognize and assess one's own and others' feelings, as well as the ability to deal with them.

Salovey and Mayer (1997, p.10) conceptualized emotional intelligence as "...the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate it to thought, understand and reason with it, and learn how to regulate it in oneself and others".

Goleman, a great contemporary scholar of emotional intelligence, understands that emotion "refers to a feeling and its different thoughts, psychological and biological states, and a range of tendencies to act" (Goleman 2012, p. 303). According to him, there are hundreds of emotions, along with their combinations, variations, mutations, and nuances. Emotions have the function of adapting to the environment, motivating behavior, helping to perceive what is happening by providing inter and intrapersonal information, fostering decision-making, and facilitating interpersonal relationships (Fernández-Berrocal perturbation and Ramos, 2004). Bisquerra (2000) conceptualizes emotions as "a complex state of the organism characterized by excitement or predisposition to action" (Bisquerra, 2000). Emotions can be pleasant or unpleasant, but they are a way of seeing that we are alive and in contact with our surroundings (Galindo, 2003). The same author defined emotional intelligence as: "the ability to identify our feelings and those of others, to motivate ourselves and to manage emotions well within ourselves and in our relationships" (Goleman, 1998, p. 337). He also affirms that: IQ and emotional intelligence are not opposing capacities, but different ones. All of us mix intellectual and emotional acuity; people with high IQ and low emotional intelligence (or low IQ and high emotional intelligence) are, despite stereotypes, relatively rare. (Goleman 2012, p. 68).

During childhood, emotion is distinguished from cognition, gradually incorporating the higher mental functions of human learning in the performance of behavioral, emotional, and affective responses (Fonseca, 2016). The development of emotional intelligence makes to learn about emotions. It is a learning process, so the emotion has the function of facilitating the act of thinking by generating thoughts from planning (Wedderhoff, n/d, p. 4).

On the other hand, the cognitive theory developed by Piaget addresses the following cognitive processes: perception, thought, language, and, above all, intelligence. It defines cognition as "the state of balance in the sense that all successive adaptations of sensorial, motor and cognitive order, as well as all assimilative and accommodative exchanges between the organism and the environment, tend to take place" (Piaget, 1983, p.21).

From the psychological point of view, emotions can be natural and physiological, pleasant or unpleasant. They can modify behavior and interfere with the proper quality of the individual. Emotions related to the well-being of the individual are considered positive and can become a constant search of the individual. While negative emotions, those that cause constriction are avoided by individuals (Roble Arruda, 2014, p. 27).

Studies reveal that the basic emotions, mainly the negative ones, have been the object of research by many scientists. Like that, the basic emotion is defined as innate and as a way of the individual to adapt to certain situations and as to protect himself. Furthermore, they are socially created according to culture rules and patterns. (Carvalho Arruda, 2014, p. 28).

Regarding the emotions, we can distinguish four types: The basic emotions are four: joy, fear, sadness, and anger, which are defined as, according to Roble Arruda (2014, p. 29-36):

According to Goleman (2011, p. s/n), fear is represented by:

Blood flows to the skeletal muscles, such as those in the legs, facilitating the escape. The face becomes livid since blood is taken from it. At the same time, the body is immobilized, even for a brief moment, perhaps to allow the person to consider the possibility of, instead of acting, fleeing, and hiding. Circuits in the emotional centers of the brain trigger the flood of hormones that put the body on general alert, making it restless and ready to act. Attention is focused on the immediate threat, to better calculate the response to be given.

Sadness: is related to significant losses for the individual, and is a more lasting emotion. It represents an unachieved goal, and this emotion at a cognitive level leads to the assessment of negative aspects of reality diminishing the social interaction and motivation of the individual. Sadness can also lead the individual to find the source of his problems, and thus, seeking to develop the capacity of empathy. It is important to ask for help when we are sad to renew energies. For Goleman (2005, p. 90) quoted by Carvalho Arruda (2014, p. 31), sadness "forces a kind of reflexive withdrawal from life activities, leaving us in a state of suspension to mourn the loss, meditate on its meaning and, finally, make the necessary psychological fittings and plans that will allow our life to continue".

