Re: affectivity in education

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 22:42:20 -0800

At 9:03 AM 2/20/98, Graham Nuthall wrote:

>Curiously I was first alerted to this by something that Piaget wrote. I
>can't recall, refind the reference, but its probably in Play Dreams and
>Imitation in Childhood. He made the point that in Western culture we have
>never developed, as it were, a -physics- of the emotions. Consequently
>adolescents' ability to deal with the emotions is pre-operational. We have
>no stable schema of emotional/ affective states that allow us to be more
>than childlike in our understanding and ability to represent them and talk
>about them. I presume it is the result/cause of affectivity never being a
>part of what we consider appropriate in schools.
>

well perhaps this is precisely the difficulty of accounting for
affectivity, emotions; the search for a "stable schema" is like using a
ruler to measure a gaseous cloud.

emotions are not stable, of course; they are unpredictable, in every sense
of the word; and they are suppressed, denied, triggered, projected,
repressed, and at times overwhelming...

how do we make sense of gasses? we learn about the them at the atomic level.
how might we understand emotions? learn them at the metaphorically "atomic"
level - the source, which is in the research which studies infant
temperament,
and in analytic/therapeutically-oriented (e.g., compassionate) studies of
children's relations with the primary adults in their lives.

just a thought,
diane

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada

tel: (604)-874-4807
mail:
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Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8