Adding Feeling to Discourses of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

In August 2014, I had the pleasure of serving as the 2014 Educator-in-Residence at the National University of Singapore, where the focus of many of my conversations with educators was the role of emotion in higher education. I gave the Ruth Wong Memorial Lecture on that subject, in which I argued for the importance of teaching emotional literacy in higher education. At the heart of that talk, I analysed a poem as a case example of teachers’ emotions in higher education through two main perspectives: a psychological perspective that focused on emotional regulation (Gross 2001; Gross et al 2006) and a sociological perspective (Boler 1999; Boler 2004; Wetherell 2013 Zembylas 2002, 2007, 2012). Combining those two perspectives, I demonstrated that emotions are both socio-cultural phenomenon and that there are processes individuals can use to better understand their emotional responses within a social and historical context. It is not enough, I argued, to just help students learn emotional regulation processes and practice such skills. We also need to help students critically understand the emotional situations we encounter, appreciating that the ways we shape those situations and respond to them are conditioned not only by our individual histories, but by our social and cultural contexts (Ahmed, 2004). The reader is referred to the video of this talk for a full discussion. (Abstract taken from first paragraph of document)