Today, we know more about the human brain than ever before. Brain research is a rapidly growing and changing field and the implications for teachers is huge. From all I’ve read and heard, there is one piece of knowledge that has affected my teaching more than any other. That has to do with the role of emotions in memory and learning.
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Human evolution is relatively slow, so our brain is very much hardwired to respond to danger and fear with automatic responses. Most people have heard of the “Fight, Flight or Freeze instinct”. What brain research has taught us is that when this process begins, learners lose the ability to store items in long term memory and also the ability to retrieve items. Our complex higher order logic and reasoning skills become temporarily inaccessible. Stress hormones flood our body and the brain’s focus is to avoid getting eaten by a lion.
For students with learning differences and difficulties, a page of text, reading out loud, a spelling test or other situations where they have experienced past embarrassment or failures trigger this same response. As far as their brain is concerned, school work is a hungry lion. Sadly, the more desperately the student NEEDS to access their strategic processes, the less likely they are to be able to do so.
So much of our brain chemistry happens outside of conscious thought, but we can help manage anxiety with deliberate strategies and understanding. One of the most powerful techniques to help students deal with the challenges of anxiety is to teach them about the worry and anxiety they are dealing with, learn strategies for calming and to allow themselves and their brain time to move past fear and access their other cognitive skills.