the brain at school

The Brain at School

By Adriana Rumbolo

(15/06/2009)

It all began one ordinary November morning. A class on the defensive, “what’s behind all this, we aren’t the least bit mad, we don’t have any problems”

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And then, hey presto, the good news, they weren’t going to have to do a test, and were not going to be observed , judged or catalogued but were going to be offered a raft of “scientific” information about the brain from which they could pick out bits that suited them, the bits that clarified their worries and the bits that satisfied their sense of curiosity, and all this with the opportunity to ask questions. They were also told that all this would happen on the basis of an equal partnership and they accepted this.


And so we began with a short interesting story of the brain, with references to the changes that evolved during its anthropological development. (Paul Maclean’s Triune brain theory of the 3 brains): the reptilian brain, the emotional brain and the neocortical or thinking brain.

A television documentary on human evolution, produced by Piero Angela tells the story of how man cried for the first time on the death of his friend. Perhaps this was the dawning of the emotional brain, perhaps not , but it’s a nice thought.
The pupils struggle to believe that their various emotions, for which they have no name and which they had not thought had any physical existence, have a place not only in their brain but in everybody’s brain.

“Oh, they are called emotions,” these reactions at times obvious, at times confused, at times uncontrollable: these sudden outbursts of rage, bizarre enthusiasms, insuperable shyness, these various fears, the desire to “have it all and have it now” the frightening explosive aggressiveness and the ever present need to communicate.

And these emotions, how are they shown ?


Demasio wrote ”We express our emotions using the body as a theatre”

An episode in a class helps us to understand this. Two boys from a different department come in to give out some notices. At sight of these two boys and in particular of one of them, one of the girls in the class disappears behind her desk. When the boys have finished talking and have left the room, the girl who has long curly hair re-emerges red faced.
Her friends laugh but are checked straight away because there is a lesson to be learnt here: the girl’s blushing is a visible and physical expression of her intense emotions which from that moment on will be accepted as normal in the classroom.

Then the wave of emotion comes back in to the girls consciousness and is transformed changing her sensibility. Now is the time to speak specifically about the primary emotions, fear, rage, sadness, joy, disgust and surprise.

These biological tendencies are present at birth and perhaps even earlier: necessary for survival and protagonists of communication, they are significantly influenced by the personal experiences of the subject in the relevant culture.

In the very act of socialising there may be emotional suffering that may express itself in indifference, disinterest, inactivity, behaviour which poses a risk to oneself and to others as well as disturbances of the memory and judgement..

Le Doux says that healthy emotions are needed to conserve mental health and mental disturbances usually reflect a shattered emotional nature.

Now it’s easy for the young people to link the “emotional disorders” with many of their malaises. That’s why my hand sweats, that’s why my eyelids flutter and that’s why I can’t return defective purchases. And that’s the cause of the many social fears; the fear of losing one’s own past.(Pollicino’s syndrome) the fear of not coming up to others’ expectations, the fear of not being able to express one’s own opinions and the fear of not being able to rebel against something or someone.


Image Joseph Ledoux @nyu.edu

A 15 year old student writes “the thing that dominates our brain is our terror of socialising “

Finally understanding yourself is like coming into a castle illuminated by the electricity of scientific knowledge.

Pirandello writes: “And the clarity grows and grows.”

And then we come to the neo cortex

This is described to the students as a helmet, a term with which they are familiar, wrapped round the brain with many deep folds and which has the marvellous function of collecting all our knowledge and experiences. However the brain can’t lock in all the data that comes to it, there is too much of it.

According to the emotional quality and quantity of the current data, our memory keeps the recollection for a few seconds, (sensory memory) for twenty or so minutes (short term memory) or for all one’s life (long term memory): our knowledge is formed in this way.


Image 2 The Limbic system

These new explanations have reassured them and have increased their self confidence.

Thoughts and emotions weave themselves together and the emotions flow into the indivisible memory corpus and then this unity mind -brain –body has the great potential to produce more self awareness and a fuller life . Above all in the developing young, it can result in the prevention of a range of worries and preoccupations that often lead young people down easy shortcuts to alcohol, drugs, and petty criminality.

And so the students write on the blackboard

To communicate with others is to be alive.




Bibliography
A R Damasio “Emozione e Coscienza”
Adelphi

J LeDoux “The Emotional Brain”
(Il cervello emotivo” Baldini Castaldi editore

L Pirandello “Novelle per un anno”
A Mondatori editore
A.Rumbolo "Io non ti salverò"
Ed. Del Cerro
Sitografia:

Parallel Memories: Putting Emotions Back Into The Brain
A Talk With Joseph LeDoux [2.17.97]
http://edge.org/3rd