From Embarrassment, Fear, to Motivation: Understanding the role Emotion in Learning
EDI 600 Psychological Foundation of Education
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
January 20, 2009
There were many interesting aspects to the initial session of the Psychological Foundation of Education class led by Dr. Boyanton. Initially, we played the name game as a class. We then took what we learned from that game and related it to motivation factors, strategies for remembering and anxiety level within the classroom. Of particular interest to me was the issue of embarrassment within the classroom setting. When discussing what motivated me and my classmates in the name game , fear of embarrassment was a common response.
I can think of numerous instances when these techniques worked well for me in my past as a student. The class I excelled in most as a student was probably middle school Spanish. I had the same teacher two years in a row and received the Spanish award at graduation.
The secret to my success in Spanish was that I had an extremely demanding teacher who would call on you and publicly humiliate you if you gave the wrong answer. Fear caused me to know everything in my textbook perfectly. No matter how tired I was at night, I would not and could not fall asleep until I knew my Spanish lesson. For a student like me, to whom learning a foreign language was not too difficult, it was just a mildly uncomfortable experience, but I learned a tremendous amount.
On the other hand, my brother who also had this teacher tells of a very different experience. My brother was a very good student, but foreign language was his weakest subject. He remembers the anxiety and stomachaches he endured in this teacher's class. Worse than that, he's told me of one student in his class who one day just absolutely could not answer the teacher's question. My brother described the situation as a student having a mental breakdown in the middle of class. The student, in fact, never did come back to school that year. Although this was as extreme reaction, it makes you think about the importance of moderation in using anxiety or fear of embarrassment to motivate students to work hard in the classroom.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
January 20, 2009
There were many interesting aspects to the initial session of the Psychological Foundation of Education class led by Dr. Boyanton. Initially, we played the name game as a class. We then took what we learned from that game and related it to motivation factors, strategies for remembering and anxiety level within the classroom. Of particular interest to me was the issue of embarrassment within the classroom setting. When discussing what motivated me and my classmates in the name game , fear of embarrassment was a common response.
I can think of numerous instances when these techniques worked well for me in my past as a student. The class I excelled in most as a student was probably middle school Spanish. I had the same teacher two years in a row and received the Spanish award at graduation.
The secret to my success in Spanish was that I had an extremely demanding teacher who would call on you and publicly humiliate you if you gave the wrong answer. Fear caused me to know everything in my textbook perfectly. No matter how tired I was at night, I would not and could not fall asleep until I knew my Spanish lesson. For a student like me, to whom learning a foreign language was not too difficult, it was just a mildly uncomfortable experience, but I learned a tremendous amount.
On the other hand, my brother who also had this teacher tells of a very different experience. My brother was a very good student, but foreign language was his weakest subject. He remembers the anxiety and stomachaches he endured in this teacher's class. Worse than that, he's told me of one student in his class who one day just absolutely could not answer the teacher's question. My brother described the situation as a student having a mental breakdown in the middle of class. The student, in fact, never did come back to school that year. Although this was as extreme reaction, it makes you think about the importance of moderation in using anxiety or fear of embarrassment to motivate students to work hard in the classroom.
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