Blog #2

Emotions trump learning... What does mean?

- From the book specifically it means... "If a child feels unsafe, threatened, or insecure, the brain blocks off the pathways to learning and attends to the more basic human needs instead. If a teacher connects learning to a child's emotions, she is more likely to learn thatn if what is being taught remains remote to her emotions."

Humans are amazing creatures. We don't just learn and grow, BUT we feel, and we connect. We connect with what we see, we connect with what we hear, and with people we encounter. In fact our strongest learning experiences, for good or bad, come from learning that connects with us more than just mentally, but emotionally. Because this connection is so powerful we will naturally protect ourselves from having these connecti0ns until we have proven it to be a safe environment around safe people. If we determine that the environment is unsafe then not only will we refuse ourselves those fulfilling connections but we will shut ourselves off from learning completely.

My Father is an extremely smart man. He could help me with any homework that I needed guidance on. Most of the time this was a good thing, but occasionally the teaching came with frustration and impatience. If that was the case, if I was already confused and then he started getting irritated, or began to yell at me there was no hope at all in the homework area, I would just shut down completely. On the other hand I know that I have done the best learning in classrooms where I felt safe in voicing my opinion and asking for help.

Other quotes that I connected with...

"Much of growing up has to do with increasing the dominion one has over one's world."

As I reflect over my life I find this to be very true personally. The more you grow and begin to find the real you the more you desire to take control of your life. Being the youngest of five kids it seems like gaining that power over my world has been harder for me to claim then most of my siblings because they will always view me as the little girl of the family. I have noticed that I am drawn to things and people who help me to feel empowered. Sometimes this occurs in a classroom, sometimes this occurs with a close friend who believes in me, and sometimes it occurs through venturing to a different country;) I want my students to always feel empowered. I want them to know that i believe in their abilities to do hard things. To fulfill what they thought they couldn't do, or what they have always wanted to do.

"There is something transforming about taking a risk to attain a goal that seems out of reach and discovering that we can extend our reach to grasp what seemed elusive."

I feel bad for continuing to talk about China so much but it really was one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) learning experience for me. Going abroad to teach children just seemed like something that other people could do, but not me. Taking the steps to get there were really hard, but not because of the actual process. Simply because I had to transform into someone who took challenges and succeeded in the face of people telling me I couldn't do it. I am still learning that I can do hard things, but those challenging things that require us to reach inside of us and take strength from where we didn't know we had it are often the most poignant and dear.

"Classrooms are places designed to forge democracy, dignity, and diversity... schools exist to prepare young people to contribute to their world as informed thinkers, thoughtful citizens and decent human beings- that we are entering a moral contract between ourselves, our students, and our society to contribute in every way to those outcomes."\

Wow! I have a such a huge responsibility as a future teacher! If you look at the world that we live in today it is easy to see that we really do have our work cut out for us. Students keep coming to school with less and less already being learned and less and less support from home for what they learn at school. This can't thwart our striving to give the students the kind of education we would want for our own child. I think so many problems in the world come from not realizing the power and influence that we have as individuals. If we only understood the ways that we could make a difference for the better we would live very different lives. We must realize this as we enter our own classrooms because we can be the difference in these children's lives.