We are Made to Feel Our Emotions

As a part of innovative teaching pedagogy sharing of emotions was implemented in two sections of PGDE’s Educational Psychology modules during the spring semester of the academic year, 2021. For an entire semester, my students were encouraged to share their emotions either at the beginning or end of the class. The aim of sharing emotions was to help the students to be in touch with their emotions and to develop emotional intelligence. The term “emotion” comes from the Latin “emovere” which means “to put in motion”. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), emotion is defined as “a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral and physiological elements.” An emotion can also be defined as an “organism’s reaction to an external event, which has physiological, cognitive and behavioral aspects'' (Jacques Lecomte’s Les 30 notions de la psychologie). Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and regulate one’s emotions and understand the emotions of others. 

The rationale behind incorporating sharing of emotions in my teaching was to acknowledge the greater influence of emotion on students’ cognitive processes. Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention. Attention is said to have positive correlation with the learning processes.

As an educator, my firm belief on emotion is that there is no such thing as too much or too less. We are emotional beings. We were not given feelings to conceal them rather we are made to feel them. So, the more in tune we are with our emotions, the more human we will be. We are not machines. What sets us apart from other species is our ability to feel. The way we interact with everything around us is how we know that we are alive. When I interact with my students by emphasizing on sharing of emotions I am constantly reminded that I am dealing with living beings with valid emotions. We, both students and tutor in the class, feel emotions at varying degree and intensity.

As rightly said by Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world." I did not focus solely on my students’ emotions. To set an exemplary model to the students, I initiated the processes of sharing of emotions in the classes by sharing my own emotions. While doing so I was able to embrace my emotional vulnerability. I could validate my own feelings through acceptance. From my past experience as a student, I silenced and hid my feelings and emotions since expression of emotions was considered unimportant. But as an educator, I don’t want my students to block and suppress their feelings and emotions. Avoiding negative feelings and pretending that we don’t feel the way we do will always backfire. Hilary Jacobs Hendel in her book titled, It’s Not Always Depression, wrote that thwarting emotions is not good for mental or physical health. It’s like pressing on the gas and brakes of your car at the same time, creating an internal pressure cooker.

The intended objectives for initiating the practice to openly feel, listen, and talk about our emotions sans shame and judgment. It helped me to stay in good mental health, given my history of struggling with depression for the past couple of years. I learned that talking about my feelings and emotions in the class is not a sign of weakness. It helped me to build strong relationships with my students. I found out that some students were naturally more in touch with their emotions than others. The practice of sharing emotions for a semester helped students to be aware of their emotions with their mates and tutor talking openly about their feelings and emotions. Emotional awareness is recognizing, respecting, and accepting one’s feelings as they happen.

Following are some of the feedback provided by students on their overall experience and benefits of sharing of emotions sessions:

With the alarming rise in mental health issues in the country, I would recommend every individual to talk it out and listen without any judgment. Talking can do wonders, give it a try!