THRILL! This is how you learn more, according to experts

Did you know that there is currently a whole pedagogical current, the neurodidactic , the neuroeducation , which affirms without fear of being mistaken that we learn more and better when the emotion touches us , when we are touched-in the best sense of the word-? Our wonderful brain is unique, which means that there is a neurodiversity that must be taken into account, as much as it is given to biodiversity.

JOIN! This is how you learn more, according to experts

We speak, of course, of positive emotions, of those who manage to move curiosity .Science today has advanced light years in relation with what was previously thought to be a school classroom.Teachers and teachers should become, today, neuroeducators , that is, people who love what they do and understand Indestructible link between emotion and cognition as part of both the anatomical and functional design of the brain.

What does this mean? Simple: any sensory information, before being processed in the cerebral cortex in its different areas, first passes through the emotional brain (or limbic brain); there it takes what we could call an emotional color.Only after this first process, the neurons and the association areas will create the ideas, the abstracts , which are the basic elements of thinking.But first there is the emotion, the sensation of pleasure or pain, of bad or good.

Understanding this is essential to understand cognitive processes, because at birth the first brain mechanism that activates is that of learning .Hence the enormous importance of children first learning in nature, because contact with the physical world will cause genetic codes to be put into action: you learn more with nature and with the emotion that emerges from see something "in person".

So, we can see ourselves as emotional beings, first, and then rational.And social later.A professed The teacher who captures this fundamental principle, will achieve the emotional approach necessary for his students to learn more and better: we who like to learn things know that we learn more when we love him, when he tells us something, when he resonates to us .The resonance is important because what vibrates on our same frequency will stay with us forever.

Have you noticed, if you have children, how their eyes shine if they are interested, truly interested, in something? And how, despite everything, do they dedicate themselves body and soul to that? Childhood curiosity is not free, it is a product of that emotion.And not only that, you learn more like this throughout life, so that saying of “old parrot does not learn to speak” is completely false: we learn throughout our life, whenever we get excited.

Because it is the emotion that ignites the learning process: thanks to it, curiosity arises, and then attention.If you have ever had the opportunity to teach, You will have noticed that as much as you demand attention, if the boys are not interested, you will ask little.You have to provoke emotion in them, touch them in some way, and so you will have attentive students.

The Professor of Human Physiology and Molecular and Biophysical Physiology, of the Complutense and Iowa Universities, Francisco Mora , affirms that curiosity responds to different neural circuits for different curiosities , because it is not the same what he calls diversified perceptual curiosity -which anyone experiences before something new and strange-than the epistemic curiosity , which is what pushes us to seek specific knowledge.

And it is exactly what happens with attention, there are many: basic or tonic attention ( when we are awake), attention alerts to a danger, attention for guidance (when we look for someone or something), executive (when we study ), the virtual (which the we use in creative processes), the digital…

Facing this, and a master class makes no sense.The dramatic thing is that in almost every traditional school in the world, During elementary school 50% of the time is based on transmitting information verbally, and when it reaches high school it increases up to 80%. Student passivity is proportionally related to this pedagogical strategy .learn more exciting, it is clear that you do not learn anything like that.

When we begin to process information, the brain does it from the right hemisphere, which is more related to intuition, images and creativity ; linguistic processing has almost no weight, so the talks do not work .Again, master classes are not boring, is that are not effective from the point of cerebral vision.

It is true that all this requires teachers and professors truly committed to teaching, who love what they do, that they get excited too.Their own creativity is ignited to give different classes, with another type of support: concept maps, interactive graphics that require student participation, activities that need collaborative work.

These teachers and teachers understand neurodiversity, as well as the importance of each person's circadian rhythms, the dream and its influence on the study, and even the influence of factors such as school architecture, light, color, temperature or classroom orientation.

And this works not only for schools or universities, it works for anyone at any time of life.Get excited, and you'll see that you learn more.We recommend you read about Summerhill, the oldest free school in the world, about the best school in the world and how you learn in kindergartens in Finland.

Images: Scott Ableman, eltpics, woodleywonderworks, cybrarian77, Geraint Rowland