I am now starting my Big Dig into emotion based (entrepreneurial) learning and teaching. Psychologists often say that human mind consists of three main aspects – thoughts, actions and feelings. Experiential educators often emphasize the actions – “Learning by doing”, as opposed to “Learning by thinking” or reading or attending theoretical lectures. The entire area of Entrepreneurial Learning has been studying extensively how entrepreneurs learn on-the-job by doing / acting. According to Cope, Rae and others however, it seems that critical ‘events’ or ‘episodes’ give a deeper level of learning than most other experiences. Entrepreneurs learn by experiencing a crisis or other kind of major event where emotional arousal is very high. But then it might be more relevant to talk about “Learning by feeling”, because it is when we experience emotions that we really change our perceptions and learn for life. Jarvis states that it is necessary to experience a ‘disjuncture’ in order to learn, as opposed to situations of harmony which are basically non-learning situations. Harmony seekers are people reluctant to throwing themselves into situations where they might experience emotions, disjuncture and consequently learn something new. Entrepreneurs could be viewed as quite the opposite. Disjuncture and emotionality is their daily meal. So by digging into emotion based entrepreneurial teaching and learning I hope to find some new exciting insights. Will report back later here…
