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September 16, 2004
it's time to put my behind in the past
I posted an aside a while back about my aversion for agonism. I tend to be a somebody faint of heart—competitions and contests of any sort render me shaking with sour adrenaline. I have worked to overcome this anxiety—I always played sports in high school (varsity softball AND basketball—don’t laugh!!), but I have always been more comfortable with events in which 1) other people didn’t count on me and 2) the stakes were low (like, it’s really OK if we lose).
I guess this makes me sound like a spineless urchin. What a spineless urchin is doing in a graduate program (where the stakes are seemingly high) and working as a teacher (where people count on me) is sometimes a bigger conundrum than I care to consider.
I get through school day-to-day continually reminding myself that I am here (as a student) for my own interests, and that my ability to “win” an A or a degree is less important than the person I am and the growth I experience. I teach as a non-agonist, making the classroom as much of a non-competitive, non-threatening space as possible. This sometimes backfires, as students periodically walk all over me; however, for the most part I find the nurturing environment healthy for all involved. [There is an argument here that I am only peripherally aware of that is something about the teacher-as-mom. I need to find it.]
As a student, I don’t mind being challenged—I don’t mind Socratic dialogue. As a student, though, I DO need to know that my own working through of problems, theories, thoughts, etc will be treated with respect and grace, even if I am wrong or misguided. That is, if I am being asked to respond to or discuss something (as we always are in graduate courses), I have to feel SAFE, or else I find myself unable to manage the cobbling together of more than two words.
And I mean safe in the literal sense—I cannot work if I fear that harm (mental, physical) is a possibility. I have been lucky enough to only have encountered the prospect of harm once, but it was enough to convince me that no one gets any productive work done in the face of danger/threat. I must make the distinction between danger and discomfort, though. Much work gets done during discomfort (yoga! running! labor!).
Some stuff I’ve been reading lately addresses this. In Emotional Design, Norman cites a study by Alice Isen, who concluded: “When you feel good…you are better at brainstorming, at examining multiple alternatives” (19). Norman continues, “[w]e have long known that when people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentrating upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem.”
Of course, later on Norman outlines that positive affect is necessary for the generative phase of a project, but for focusing on a particular design issue or problem, a certain amount of negative affect is called for, and this is what deadlines do. But I’m not sure I completely agree. I’ll have to return to this later.
There’s also a connection here I want to make between affect/education/economy/politics (via The New Work Order and George Lakoff’s Rockridge Institute), but as I have now been summoned by the howls of the youngest, I’ll have to flesh this out later.
Posted by mryonker at September 16, 2004 11:32 AM