Amid increasing competition in the world of education today, it is natural that students are often worried about a failure or lack of success in learning achievement or even the fear of repetition.
A lot of work done by the students to achieve academic achievement for being the best like to form study groups or to follow the guidance of learning institution. Such effort was clearly positive, but still there are other factors equally important in achieving success than intelligence or intellectual prowess, this factor is emotional intelligence. Because the intellect alone does not provide preparation for the individual to face the turmoil, opportunity or difficulties in life. With emotional intelligence, the individual is able to know and respond to their own feelings well and are able to read and deal with the feelings of others effectively. Individuals with well-developed emotional skills means that most likely he will succeed in life and have the motivation to excel. While individuals that can not hold control over his emotional life will experience a mental battle that damage his ability to focus on their tasks and have a clear mind.
A report from the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs (1992) states that success in school is not predicted by a collection of facts a student or his ability to read, but by measures of emotional and social development: that is to himself and have an interest; know patterns of behavior other people expect and how to control the impulse to do naughty; able to wait, follow instructions and refers to the teacher to seek assistance, as well as disclose the needs of the time hanging out with other students. Almost all students that having poor school achievement, according to the report, did not have one or more elements of emotional intelligence (regardless of whether they also have cognitive difficulties such as disability of learning).
Research by Walter Mischel (1960) on "marsmallow challenge" at Stanford University showed that when the child was four years old are able to delay his impulses, after graduating high school, academically more competent, more able to formulate an idea of reason, and has a passion to learn more. They scored significantly higher on SAT tests compared with children who can not afford to delay impulses (Goleman, 2002: 81).
Individuals who have high levels of emotional intelligence, can become more skilled in calming himself with a quick, rarely catch the disease, more skilled in focus, better in touch with other people, more skilled in understanding other people and for academic work at school better.
Basic emotional skills can not be owned by a sudden, but it requires the learning process and environment that make up emotional intelligence is a big influence. Positives will be obtained when children are taught the basic skills of emotional intelligence, would be more emotionally intelligent, understanding, easy to accept the feelings and more experience in solving the problem itself, so that when the teenagers will be more successful in school and in touch with peer colleagues and will be protected from risks such as drugs, delinquency, violence and unsafe sex.
Students are not inanimate objects that only move when there is power from the outside who pushed it, but the creature who has powers within him to move, that is motivation. With this motivation, the man then pushed fatherly perform an action or behavior, which included the desire for high achievement in the study.
Arden N. Fardesen said that someone’s motivation to learn is:
a. The existence of curious nature and explore the world wide.
b. The existence of a creative nature that exist in humans and the desire to always move forward.
c. The desire to get sympathy from parents, teachers, and friends.
d. The presence of efforts to fix failure in the past with a new effort.
e. Considerable effort to get a sense of security if mastering lessons.
f. The existence of rewards or punishment as a consequence of learning.
The six points above are a must-have ability for students. If a student is able to manage it well, it showed good emotional intelligence and will contribute greatly to good achievement in learning. But if that happens the opposite, then students will be hampered and experiencing difficulty in learning.
See above description can be concluded that emotional intelligence is one important factor that should be possessed by students who have a need for good learning achievement in school. Students with well-developed emotional skills means that most likely he will succeed in the lesson, master the habits of mind that drive their productivity. Conversely students who are unable to collect a certain control over their emotional lives will experience the inner battle that robs their ability to concentrate on lessons or to have a clear mind, so that how students are expected to excel if they are still difficult to regulate their emotions.