Effective Affective

Notes from Rescuing the Affective: Teaching the Mind and the Heart 
" ... we simply cannot teach for enduring learning without honoring (and I would argue privileging) the affective in our classrooms" 

"while emotions are often highlighted and privileged in early childhood education research, they are treated in the secondary school research as troubling disturbances flooding into the classroom as a result of problems with families or peers (Hargreaves, 1998).

"The good news, however, is that there is a newly emerging rhetoric in terms of the significance of the affect in intellectual inquiry.  Some of this comes out of a spirituality movement that is sweeping across the country, as reflected in the writings of individuals like Parker Palmer (1998) and Sandi and Helen Astin (2004).   Some of the impetus comes from neuroanatomy, physics, neuropsychology, and developmental psychology as observed in the works of scientists such as Daniel Goleman (1995), Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990), Art Zajonc (2006), and Robert Kegan (1982).
 
" ... when one carefully examines the current trends virtually all of the major movements in higher education today have as their common denominator an emphasis on the affective in learning (i.e., service learning, experiential learning, ethics and values, leadership, and citizenship).

"Rather than restricting our understanding of learning to old paradigms, we are now talking about the integration of heart and mind, we are emphasizing the process of growth rather than the end product, and we are focusing on an ethical engagement with the profound issues of the disciplines.  We are asking such questions as, “What are the capacities we want our students to have and what are the capacities that they need so that they might contribute to a more sane and compassionate world?” “What do we want to integrate in our institutions?” “How might we teach dialogically?” “How might wisdom be incorporated as a pedagogical goal?” “How might we assist our students and ourselves in moving through life consciously rather than unconsciously?” How do we recover from the neglect of our interiority?”  This epistemological revolution, if we agree that such is occurring, is not the abandonment of scholarship in our institutions of higher learning but rather a grounding of this scholarship in a contemplative education and inquiry that provide a safe space for growth.  

 
" There is great solace in teaching to the heart,

"What seems significant is that emotional engagement must occur in the context of critical analyses rather than in a context of pure sentimentality. 

"Finally, if we as teachers are privileging the affective in our classrooms, we must know our own hearts and be willing to navigate our own inner landscape. "  
 
Patricia Owen-Smith, Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, Coordinator, CASTL Leadership Group on Cognitive-Affective Learning Oxford College of Emory University. Email: psypos@emory.edu Rescuing the Affective: Teaching the Mind and the Heart Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, 4(2) (Spring 2008), 31-33. Copyright Ó 2008, Oxford College of Emory University. 1549-6953/08  https://www.jcal.emory.edu//viewarticle.php?id=128&layout=html