Sadness leads to a loss of energy and enthusiasm for the activities of life, particularly for fun and pleasure. When sadness is deep, approaching depression, the body's metabolic rate slows down. This introspective withdrawal creates the opportunity to mourn a loss or frustration, to grasp its consequences for life, and to plan a new beginning when the energy returns. It is possible that this loss of energy was to keep vulnerable human beings in a state of sadness so that they would remain close to home, where they would be more secure.

The sadness of having adaptive function brings benefits to the individual when it is well regulated. Otherwise, it can cause diseases such as depression, which can lead to emotional dysfunction and damage to the neurocognitive functions.

Anger: is related to the frustration of not achieving desired goals. At the cognitive level, the characteristic is the absence of self-control or difficulty for remaining calm. Rage is considered as a negative feeling, but for Strongman (1998) cited by Carvalho Arruda (2014, p. 35), it must be seen as functional, as it provides a defense to the individual, and also includes the organization and regulation of physiological and psychological processes related to self-defense. Rage is an emotion difficult to regulate, according to Goleman (1995, p.79) quoted by Carvalho Arruda (2014, p. 35). It is the “most seductive of the negative emotions, in which the inner self-justifying monologue feeds it, fills the mind with the most convincing arguments to make it go away”. Like that, it gives energy to the individual. According to Goleman (2011, p. s/n), “the heartbeat accelerates and a wave of hormones, adrenaline, among others, generates a pulse, energy strong enough for a vigorous performance”.

In addition to the four basic emotions cited by Carvalho Arruda, Goleman (2011, p. s/n) still adds the following:

Happiness: causes one of the main biological changes. The activity of the brain center increases, which inhibits negative feelings and fosters the increase of existing energy, eliminating those that generate thoughts of concern. But there is no particular change in physiology, but tranquility, which makes the body quickly recover from the stimulus caused by disturbing emotions. This configuration gives the body a total relaxation, as well as a willingness and enthusiasm to execute any task that arises and to move in the direction of a wide variety of goals.

Love: a feeling of affection and satisfaction that implies parasympathetic stimulation, which is the physiological opposite that mobilizes the contrary to the feeling of fear or anger. The parasympathetic pattern, called the relaxation response, is a set of reactions that run through the entire body, causing a general state of calm and satisfaction, facilitating cooperation.

Regarding children's emotional experience, previous studies suggest that there are children who are not familiar with feelings. For Oaklander (1980, p. 145), some children are unfamiliar with feelings and can communicate their feelings through various experiences such as games, drawings, which can help them to make contact with their feelings.

Therefore, talking about feelings is important to facilitate the learning of their expression and to help people to learn to express them knowing that all people have feelings and that these basic feelings have variations, which can be expressed by the following words: happy, good, proud, angry, afraid, hurt, bored, disappointed, frustrated, hurt, lonely, love, like, jealous, special, particular, bad, joy, pleasure, regret, shame, displeasure, radiant, confident, strong, weak, feather, empathy, understanding, sympathy, admiration, sadness, tired. (Oaklander, 1980, p. 145).

According to Gallego & Gallego (2004, p. 83) quoted by Nunes-Valente, Monteiro (2016, p. 3):

The school is also responsible for the education of values and competencies for coexistence and must prepare itself, differently, to work on the emotions and conflicts that occur within it. This is because "true emotional intelligence is what unites the emotional and the cognitive part, and its harmony is what guarantees its effective development to face any life situation”.

Navarro Solano (2006/2007, p. 162) also considers important the school's involvement in various student skills and states that:

The school must enable the child to develop his social skills and promote a balanced emotional education on an individual and collective level. Concrete aspects necessary for later adult life are the ability to work in a group, acceptance, and respect for others, participation in tasks, self-initiative, conflict resolution through non-violence, sharing, and also basic behavior for the development of social skills, both verbal and non-verbal, emotional and affective.

In all environments, school, work, family, and the sociocultural environment, unsettled situations occur and the individual who presents emotional competence is capable of giving immediate answers to the demands of the contexts. This can make it possible to achieve objectives, deal with challenges, and recognize the importance of emotions in relationships, as stated by Moreira, Oliveira (2012, p.42).

