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We’ve been talking about feedback from students, with the thread of anxiety and stress running through it. Here’s a quote from a first-year Engineering student at UKZN:
“Everything was new to me and it was hard for me. I did not have any friends so I used to hide in the ladies room until my next class. I hardly heard the teachers … because they were so fast. Things got even worse when I was introduced to the computer. I felt like being at university at my age was a mistake”.
Have you ever felt like that? It’s paralysing. As this student says: “I hardly heard the teachers.” There is a physical explanation for that, based on the chemistry of your brain. She did not hear the teachers not only because they were fast, but because her brain had frozen, unable to take in any learning.
Neuroscientist Dr David Rock has come up with a model to help us understand why this happens and to deal with it.
First, he says, the brain reacts to social threats or rewards with the same intensity as it reacts to physical threats or rewards. In other words, your brain does not distinguish between someone threatening you with a knife, and someone insulting and disrespecting you in front of your friends or classmates. The chemical reaction is the same – and you may feel equally paralysed and helpless, or furious and out of control.
Secondly, if you feel threatened, your ability to make decisions, to solve problems and to learn suffers. If you feel good, as if you are rewarded, all these abilities are enhanced.
His model looks like this:
The idea is that we need a SCARF in order to be open and receptive, to move toward new information or experience. That SCARF is made up of 5 elements:
- Status: we want to feel sure of our relative importance to others. You don’t have to be the top dog, but you want your place in the world to be acknowledged and respected.
- Certainty: we want to be able to predict the future, at least when it comes to everyday events like classes and tests.
- Autonomy: we want to have a sense of control over events.
- Relatedness: we want to feel safe with others – that they are friends rather than enemies.
- Fairness: we want to feel that people act fairly towards us, and that the system is fair to everyone.If any of these are compromised, we feel deeply threatened, and we have what Dr Rock calls an “away from threat” response, also known as “fight, flight or freeze”.
Let’s apply this to the student we quoted above. She had probably been a star student at school, otherwise she would not have been admitted to the Engineering course at the university. Now that status was completely undermined. She felt inadequate, maybe even dumb. She didn’t have any friends yet, so there was no relatedness to counteract her feelings. She thought she shouldn’t be at university – her certainty about her chosen path was shattered. So she hid in the ladies’ room, waiting for time to pass – her flight and freeze response, hiding away from the threat, closing herself off.
This is the opposite from the way we feel when the whole SCARF is in place. Then we have a toward reward response – we feel good, we are open to new friendships and new learning, we have energy, we feel up to anything.
Where are you in this picture? Are you wrapped up in a scarf, secure and ready for anything, or do you feel exposed and threatened, closed down, in fight-or-flight mode? If the latter, let’s see what you can do to support your brain’s craving for the five elements of SCARF.
- Status – remind yourself that learning is a growth process, not a competition. Don’t compare yourself with others. You are on your own journey. Set small goals and celebrate small wins. (Also do this for others, they need it as much as you do.)
- Certainty – make sure you know exactly what each module entails and how and when you will be assessed. Use your schedule as a road map. Apply this to your money management as well: keep to your budget to make sure that you don’t run out of money in the middle of the month.
- Autonomy – accept that you always have a choice in life. You are not helpless. You are a strong, capable person who has achieved an enormous amount already. Do not wait for others to tell you what to do or how to do it, but step out and make a start. Choose where and when and how you’re going to study, so that it works for you. Choose how to spend your money.
- Relatedness – you need a network of friends, colleagues and mentors. We all do. Be open to new contacts, but don’t expect to make friends immediately. Be patient. It will happen. Many life-long friendships are forged at university.
If the university/your bursary scheme offers a peer mentorship programme, embrace it fully. - Fairness – when you feel you have been treated unfairly, think about it really hard: was the other person unfair, or did you perhaps fall short? Were the terms and expectations spelled out, or could it have been a misunderstanding? Could you go and see the lecturer who gave you that bad mark and ask why?
Life is not always fair. Other people even less so. Sometimes you just have to accept that. The approach of the Stoics is a good guideline: focus on what you can control. It’s a waste of time and energy to mull over stuff that is completely outside your control.
These are very intense emotions. Many students pack up and go home because of them. Your brain says this is life and death. Fortunately, that same brain can understand why we feel the way we feel and overrule it. Make time to sit down quietly by yourself. Breathe deeply. Think about every letter in the model, and ask yourself what exactly is threatening you. You may find that the exercise in itself will calm you down. Name it to tame it.
Enjoy your week!
The GRAD team
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