Full disclosure, I am a neuroscience enthusiast but not a neuroscientist (or even play one on TV) so this blog article is based on my amateur understanding of it from the literature I have read.
Your brain has a fascinating function that some neuroscientists have labeled Appraisal Theory, which basically means that when you take in a bunch of stimuli, your brain decides how to feel about it and acts accordingly. To break this down further, we have a primary appraisal theory which is our instant emotional reaction as well as a secondary appraisal which analyzes our primary one and tries to adjust our response accordingly. Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow simply calls these two systems System 1 (basically intuition and instinct) which is Fast and System 2 (essentially reasoning and problem-solving) which is Slow.
As an example of how these systems might work, let’s say you get some feedback that you don’t particularly like. Your initial primary response (Fast thinking) is anger or defensiveness. Your secondary response (Slow thinking) allows you to step back for a moment, consider what was said and then decide on your actions going forward. Perhaps you will decide that the feedback is valid and choose to make changes. You may decide that the source of the feedback is not from a source you value and dismiss it. You may decide to do something else entirely. Either way, you have that first Fast thinking which is rooted in emotion, and then a secondary Slow thinking that hopeful kicks in before you take action.
As educators we really need to ensure that we develop and allow this secondary response to kick in, especially when a student does something we feel is disrespectful or something that upsets us. Initially it may make us want to lash out or get even (verbally more so than physically) but this is not a feeling that is ever productive to us, the student or the situation. We need to sharpen our Secondary response systems and make sure that Slow thinking is determining our actions since it will allow us to move past those initial feelings and choose a better course of action that we are in conscious control of. It is here that we have the ability to decide to look deeper, maybe that student is having a bad day, maybe they need more education on what the expectations are, etc and adjust our response to something that will help improve the situation. When we allow Fast thinking to drive our actions we may be quicker to use sarcasm to cut someone down since we are essentially just lashing out. This rarely improves the situation and often escalates it, whether it applies to students or colleagues. When we get dysregulated ourselves, we severely inhibit our Slow system's ability to step in and help us to work with a student.
It should also be noted that our Fast and Slow systems are different from person to person, this is why different people have different fears and reactions to the same stimuli. From an evolutionary perspective, this kept us safe. Certain animals (predators) were to be feared and avoided, and some were a source of excitement (prey) because we could eat them. These mechanisms are still kicking around in our minds but because the environment changed, they react to situations that don’t necessarily merit that response. This is why our Fight/Flight/Freeze (our Fast system) response can trigger in social situations, despite our lives not being in danger. Taking the above feedback example, you may feel it is criticism that is interpreted as an attack so you respond with anger and defensiveness. Again, from a survival perspective there was safety in the group, and any threat to our place in the group was a threat to our survival and so we met it with that particular Fast response. In a modern day, our survival rarely depends on our social or work group, but those instincts are still kicking around in our minds.
As another example, let’s assume this time that someone pays you a compliment, depending on factors such as past experiences, personality, etc, you may receive it warmly and accept the compliment, or you may feel deeply uncomfortable that the focus is on you, or you may suspect the person is being insincere and trying to manipulate you somehow. Depending on their experiences, different people could feel each of these different responses to the same compliment from the same person. After your Slow system has a chance to think it through, you may even change from one of these to another!
Let’s bring it to the student level for a moment. We have all taught students who seem to dislike teachers, despite those teachers being incredibly kind and supportive of that child. Chances are, somewhere in their past they came to associate teachers (or even authority) with a negative experience, so now when they see a teacher, that Fast system tells them they don't like their teacher. So when we tell someone not to take it personally, we actually do have a good reason for saying and believing that!
Studies have also shown that for students with anxiety avoidance of the triggering event creates a larger spike when faced with it again (though this may not be true in extreme examples such as situations of abuse, etc). Essentially, you are feeding the Flight response of our threat detection. By facing it repeatedly, we can decrease our threat response since our brain starts to realize the association with a threat is not correct, and will reduce it. This lets Slow thinking take over more effectively.
The really neat thing about this is with repeated positive associations, you can actually rewire your Fast response over time, since if you continue to have positive associations with something, you can change that emotional response from being initially negative, to initially positive. The suspicion, or threat detection, can turn off or at least be reduced after you have repeatedly had positive experiences to the same stimuli.
This is why one of the key things with students is to try and get them to have a positive association with school. This is especially true for students who can only tolerate short amounts of time in the building. If they can leave each day on a good note, they will eventually come to associate school with being a good place. So whenever someone asks ‘how can I get them ready for the next grade’ a big part of the answer I always give is to make sure they like coming, because getting them through the front doors and happy to be there is one of our biggest challenges. These positive associations can sometimes be more important than their academic studies, so when you see students who are part of a return-to-school program who aren't necessarily performing academically, keep in mind that there may be a totally different goal for them right now. The goal may simply be to re-wire that Fast system, because when we are starting from a good place, it becomes so much easier to build on that than trying to continually overcome that first response.
Being aware of not only your Fast system settings, but of those you work with closely, can be a powerful tool to aid your Slow system when it kicks in since knowing that Fast response helps your Slow thinking to work through why we (or they) are feeling that way and how to best respond. It also lets us know our ‘default settings’ so we can anticipate that emotional response as well. Understanding these systems is an integral component of self-regulation both to regulate ourselves and to help co-regulate others.