Emoticons in and for Education

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Sometimes I wish emoticons were valued in education. Although it has been stated that “we will never know how any other animal or any other human actually feels” (Davis & Panksepp, 2011, p. 1947), I think they are a direct route to our amygdalae giving us an opportunity to gauge our emotional memory and prepare us for the get-go.  This ‘impulse that induces action’ (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2016) is still very immaturely dealt within our society; no wonder when affective neuroscience is in its beginning (Davidson Films, 2010) and emotional intelligence is but a baby boomer.
Whereas humans are still ahead in identifying emotions (Ekman, 1973 but Balkenius and Morin, 2001) but compete with other species in mirror neurons that fire for both action and observation modes (Gallese & Goldman, 1998), we still lack in cultivating emotional intelligence since infancy properly. It’s not a tradition to start the day by talking about emotions let alone our issues, decisions and commitments. We do not yet recognize the tools to deal with them effectively, so we tend to deviate and drop the talk.

Albeit a roadblock, there’s leeway if we perfect our ability at expressing emotions accurately and hone the honesty to stay true to our words. This can be done (Isaac Lidsky, 2016) and emoticons might come in handy. Till then, technology (https://www.classdojo.com/) may serve us better at training our collective understanding that there’s a cause and effect relationship and that developing empathy are steps that we all need training for.

How do you use emoticons in and for Education?

References

Balkenius, C. & Moren, J. (2001). Emotional learning: a computational model of the amygdala. Cybernetics Systems International Journal, 32, 611-636.

Davidson Films, Inc. (2010). The emotional brain: An Introduction to affective neuroscience. [video] (4:27). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGSyWkGhYA (Links to an external site.) 


Ekmann, P. (1973). Universal facial expressions in emotion. Studia Psychologica, 15(2), 140.

Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. (1998). Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends in cognitive sciences, 2(12), 493-501.

Lidsky, I. (2016). What reality are you creating for yourself [video]. (11:46). Available at (https://www.ted.com/talks/isaac_lidsky_what_reality_are_you_creating_for_yourself (Links to an external site.)

Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2015) Emotions and decision making, Part 1. [video]. (13:15). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDZwueVm7SY  (Links to an external site.) 

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