Add Wacky Excitement To Any Lesson

One strange feature of the way the brain works is that simulated emotions activate the same areas in the limbic system, and elsewhere, as genuine emotions.  One commonly suggested cure for sadness is to make your mouth smile.  On the other hand, if you slump your shoulders and frown, before long, you'll feel genuinely lousy.  Fake feelings can become real feelings.

To add excitement to any lesson, show students how to act excitedly.  I've been using two excitement simulators with my college students and they work remarkably well.  First, I bend my elbows and keeping my wrists loose, I shake my hands and say, "Oooh, exciting!"  I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's why it works. The gesture looks like you're trying to shake something sticky off the fingers on both hands ... and because it feels so silly, it generates a silly excitement.  I call this the Excitement Waggler.

I also demonstrate, much to my students' amusement, the "raise the roof" sign you see all the time on TV,  two hands bent at the wrist bouncing upward.  I call this the Mega-Exciter.  We use the Mega-Exciter when we're even more excited than the Excitement Waggler can handle.

When I do the Teach-Okay, I tell my class, "I'll be delighted to see you show occasionally how excited you are about an idea of Descartes' as you talk to your neighbor.  Why, if I see enough excitement, we might get to have a one second party and earn one page less homework!"  And they love it!  Talking about Descartes, I see them laughing, using the Excitement Waggler and the Mega-Exciter ... pretending to be excited is very exciting.  So, any time you want to see your kids crazy about a lesson, get them to fake it, until they feel it.  It's weird but it works!

Post a message on the forum and let us know how this technique works for you.

Power to the Teachers!,

Chris Biffle