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Whenever I hear “emotions” and “learning” in the same sentence, I always think of long-term memory. I’ve heard it said that by involving one’s emotions in the learning process the information learned would bypass short-term memory and go straight into long-term memory. An example someone at a recent education talk posed was reading one’s favorite fantasy series versus studying for a final. When reading a fiction novel that you enjoy you usually follow the plot closely and can identify with the characters. You’re emotionally involved and thus you can recall the names and backgrounds of characters and the plot events off of the top of your head. When studying for a test you don’t want to take you’re not really engaged. You just want the test to be done and going over the material is a pain. You can spit back the information after cramming but you don’t dwell on the intricacies of the subject matter and you probably couldn’t recall everything a month after the test. This isn’t to say that a high school chemistry student doesn’t have to be moved to tears or overjoyed when memorizing electron orbitals for the first time; however, the student should find it somewhat interesting if we want him or her to remember the basic point after the course is over.

Even after hearing that, I didn’t make the big connection between cognition and emotions. As always, it’s mind-boggling to realize that an adult could sit down and make a list of social conventions and morals and then fail to take them into account when going about everyday life. We tend to think of cognitive processes as being carried out by one piece of us, an entity that encapsulates our entire personality when in reality different regions of the brain control different functions. Seeing how neuroscientists unravel our minds and figure out which part is responsible for which aspect of us is quite a strange experience. I don’t believe in denying one’s responsibility for one’s actions just because “my brain made me do it” but it does make me wonder just how much of what we do is beyond our control.

In any case, this does put an interesting spin on the traditional reason and emotion dichotomy. Even the most stoic person must be in touch with his or her emotions on some level if he or she is able to make decisions in accord with social standards. As the article stated, even the most intellectual and detached decision has some element of emotional thought to it. I’m glad that this article is doing a part to break apart the notion that to be a rational person one must separate emotions and reason. I think that in many cases our emotions often tell us things that our conscious minds fail to grasp, the most obvious example being cultural peculiarities that we usually only perceive on a subconscious level, i.e. how close one should stand to someone during a conversation or how to act at a certain social function.

This article seems to be expressing the basic problem of how to best teach students with a different vocabulary than is usually used but the message is clear. Instead of presenting cut and dry information to a classroom, the instructor should engage the students on a deeper level so that the students can put what they learn in a better context and be able to use that information in an real life situation should the need arise. The emphasis on enabling students to apply learned knowledge to real-world situations is a very important one, as a common complaint of unhappy students is that what they are learning has no bearing on the real world. This insight is one of the best made in the paper: ignoring the emotional aspect of learning is counterproductive because students will probably not be able to connect with the material and thus will not remember it when they do need it outside of the classroom. After all, what is the point in teaching if the students do not really benefit from the experience?

As an aside, I found a website in an unrelated search and found a short blog entry on this exact topic if anyone is interested: http://www.affectiveteaching.com/?p=151