Keep Your Head - Article Response
Of what value are emotions in the learning process?
Emotions affect the way we interpret a lot of things and the way take information into account. However essential, emotions can also distort our ability to make decisions rationally. Regardless of how we react to statistics based on our personal types of thinking (analytical or emotional), we still have a similar response when it comes to reading statistics, because we think of them as cold and abstract entities (Slovic). I think that emotions have a high value in part of the learning process because the teach us to relate the information to ourselves. However, I think that decision making and the learning process are two separate topics and the value of our emotions tends to vary differently in each. For example, I think that in learning, like I said before, we need emotions to make the topic more relatable and effective to our everyday understanding. I think it would almost be impossible to learn without emotion, as you would have a difficult time with a lot of things as it teaches us to not only recognize others emotions but also teaches us to cope with it and give a suitable response. For example, writing something as simple as a analytical task for English would be totally inconceivable because of our inability to cope with the emotions offered. Another aspect of our learning is making decisions according to the situations presented to us. Often when doing that we don't feel the statistics, and so we dismiss the statistics as irrelevant, but when faced with something graphic like terrorist attacks we overdo our emotions and make our decisions based on only those. I think that even though we need emotions in the learning process, it's up to us to decide on how much emotion we put into a particular decision.
How does language shape the way we think?
Growing up, I learned 2 different languages: Hindi and English. However as I progressed through my academic career I started to acquire the ability to speak French. Regardless of this I always felt comfortable with English and replaced it with my first language (Hindi). It was not until I started to learn French that I realized that I had the ability to think differently. For example, the article references German and Spanish, and since both of these languages have gender pronouns people would describe them differently. In Hindi we have a similar concept; however I never really associated my words with a specific type of gender or description, but when it came to expressing my emotions to someone I used Hindi because I found it a little easier. Even though I agree with the argument that Boroditsky has to offer, I think that its not the only plausible explanation available. For example I have almost replaced my Hindi with English and use English more often, and I actually think that instead of thinking in a new way it has replaced my ability to think the same way in Hindi. I a, and I also feel the same way for French and I think this is largely to do with the cultural aspect of learning a new language. I don't live in either France or India and therefore I find it harder to express my ideas in these languages because I don't know the cultural aspects to them or the connotations some words offer. I think that it has broadened my ability to think in other languages but not my ability to think.