The child, in turn, perceives the world in his way. Thus, expression through graphic art (drawing) is one of the most significant forms of language, since it involves both the real and imaginary world of the child: the real world built and appropriated by the observation and imitation of their peers, and the imaginary, which they build from their absorption of reality. In this way, through drawing, the child transmits their significant experiences and that are registered in their mind, being able to be externalized as conflicts, emotions, and all the feelings involved. Therefore, the understanding of a child's drawing brings the meaning of the moment through which the child passes. According to Pillotto, Silva, Mognol (2004, p.2), "the language of drawing allows children to invent and experience their ideas, their actions, their desires and their feelings that are expressed in various ways, letting their emotions and their imaginary desire become transparent”.

Therefore, in this study, the technique of drawing was used as a way to obtain information about the emotions and participants' feelings. Here we should talk about the technique itself: paper, pencil, the reason for the drawing, type of drawing... and how it is useful to evaluate.


Methodology

This is a bibliographic and qualitative review of drawing as a means of expressing emotions. It is a study of bibliographical and qualitative research to the extent that it understands the phenomenon seen from the subject's point of view.

Research Instruments

According to Souza Campos (1986, p.12), the authors who study the psychology of drawings try to address several aspects such as: phases of child development, methods of examining and measuring intelligence, motor skills, expression, character, psychopathology, among others. The drawing is considered as the way by which the child discovers and understands the world valuing psychic and intellectual relations in the process of social and cultural maturity.

Research Space

The research was developed in two Municipal Schools of Fundamental Education in the city of Sarandí, PR, Brazil. The city has 38 (thirty-eight) schools distributed throughout the urban space.

To improve the quality of the teaching-learning process, the Municipal Secretary of Education made available teachers in charge, classroom assistants, teachers of pedagogical support in counter-shift, art and physical education teachers, and students of teaching in an internship to work in the computer labs.

The location for the research and selection of the participating schools was selected by the Municipal Secretariat of Education of the municipality.

Subjects

The participants were selected by their teachers and educational advisors. 21 students from two different schools took part.

Inclusion criteria: Students should be enrolled, actively attending classes, be in the 2nd and 3rd year of primary school, and have good oral communication.

Exclusion criteria: not being a student of the selected schools, presenting mental problems that may contaminate the research and students with mental problems that make oral communication impossible.


Results

The black pencil drawings and the colorful ones reveal people's emotions and feelings, and the colors have special meanings for each individual. According to Valdivia (2011, p.3);

the expressive value depends on the graphic gesture, even on a psychological level, it can show the child's temperament, his invigorating emotional reactions at least at the moment he makes the drawing. (...). In this way, the drawing records the emotional state, and one can notice, for example, the angry and aggressive trait that can reach the limit of tearing the paper, or the oscillating trait that is barely noticeable.

Research on drawing also studies the colors that children use because there is an expressive value in them. For Valdivia (2011, p. 5);

bright colors are characteristic of open children, well adapted to the group; while dull colors characterize closed children, independent and often aggressive. The superposition of colors expresses the confluence of two tendencies, isolation shows the rigidity and fear, mixing without discrimination, immaturity, and impulsiveness.

This is because they reveal both positive and negative emotions. In this analysis, we focus on basic emotions. From the 21 participants, drawings from 6 students were selected for the analysis. We present chromatic and achromatic drawings. In the chromatic drawings, we observed the colors used by the student. On the other hand, in the achromatic drawings, we analyzed aspects such as: the size of the figure, type of the line, space used by the figure, characteristic of the line, space used by the figure to reveal the emotions and feelings characteristic of the individual at the given moment. The drawing characteristics of boys and girls of the same mental age are those in all countries, or what does not differ are the cultural and social differences (Valdivia, 2011, p. 9).

According to Navarro Solano (2007/2008, p. 163):

We can see how they constantly create and recreate ideas and images that allow them to represent and understand themselves and their visions of reality. In the case of a work of art or a work of art.

The drawings presented are the originals designed by the children. In some of them, the features were highlighted, through the computer, to enable a clearer reproduction.

Figure 1. Drawing 1: Achromatic drawing, student 1
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

Figure 1, drawn by a male student, shows a tree drawn at the bottom of the page. Also, the outline of the tree represents fear, and the type of crown represents joy. The basic emotions bring characteristics of secondary emotions as well. Therefore, when investigating the fear presented by the child, it is related to his actions of independence, where the subject presents difficulties of self-affirmation in front of the adult representative for him.

