Learning and Emotions

By Dr. Marvin MarshallcloseAuthor: Dr. Marvin Marshall Name: Dr. Marvin Marshall
Site: http://marvinmarshall.com/about-dr-marvin-marshall/
About: Dr. Marvin Marshall teaches how to undo the stress and punishment culture prevalent in so many schools, homes, and work relationships. He shows how to use authority without coercion so relationships are not adversely affected. His Discipline Without Stress is the only system hat is totally noncoercive—but never permissive. He is the author of Discipline without Stress®: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning. This landmark publication is used around the world. The book shows how to handle every discipline problem, promote responsible behavior, and reduce apathy toward learning. He is an international trainer who has presented in 25 countries on five continents and in 44 of the United States. His website WithoutStress.com is a storehouse of free information. He also has an online course at DisciplineOnline.com More: http://marvinmarshall.com/about-dr-marvin-marshall/See Authors Posts (18)
 

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Emotions enhance or interfere with learning.

Achieving change is emotional as well as intellectual. Emotions can enhance the learning process or interfere with it.

Our emotional system drives our attention, which drives learning and memory. Specifically, how a person “feels” about a situation determines the amount of attention he or she devotes to it. Students need to feel an emotional connection to their tasks, their peers, their teachers, and their school. For an increasing number of students, school is a place where making emotional connections is more important than anything else. This is especially true for so many adolescents where a feeling of belonging almost overshadows all other desires and is often the most important factor that keeps them in school.

We generally focus on cognition when we teach and tend to ignore emotions. Yet, students must feel physically and emotionally secure before they can process information. Threats are counterproductive because they stimulate emotions that interfere with thinking skills. Examples of negative emotions are humiliation, shame, guilt, fear, and anger, which become “paralyzing experiences.” When students are anxious, their emotions interfere with thinking and disrupt the learning process. In short, negative emotions are counterproductive to learning.

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Some knowledge of how emotions and thinking are intertwined is important because in every encounter there is an emotional subtext. Within a few moments of seeing or hearing something, we react. There is a very subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, liking or disliking. The brain evolved this way for survival. In case of a dire threat, we needed an immediate response. Not much time was allowed for a rational decision. “I’ll get it or it may get me.”

The emotional brain still reacts before the thinking brain. Sensory signals from the eye or ear travel to the thalamus. The thalamus acts as a relay station for information and branches to both the neocortex, the thinking or cognitive part of the brain, and to the amygdala. The amygdala is an almond-shaped ganglion (mass of nerve tissues) perched above the brain stem adjoining the temporal lobe. The amygdala stores our emotions, especially fear and aggression. It is our emotional memory since the time we were infants. But there is one long neuron connection from the amygdala to the gastrointestines. That is why you may have a feeling that seems like it emanates from the pit of your stomach. It does!

Branching allows the amygdala (emotions) to respond before the neocortex (thinking) because the circuit to the amygdala is smaller and shorter. This explains why we get angry before we think. This threat-response is great for escaping from predators, but not for learning. The short-term impact of this brain response includes impaired memory, weakened ability to prioritize, and greater likelihood of repeated behaviors that impinge on learning.

The implication for the classroom is to add emotional hooks to what we are teaching. The art of this craft is to create experiences, rather than just present information. For example, a high school history class is reading about immigration to the country in the early part of the 20th century. The textbook contains a graph showing great numbers coming from Eastern Europe. A simulation could give students some idea of what the experience was like for these people, who were mostly very poor, and who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean on ships as steerage. A group of students huddles sitting on the floor in one corner of the classroom. Crowded together, they move their upper bodies back and forth [continued on page 2]