Emotions and Learning

Victoria Cantú

Sep 29, 2020

I am probably not the only person who disliked a subject because the teacher simply did not know how to teach it. Maybe they spent the whole class reading slides, could not answer questions and changed the subject, or were constantly in a bad mood and irritated. Teachers like that did not just make us dislike their subject. They also kept us from really learning anything. We ended up doing the assignments just to get through the class and avoid taking it again, because we did not want to repeat such an unpleasant experience.

And it would not be surprising to say that those teachers had little or no understanding of pedagogy, the study of teaching methods. But that is a topic for another day.

For now, I want to highlight how important positive emotions are when learning any subject, especially in the early stages of life.

As I explained in my previous article, "What is well learned is never forgotten?", synapses are the connections between neurons that form every time new information enters the brain. If positive emotions are present, and that experience is reinforced through repetition, those synapses become stronger and the information is more likely to stay in long-term memory. And one very important point: when a negative emotion is present, the brain tends to block the entry of information. That gives us two good reasons to cultivate positive emotions during learning: first, to allow the information to get in, and second, to increase the chances that it will remain.

No wonder we learned so little from the teacher who made us feel bored, stressed, or uncomfortable.

And if this matters for someone studying a university degree or graduate program, imagine how much more it matters for a child who is just beginning to discover the world. If we teach an important subject in the worst possible way, that child may end up disliking it and rejecting it for life.

That is why it is essential to find the right way to make children enjoy a topic, to catch their attention, and to keep them engaged. Children could learn almost anything if we explained it through simple and fun examples. Subjects that are often treated as boring, difficult, or only suitable for adults, even when they are extremely useful in daily life, such as finance, could be taught through games. Then they would stop feeling like "boring adult topics" and start becoming something children actually want to keep exploring.

We have to understand children. Being young does not make them unintelligent. They have enormous intellectual potential, and it would be a waste to turn them away from a topic simply because we did not know how to teach it well. Even if schools do not always pay close attention to these details, families can work to reverse that. At home we can use toys to represent concepts, tell entertaining stories to explain theories, and create all kinds of learning experiences. There are countless ways to teach, and creativity has no limit.

And something equally important: our own attitude matters too. If we teach with joy and passion, children will want to mirror those emotions. They will feel joyful and engaged while they learn. That allows information to flow more freely through their minds, and later they will remember the subject as something pleasant that they would like to experience again.