Emotions and Learning
The exploration and expression of emotion is necessary for the development of the limbic system and its connections to other brain areas. We develop the neural networks that support emotional processing through social experience and expression. She sees the "terrible twos" as simply the child's exaggeration of our movements and emotions to gain a full sensory-motor understanding of them. While we may label them as temper tantrums, they are simply emotional, physical, multisensory learning activities (we believe that the "terrible twos" are often an artifact from insecurely bonded children. —ed.).
The amount and frequency of "terrible twos" behavior will diminish when... caretakers become aware of the importance of the modeling they are presenting to their child.*
This physical/emotional link continues throughout our lives. Our bodies continue to be the primary vehicle for expressing feeling--evident in the goose bumps on the skin when experiencing a deeply moving scene, or the movement of choir members emotionally absorbed in their singing.
Our mind/body system learns through experiencing life in context, in relationship to everything else, and it is our emotions, our feelings, that mediate that context. In order to learn, think, or create, learners must have emotional commitment. Otherwise, education becomes just an intellectual exercise.
While science now affirms that our emotions, motives, and thoughts are inextricably linked, our culture continues to discount and intellectualize away anything "emotional." Given no outlet for emotional expression, the emotions become connected to fear and self-doubt. Suppression and denial of the emotions precipitates a chronic release of adrenalin and depresses learning, memory, and immunity. Sojourns to other cultures in which people are free to express their emotion from their whole being, convinces Hannaford that the encouragement and acceptance of rich emotional development are essential to our lives as individuals and as a society.
As Hannaford reveals how language integrates body, mind, and emotions, I find, again, her references to children's developmental capacities especially valuable. For example, prior to age four, even though language is progressing, the child takes most of her behavioral cues from what she sees, not from spoken commands.
* All remaining quotes in this myth are by Carla Hannaford, PhD