According to the teacher, the child is being taken care of by an old woman who treats him as a baby, doing all he wants. Hence, the child feels difficulty in having contact and presents fear with new activities. In contrast, we have joy as a way of overcoming fear and trying to value the external aspects. The student demonstrates the ability to improvise in delicate situations.

Figure 2. Chromatic drawing, student 2.
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

Figure 2, drawn with colors, represents a church and a fortress. The colors are presented separately meaning that the student tries to control his emotions or direct them towards the desired goal. It is a form of balance. Associating color with the drawing "strength" can be related to negative feelings of sadness, destruction, and war. Red is a color that has more emotional characteristics, and it is associated with anger and can give strength to face difficult situations. Brown is associated with nature and represents discomfort, which may be related to fear (Vinícius, 2017, p.1).

Fear is an emotion that we acquire during the process of evolution. Fear protects us from dangers. The reactions that provoke fear are decisive for survival or death. This emotion has been built since the prehistory of humanity, according to Goleman (2011, p. S / n).

Figure 3. Chromatic drawing, student 3.
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

In Figure 3, we have the predominance of the colors blue and green, in different shades, where blue means sadness, but also represents calm. And green means that emotionally he is a weak individual and that any reason leads him to an extreme change of mood. The positive characteristics of this color represent security, courage, and hope. Yellow and red represent the strength of violence, which can be translated into anger negatively, and positively yellow represents joy.

Figure 4. Chromatic drawing, student 4.
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

Figure 4 represents the world. At first, the student tries to show that he is calm in his world, where all things are perfect for his perception, but when he observes the activities carried out by his schoolmates, he immediately changes his behavior by scribbling on the sheet of paper where the picture is. With that, he starts to represent emotions such as sadness or fear. When scribbling the page with the drawing, he shows that he is in anger for not being able to draw as well as his schoolmates. The child assumes the feeling of failure when he compares his drawing with the drawing of the other students.

Even in this drawing, we can see that the student is emotionally unbalanced, but for Goleman (1995, p. 247), quoted by Santos (2018, p. 44), "emotional literacy is an education oriented towards human feeling. The student learns to live together, to deal with, and improve his behavior through difficulties". The student externalizes the attempt to improve behavior by demonstrating his anger with black risks next to the drawing he made. For Fidella, Ribes, Agulló, and Soldevila (2002, P. 161) quoted by Burgos (2017, p. 8), education and emotional intelligence can be defined as:

a continuous and permanent educational process that aims to promote emotional development as an indispensable complement of cognitive development. Both elements are essential for the development of a person's integral personality. For this, the development of knowledge and skills on emotions is proposed, to enable the individual to better face the challenges of everyday life.

However, in this drawing we can observe manifestations of desire on the part of the child, desires that are lived by him. For Derdyk (1989, p. 51), “the drawing expresses the desire for representation, but also the drawing, above all, is fear, is oppression, is joy, is curiosity, is an affirmation. At the moment of drawing, the child goes through an intense experiential and existential process”.

Figure 5. Chromatic drawing, student 5.
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

In Figure 5, several colors are used, and they have a certain proportion concerning the quantity. Blue represents calm and sadness. Red represents the positive characteristics of joy. Green, creativity An yellow energy and joy. The colors are presented separately meaning control of emotions, together with balance.

It can be observed in the drawing above that it is not an empty design, but it has meaning for the child. It can still be seen that there is a development of skills required within the schooling process. The child shows that learning in this case is involved in thoughts and feelings. Drawing is a form of language. Therefore, when drawing, the child transmits feelings. In the drawing above observing the elements that compose it, it can be interpreted that he goes through a moment of happiness, where the balloons with a shape of the heart represent the love received and shared.

Figure 6. Chromatic drawing, student 6.
Note: Source: From the research, (2018).

Figure 6 is a representation of a house, where the student uses three colors well separated: red, blue, and black. Red represents contained rage, a rage so strong that it reaches the level of hate represented by the color black. Also, it means sadness and fear. Blue also represents sadness, but because it is used in much of the drawing it can mean that the individual is looking for a way to assert himself in the social environment, trying to control his emotions by directing them to other sources. The student's fear is related to actions, which begin to be independent.

