ABOUT THE WRITER

Emma Byun

Emma Byun is an IMPACTER Ambassador and co-founder of eq2, a student-led workshop that teaches durable skills to students ages 6 to 16, in person, through story, art, and conversation instead of grades.

eq2’s own pitch is direct: if students can learn math, or music, or a sport, there’s no reason emotional intelligence should be the one subject nobody actually teaches. The program runs summer in-person workshops and year-round virtual ones, built around eight skills: curiosity, perspective-taking, purpose, self-control, grit, growth mindset, compassion, and gratitude, the same eight IMPACTER measures. eq2 teaches them face to face. eq2 Notes, published here on IMPACTER’s infrastructure, is Emma writing about those same eight skills for a different room: a halftime show, a sneaker drop, a viral note, instead of a workshop circle.

Part of why eq2 exists: a Harvard Making Caring Common survey of more than 10,000 middle and high school students found 80% ranked personal achievement above caring for others, and students were three times more likely to say their parents valued grades over kindness. eq2 is its two founders’ answer to that gap: not a lecture about it, a workshop that practices the other direction.

Visit eq2workshops.org →

Emma Byun speaking to a full school auditorium, an eq2 slide behind her reads Why Can't We Learn Emotional Intelligence? — Opening an eq2 assembly. The question on the screen is the whole pitch: “Why can’t we learn emotional intelligence?”

The eight skills, in her own words

eq2 also publishes its own branded skill cards, pairing a photo from the room with one of the eight skills. Two examples:

eq2 branded card: Emma Byun pointing to a wall covered in student sticky notes with questions like What makes a good friend? and How do I handle big feelings?, labeled 01 Curiosity, Ask Better Questions — 01 Curiosity: pointing out the questions students posted to the wall themselves.

eq2 branded card: Emma Byun sitting cross-legged with two students playing a card-based discussion game, cards reading I felt left out when my idea wasn't heard and I was nervous to share my idea, labeled 02 Perspective-Taking, See Beyond Your View — 02 Perspective-Taking: a card game built on lines like “I felt left out when my idea wasn’t heard.”

Beyond the workshop

eq2 isn’t only a classroom program. It runs family and community nights where parents and grandparents sit at the same tables as students, and reflection activities built to work in whatever language a student actually thinks in, because the point is the thought, not the English sentence it gets translated into.

Emma Byun at an evening community event with round tables and balloons, talking with a multi-generational family group — A community night: the same conversation eq2 runs with students, opened up to families.

Students at a table covered in sticky notes written in multiple languages, text overlay reads Any Language. Any Starting Point. — “Any language. Any starting point.” A reflection activity where students write in whatever language the thought comes in first.

See eq2 for yourself. The workshops, the age range, the eight skills: it’s all at eq2workshops.org, run by Emma and her brother Daniel, not written up by anyone else.

eq2workshops.org → Back to eq2 Notes