Post 8

Today I read the books I got at the library. I started off with "Emotion in the Classroom" but it didn't have as much relevance as I expected. However I was able to glean some helpful excepts from Batcher's book and study of a particular classroom which I think relate back to some of my other sources as well.

Batcher describes various theories on emotion  one of which is "Emotions are judgments we make about situations much in the same way that ration judgments are made...allows a person to judge and react to a situation at the same time, in a purposeful way" (17).

 "...there is a distinctly social quality to emotion, in the expression of it and in the perception and interpretation of it by others...people use emotion to gain mastery of the situation in order to to maximize self-worth...conception of self as the most important meaning for a person's behavior" ( Batcher 20). Emotions are not inherent, but learned through observation and interaction at home and in school.  In my Interpersonal Communications class we learned about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The basic purpose of communication- nonverbal or verbal is to relay some need that we have, be it food or water, etc; the same could be said of emotions. This being said, emotions have just as much, if not more importance to a child's development. Everyone knows how to communicate, but to do it effectively in social situations is important- do we provide a successful environment and tactics in our schools to develop children's social emotional needs?
As I was reading "Children's Emotional Lives I noticed a connection here when Bosacki talked about shy individuals in the classroom who may not fully have developed social emotional needs and so remain outside the social circle, although they understand what it takes to participate (14-15). " Increasingly, recent research  with young school children shows that shyness or social withdraw may play a significant role in children's development of socioemotional and cognitive competence" (7). "Peer interaction and dialogue also enable the adolescent to develop an understanding of the self in relation to others" (15) to self-evaluate, conceptualize, monitor, present, or self reflected appraisal. The way we communicate or do not develops who we are.

The quote: "...intention is crucial to...production of emotion...emotion might be seen as closer to "pure thought" than is language" (21) also reminds me of Navarro's information on the limbic brain as the honest part of our brain. It makes sense that emotions, which are more of an instinctual reaction than verbal communication would be considered to be "pure thought", just as the limbic brain "reacts to the world around us reflexively and instantaneously in real time and without thought...from there signals go out to other parts of the brain, which in turn orchestrate our behaviors as they relate to emotions" (Navarro 23).