Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Teaching with the Brain in Mind
Literature has portrayed the world of emotions as
erratic, flighty, uncontrollable, whimsical, and even
sinister. The stable, dependable, “scientific” path
has been that of reason and logic.
But what if what we considered logical was
actually emotional? What if it was more rational to
include emotions in our thinking and decision
making? For many, the mere thought is outrageous.
Science is about facts, not feelings. As a
result, most scientists, particularly biologists and
neuroscientists, considered it professional suicide
to study emotions as a serious topic. “Better left to
the psychiatrists” was the prevailing view.
In fact, you might say emotions have been the
black sheep of the brain family. Peter Stearns says
our society has gone “anti-intensity,” trumpeting a
new low emotionality; otherwise, you’re portrayed
as being “out of control” (Atlas 1996). This view
may have been brought on by the media’s portrayal
of violent individuals as lacking self-discipline. But
what are the scientific links between emotions and
learning? Could it actually be smarter to organize
learning around emotions?
Emotions Make the Mainstream
While several researchers made references to, and
even did occasional studies on, emotions, no one
made it a career path for the longest time. It
remained that way until the mid-1980s. Then, five
highly respected neuroscientists—Joseph LeDoux of
New York University, Candace Pert of Georgetown
University Medical Center, Jerome Kagan of Harvard,
and Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio of
the University of Iowa—emerged with important
research. Each has made meaningful contributions
that helped change the way we think of emotions.
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Emotions drive attention, create meaning, and
have their own memory pathways (LeDoux 1994).
You can’t get more related to learning than that.
Kagan says, “The rationalists who are convinced
that feelings interfere with the most adaptive
choices have the matter completely backwards. A
reliance on logic alone, without the capacity to
feel . . . would lead most people to do many, many
more foolish things” (1994, p. 39). The old way of
thinking about the brain is a separateness of mind,
body, and emotions. That idea’s history, Antonio
Damasio reminds us: “The body . . . may constitute
the indispensable frame of reference for . . .
the mind” (1994, p. xvi); and in fact, “reduction in
emotion may constitute an equally important
source of irrational behavior” (p. 53). Emotion
helps reason to focus the mind and set priorities.
Many researchers now believe that emotion and
reason are not opposites. For example, our logical
side says, “Set a goal.” But only our emotions get
us passionate enough even to care enough to act
on that goal.
One of the original scholars to construct the
theory of emotional intelligence, Jack Mayer
believes that emotions convey information, just
like data or logic. Psychology has been too atomized
in the sense that it divided intelligence, motor
behavior, and emotions into different areas, rather
than considering the inseparable links among them
(Marquis 1996, p. B-2). The popularity of the bestselling
Emotional Intelligence (Goleman 1995) has
raised emotions to an acceptable, if not reputable,
level. Some are now calling it an entirely new discipline
in neuroscience (Davidson and Sutton
1995). You never would have found this kind of
scientific support for the role of emotions 10 years
ago. What caused the change?