Through the drawing, the child tries to abstract and understand situations that for him are complex from the family relationship, represented by the house.

For Goleman (1995) cited by Días (2014, p.14):

the individual can motivate himself and persist despite frustrations; to control his impulses, postponing the reward; and to control his state of mind, preventing discouragement from dominating him, not letting him think, feel empathy and have hope. Developing competencies at this level fosters the individual's relationship with himself and with others, improves learning, and promotes personal and social well-being.

All emotions are due to the evolution of humanity and perform specific functions, which can be observed through different responses from the body to each type of emotion. Goleman (2011, p. S / n).


Conclusion

Regarding the relationship of emotion with human learning, Cohen (2003, p. 9) highlights a key fact: cognitive growth depends on the development of emotional and social understanding.

Emotional education can contribute to the construction of the learning process allied to psychology. Gradually and with the use of different techniques, learning and the acquisition of content can be improved in the child population.

Educating children by teaching them to perceive their emotions is not an easy job. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the culture, the social environment, and the environment in which they are living. Likewise, one must consider one's individuality, knowing that emotion is something uniquely felt by each being. According to Vallés & Vallés, (2000) quoted by Cohen (2005, p.74),

by extension, the specific effects of emotional education lead to results such as: a) Improved self-esteem and self-concept that have an impact on the level of social skills and satisfactory interpersonal relationships; b) Less antisocial or socially disordered behavior and less self-destructive thinking; c) Fewer class expulsions, less risk of starting using drugs, better school, social and family adjustment; and, d) Improved academic performance.

Consequently, emotional education encourages interaction between people. Besides, emotions play an important role in the individual's quality of life, provided that he or she manages to understand them.

While drawing, the child finds a space to express his daily life, and even if he only scribbles, these have important meaning for him, since the drawings reflect his relations with the social environment and with his surroundings.

In the drawing, he places all his emotion using cognitive processes, such as memory, reorganizing himself to emphasize the drawing so that it can be interpreted by him and by others demonstrating the feeling as clearly as possible. It can be said that children who use EI to acquire skills to identify and understand the meaning of their emotions, can solve and adapt to everyday difficulties (Burgos, 2017, p. 10). In the existing literature on the subject, it is observed that authors in general relate emotional intelligence to oral and written language. The drawing arises from verbal language, so the two structures are related and complement and enrich each other.

After achieving motor control, the child's form of verbalization stands out in graphic art. The written language is the result of the maturation of the motor processes and the reflection of the sign representation (Valdivia, 2011, p. 28-29). Vigotsky, quoted by Valdivia (2011, p. 30), tries to clarify the relationship between graphic language and verbal language;

Drawing is a graphic language that emerges from verbal language. The schemes reminiscent of verbal concepts, drawing, as well as body gestures, visual signs, and symbolism of the game are preparatory studies for the development of the child's written language. They are like its prehistory.

Although, according to Valdivia (2011, p. 30);

plastic expression as a non-verbal language, as a vehicle of expression-communication and as a means of knowledge, has an entity by itself and it must be considered by the school, and must have its objectives. Although as an activity, it must be contemplated in a globalizing way, integrated into the school curriculum. But at the same time, within this curricular process, we should not lose sight of the fact that plastic expression makes possible the development of abilities and the acquisition of resources that favor and foster the comprehensive development of the individual and the assimilation of learning.

We can not forget that drawing is also a form of language. It emerged with the cavemen and through them, humanity made a retrospective of its history. According to Rocchietti (2009), the cave drawing imposed a symbolic arbitrariness. Through the drawings found in the caves, it was possible to discover the type of society, the time in which it existed, the culture, and even the feelings and emotions experienced by existing peoples.

For this reason, the analysis of the drawings in school-age children is considered important to understand situations lived by the students inside and outside the school, their fears, their anguish, and anger, as well as all kinds of emotions that may interfere with the teaching and learning process. Likewise, it is necessary to plan actions that aim to minimize the frustrations and difficulties of students within the teaching and learning process that teach them to deal with emotions with resilience.


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