Intuitions Rule!

Back when I was in grad school, I studied the role emotions play in teaching. (They play a role. A huge role.)

I know.

Duh.

But back then — this was 30 years ago! — our brains were seen as computers. They were information-processing machines, and emotions were not seen as information. (They are. Hugely important sources of information.) Emotions were acknowledged to exist, but they functioned, it was believed, on an entirely different — and inferior — plane from thinking.

At that time, the big debate about emotion’s relationship with cognition was

which comes first?

Emotions? Or thinking?

Turns out, according to Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Righteous Mind (which I’m currently reading), emotions do.

Or, as Haidt puts it (p. 82),

Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

But it’s not as simple as that. Because emotions (intuitions) and cognition (strategic reasoning) are inextricably entwined. Haidt uses a metaphor to capture this collaborative relationship: They’re like a rider on an elephant.

The rider being reasoning. The elephant being intuitions.

What Haidt and other researchers have found is that, when faced with a problem (he’s interested in moral dilemmas, but I’m guessing the phenomenon works with all knotty problems), our elephant automatically leans a certain way. That is, our instincts move us towards an interpretation or solution. It’s only if necessary that our rider — our thinking — responds by reining us in. Otherwise, the rider simply justifies what the elephant has already done.

Got that?

Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. And that reasoning more often than not just rationalizes.

If you want to help someone change their thinking, you don’t go all intellectual on them. You go emotional. Relational. You connect with them on an intuitive level — by asking questions, listening, staying in your garden, being curious and empathic — and facilitate change in them while

being changed yourself.

You can see how riderless elephants are driving our politics these days. (If you can’t, get in touch with me.)

What I’m interested in here, though, is what this axiom — Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second — might mean for our students.

Like if you’ve got a student who hates math. Or writing. Whose intuitions scream, “I can’t do this! This isn’t me! This will never work!” How might we help these students change their minds?

Probably not by assigning more math drills. Or giving more — or even fewer — writing assignments.

Those approaches assume cognition is in charge. That the problem is all about thinking and skills and practice. (Or worse: That there’s no hope for these students and we need to coddle them in their insecurity.)

What would a more intuitive approach look like?

You tell me, but what I will say is this: Try exercises that strengthen students’ relationship with math. Their relationship with writing. How can you make these skills fun? appealing? useful? actually do-able? What would it look like for your reluctant students to make friends with their subjects?

Learning is all about relationships. And in relationships, intuitions rule.