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What is RULER?
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BETTER PEOPLE, BETTER SCHOOLS
What is RULER?
Recognise
Identifying and interpreting the experience of emotion from nonverbal cues, including facial expressions, gait, posture, voice, gesture, touch and physiological changes, including the context in which emotion is revealed
Understand
Being aware of the causes and consequences of emotion, including the situations that cause them, the transition and progression between them, and how emotions influence thinking and behaviour
Label
Developing a diverse vocabulary of terms, including metaphors, to describe the full range of emotions
Express
Knowing multiple modes of emotional expression including spoken, written, and nonverbal, as well as appreciating that there are more and less appropriate modes of and times for emotion expression, depending, in part, on the person’s audience, context, and culture
Regulate
Accumulating strategies to change emotional states: preventing, enhancing, reducing, maintaining, and initiating in oneself and others to fit the situation and achieve a desired goal
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Think about an example with a particularly difficult student when a teacher reprimands a student for being late. The reactive student feels threatened by the teacher. This feeling activates the student’s hot system which triggers the impulsive “if I feel threatened then I act aggressively” response. The student quickly becomes hostile and yells at the teacher requiring the teacher to discipline the student.
On the other hand, the emotionally literate student has a) recognised a change in his emotional state b) associated this state with similar situations in the past and their outcomes c) accurately labeled his emotional state as “frustration”, which helps to cue emotional expression and regulation strategies. The emotionally literate student then proceeds to d) recognise that it is inappropriate to express his feeling state as hostility towards the teacher and finally e) activates regulation strategies in order to move him towards his goal of learning and avoiding inappropriate displays of emotion which would lead to conflict with his teacher.
Teachers use RULER in their interactions as well. Think about an example with a particularly reactive teacher. A student begins acting up, the teacher begins to berate the student and shout at them. In turn, the student begins to shout back at the teacher. This cycle escalates until the student is sent out of the class.
On the other hand, the emotional literate teacher has a) recognised a change in her emotional state b) associated the state with similar situations in the past and their outcomes c) accurately labeled her emotional state as “anger or frustration”, which helps to cue emotional expression and regulation strategies. That helps the teacher to d) think about how to deescalate the situation by taking a calm tone and lowering the intensity of the interaction and finally e) activate regulation strategies in order to deescalate the interaction by regulating both herself and the student towards the goal of teaching and learning.