The Skillful Teacher

Maxim 9: Remember That Learning Is Emotional
If you’ve ever read a collection of Critical Incident Questionnaires,
or thought about the most beneficial or memorable learning
episodes you’ve experienced, you can’t help but be struck by the
emotive nature of learning. Yet the language of educational policy,
learning theory, or curriculum design is remarkably cognitive and
Surviving Emotionally
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rational. It’s as if learning is conducted by bloodless ascetics rather
than by flesh and blood human beings with frailties and enthusi-
asms, passions and dislikes. There is often little indication of the
emotional peaks and lows, the visceral ebbs and flows, accompany-
ing, and intermingling with, the process of learning. The truth is
that learning is often highly emotional, involving great threats to
students’ self-esteem, particularly if they are required to explore new
and difficult knowledge and skill domains. Even when progress is
being made, there is likely to be a grieving for old ways of being and
abandoned assumptions—the lost innocence of Chapter Five.
Being aware of the emotionality of learning helps prepare teach-
ers for the inevitable outpouring of anger and resentment that some
students express as they explore new intellectual arenas and new
skill sets. This awareness stops you experiencing a more or less con-
stant angst-ridden scrutiny of your shortcomings when some stu-
dents inevitably greet your instructions with hostility rather than
the enthusiasm you’d expected. You will come to see students’ griev-
ing for old ways of thinking and learning as a natural element of
learning, and you will be less likely to interpret resistance to risk-
laden learning activities (such as critical thinking) as caused by your
own poor preparation or lack of charisma. Finally, remembering the
emotionality of learning may help you keep your own impostorship
under control when you receive negative evaluations of your teach-
ing that are expressed in emotional terms. It is important that you
know that your effort to move students beyond their comfort zones
will often be met with strongly felt and negatively expressed emo-
tions and that being on the receiving end of these can be one indi-
cator that you’re doing your job.