The Right Frame of Mind

Last night's homework involved reading about empathy as it applies to teaching.  It's a no brainer, in my opinion - you can teach if you can put yourself in the frame of mind of the learner.  In plain English - if you understand a concept, you can probably remember a time before you understood it. So recall the memory of what made the lightbulb go on for you, and recreate that experience for your learner.

The Role of Emotion in the Learning and Transfer of Clinical Skills and Knowledge

https://www.aamc.org/download/307794/data/rimereviewpaper-mcconnell.pdf

This article, about emotions and learning, made me think about not empathy and teaching (required for success) but empathy and learning.

The thing about uncomfortable frames of mind - anger, fear, being overwhelmed, sadness, frustration, defensiveness - is that if you are in them, you can't teach.  You can't teach because these emotions are inward turning and narcissistic.  When you are in them, you're "in your own head," concerned with how things are affecting you.   If you're only able to think about yourself, you can't be empathetic because that by definition means being able to think about the situations and feelings of others.  The "right frame of mind" for teaching means not only being prepared to deliver content, but to be on an emotionally even keel.

This article made me realize the same issue is true for learners.  If they are mired in a negative emotion and preoccupied with thinking about themselves, they can't learn.  Their minds are closed, and not receptive to new ideas - and certainly not challenging ideas.  Because I teach in the field of medical humanities, I run into this problem a lot.

Case in point - I talk to students a lot about impoverished people.  As soon as they get a load of the fact that I am bringing up poverty, I can see a lot of students shut down.  When encouraged to talk, the shut down students often make judgmental statements, about how people are poor because they choose to be poor, or have made bad choices when they could have made good ones.  I despair when I see students shut down and hear the products of their minds because it seems to me that there is no way a student who thinks like that could ever sit down with an impoverished patient and have even a modicum of empathy for/with them.  

What this article makes clear is that the way out of this problem is to take care to place my students in a positive, open frame of mind before and while I introduce the academic subject of poverty.  I have to make sure they feel safe from criticism, judgement and disorder and I should have them start from a stable place.  This is very different from how we traditionally act as teachers, where we use criticism, judgement and intellectual aggression to gain and maintain "control" over the learning situation.  This article suggests that by doing so, we may be delivering content to people who are certainly behaving, but doubtfully learning.