Public Shaming: A Scarlet Letter
Fear blocks learning. Teachers who know this no longer use dunce caps. They don’t put test grades on the class bulletin board or punish the lowest achieving students for not succeeding.
Studies involving the neurological impact of shaming and frustration show that children need to feel safe in order to maximize learning.
…if students do not feel comfortable in a classroom setting, they will not learn. Physiologically speaking, stressed brains are not able to form the necessary neural connections.
The evidence is clear that when students feel unsafe, physically or emotionally, they do not learn as well. This isn’t anything new. Educational psychology classes cover Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We know that safety…as well as emotional security…must be established before higher levels of performance on Maslow’s hierarchy can be reached. When students experience humiliation in the form of failure at school, they usually aren’t spurred on to higher achievement. They are, instead, left trying to learn with a brain that is disrupted or impaired in its development.
Behavioral neuroscience research in animals tells us that serious, fear-triggering expe- riences elicit physiological responses that affect the architecture of the brain as it is developing. These CONTINUE READING: Public Shaming: A Scarlet Letter – Live Long and Prosper
