9. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[9]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
The way out
Developing
Emotional
Intelligence
Fight
chemicals
with
chemicals
Identify
neural
hijacking
Managing
the
hijacking
Emotions have
direct input on
thoughts
Thoughts can
have inputs on
emotions as
well
11. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[11]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
Lose it completely
Throw stuff about
Hit someone or swear at the
teacher
Get thrown out of the lesson
1
A message to their growing sense
of self-worth and self-esteem:
“my feelings don’t count”
2
3 S T A
R
12. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[12]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
Suggestions by the author
Punishment
should never
be
emotionally
driven
‘cause and effect’,
clearly
demarked. If you
do this, this is
what will happenSometimes in the
classroom
our
interventions
make a bad
situation worse
Take the student
for a walk
around the
school quad
“Sorry” word
should always be
followed by a
“full stop”.
“SORRY……
BUT” it never
works
if we want children to grow
up then we must be grown
up too
X
15. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[15]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
Creating catalyst effects
Dopamine
released with
glutamate
brain will
learn whatever
it is paying
attention to at
this time
Two good
ways ……
One bad
way
Produce dopamine
in students’ brain
through stress
(cultivate
environment of
fear and anxiety)
possibilities of
psycho-emotional
condition /
chronic fatigue
syndrome
16. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[16]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
Two good ways
Reward Anticipation of Reward
Doing
things they
like doing
Knowing that they
are about to do the
things they like
doing
Teacher is creating neurochemistry
Students enjoy lectures
Telling jokes, having laugh, working in team
17. NationalInstituteofScience&Technology
[17]
Thursday Lecture Seminar Series
A1
B1
C1
A2
B2
C2
Multiple Access
Multiple Access
Teacher: Jatin and Juhi,
Roshan and Payal,
Abhishek and Reshma
are talking over a
common channel without
cross talk ……
Teacher: A1 and A2, B1
and B2, C1 and C2 are
talking over a common
channel without cross
talk ……
Creating Dopamine level
The brain is quite categorically not ‘an optimized, generic problem-solving machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad hoc solutions that have accumulated throughout millions of years of evolutionary history’.
The reptilian brain, the oldest of the three, controls the body's vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. Our reptilian brain includes the main structures found in a reptile's brain: the brainstem and the cerebellum. The reptilian brain is reliable but tends to be somewhat rigid and compulsive.
The limbic brain emerged in the first mammals. It can record memories of behaviours that produced agreeable and disagreeable experiences, so it is responsible for what are called emotions in human beings. The main structures of the limbic brain are the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. The limbic brain is the seat of the value judgments that we make, often unconsciously, that exert such a strong influence on our behaviour.
The neocortex first assumed importance in primates and culminated in the human brain with its two large cerebral hemispheres that play such a dominant role. These hemispheres have been responsible for the development of human language, abstract thought, imagination, and consciousness. The neocortex is flexible and has almost infinitelearning abilities. The neocortex is also what has enabled humancultures to develop.
Known more commonly as the single ‘amygdala’, it is this basic but powerful part of our brain that determines how we deal with challenge, how we respond to threat and, because of the direct link between emotions and long-term memory, how long we remember what we have learned. As Daniel Goleman points out in Emotional Intelligence, the amygdala is what is responsible for ‘neural hijacking’ when it perceives a dangerous situation and sends a whole torrent of messages and chemicals across the entire brain to help us, effectively, fly, fight, freeze or flock (Goleman 1995).
This four-step process starts to teach the brain to buy itself time before acting.
There are a number of things, but simple visualization and breathing techniques can help. Teaching children simple meditative strategies has been shown to have beneficial effects on stress levels.
Certain meditation techniques have been documented to improve emotional regulation and sleep, and reduce blood pressure as effectively as medication.
In the classroom, dopamine means the difference between the class learning and not learning, between them remembering what they learned and forgetting it before the bell goes, between them behaving and applying themselves or causing chaos. It is dopamine that even decides how well those critical first few minutes of lesson go. If teaching is about creating the right neurochemical cocktail, then dopamine is the tequila in the twenty-first-century teacher’s margarita.
In fact, if dopamine has been released with glutamate, your brain will learn whatever it is paying attention to at the time – and there is very little you can do about it. So, create the environment where the right levels of dopamine are produced in their heads and they can’t do anything but learn. And how do you do that?
A quick and easy, yet wrong, way to produce dopamine in students’ brains is through stress. Simply cultivate an environment of fear and anxiety and you will have the dopamine levels up in no time. The trouble is that dopamine produced in this way has the same effect on brain cells as painting by numbers using a bucket of paint. You simply flood the brain with this chemical in a way that can ultimately lead to a failure to produce dopamine leading to psycho-emotional conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome. Such a high stress environment also generates high levels of the stress hormones leading to the sorts of harmful subconscious learning
In other words, you can create effective neuro - chemistry by ensuring they are enjoying your lesson, either through the nature of the work and the challenge itself and/or through the opportunities they have to experience enjoyment, opportunities that may or may not be linked directly to the subject matter they are learning but do have a direct impact on the process. These could be activities like telling a joke, having a laugh, doing physical exercise, working in groups or teams, having an element of surprise or novelty, listening to music in an appropriate way.