Teaching With the Brain in Mind

is at the heart of learned helplessness, that has
powerful biological consequences. If the student is
in a traumatic situation and he makes choices, the
condition will not occur, regardless of the outcome.
This may be why, time and again, educational
reformists have pushed the notion of student control.
At a typical school, nearly every decision, from
length of time on learning to whom to work with,
is dictated and managed outside student control.
The Results of Learned Helplessness
What conclusions can be drawn from these biological
changes? Two researchers P. Villanova and
C. Peterson (cited in Peterson et al. 1993) analyzed
132 studies of learned helplessness that included
several thousand human subjects. Part of the
analysis compared human effects versus animal
effects. The study notes, “[C]alculations suggest
that the effect in people may be even stronger than
the analogous effect in animals. . . .” (p. 107).
Human experience with uncontrollable events disrupts
performance at test tasks. Impaired problem
solving is only the tip of the iceberg. The words
the authors used to describe the impact were not
trivial: they were “moderate” and “robust.” In
“researcher language,” these words indicate compelling
data. The suggestion is that we might take
strong steps to reduce the occurrence of learned
helplessness conditions and be proactive in dealing
with it.
The emotional responses invoked in the subjects
vary from anxiety to anger to depression.
Humans who were stimulated to helplessness often
became anxious, depressed, and restless, too. Trice
(1982) found that exposure to helplessness
increased a liking for hostile, as opposed to innocent,
humor. You may have noticed that some of
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your colleagues or students use excessive sarcasm
and make hurtful comments to others. Students
can be made helpless by being asked to work
(even as a group) on tasks that can’t be solved.
This is an example of where the learned helplessness
does not require an initial traumatic event
(Peterson et al. 1993). Fortunately, specific strategies
can reduce stress, eliminate threat, and head
off learned helplessness.
Practical Suggestions
How Threats and Stress Affect Learning
There are two approaches for reducing stress for
students. One is to manage the conditions that can
induce it, and the other is to use personal strategies
that mediate and release it. Help students
learn about what induces stress and what to do
about it. Teach them stress management techniques
like time management, breathing, the role
of down time, relationships skills, and getting peer
support. In the classroom, stress might be released
through drama, peer support, games, exercise, discussions,
and celebrations. Physical exercise triggers
the release of a brain-derived neurotropic factor
(BDNF) that enhances neural communication,
elevates mood, and assists in long-term memory
formation (Kinoshita 1997). A neurotropic factor is
any agent that affects brain functioning. These
include internal factors like hormones or external
agents like caffeine or valium.
Work on the following three variables: threats
from outside of class, threats from other students,
and threats from yourself. You have little control
on the outside environment, so be sure to establish
a start of class transition time for students. It
allows them to shift gears from the possibly dangerous
outside world (a bully in the hallway, fights