'We must learn to be comfortable in the discomfort of not knowing'

Alejandro Iborra Cuéllar, full professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, explains to uah.esnoticia healthy routines and habits for this peculiar start of the course.

- First of all, what do you advise students at this very different course start?

It´s a complex question. First, because I don´t like to give advice. In a subject I teach called Counselling Skills, we always start with a text entitled 'never, never, never offer advice', because sometimes the councils are a little poisoned. It´s like trying to adapt a general guideline when personal and individual characteristics are unique. But I can set some guidelines because it´s clear that we´re living in a complex and unique situation.

The situation is now different from March, as we have a lot more knowledge and experience. We are better placed to meet the challenges of the course. And this is a process that has happened to us all, both teachers, families and students. We now know what the rules of the game are, although they may change at a later time. I therefore believe that, above all, we must have a flexible and open attitude to everything that can may happen.

The past course we have had an accelerated course of uncertainty management. It has always been said that, within the competences of the 21st century, uncertainty management is important. But we´ve been on this for a few months, it´s a fact. If any were in doubt, they´ve dissipated in the last few months. I think it´s a good scenario to be in, we must learn to be comfortable in the discomfort of not knowing. 

- About managing uncertainty you are concerned about what tools do you think can teach students how to manage their emotional intelligence resources in the right way?

In relation to uncertainty, when one doesn´t know, first of all it must be very attentive. Be aware to capture environmental signlas and be able to act. So there are emotions that we must manage as they limit our atenttion to the environment. There are two emotions in which I want to stop: one is fear and another is anxiety, which is related to the first, but it´s not the same. I think we need to be aware to what's going on and be critical to what is happening. We must be more critical than ever with the information we are receiving because one of the characteristics of our current world is that we have to process a lot of information.

There is a lot of information available and the media are generating a lot of information, on social networks there is a lot of information, on the Internet we can follow people who consider a reference, read books or articles of different levels, sources, different types of quality, ... But I think we need to be aware of the effect of being in contact with all this information.

One of the problems, especially with television and certain messages that are spreading, is that they generate fear. It´s a problem because fear overrides the ability to be attentive to what happens, because the individual tends to prioritize security over exploring new possibilities, which ultimately inhibits behavior.

One of the important things to avoid or counteract that fear is to try to be critical of the information we are receiving, contrast the contents, communicate with other people, have references that give you security, that those references are varied, that do not always match your beliefs, diversify sources and gradually build up a personal judgment capacity. Because if you are not lost to the information.

This is difficult to achieve because it requires time, experience. Critical skills are just one of the competencies of the 21st century, I believe that all teachers want to encourage our students to be self-employed, critical, and we are at a great time to try to promote it.

If you're left to be brought through the news, if you're left to be carried through all the varied information about the pandemic, it's easy to experience anxiety. While fear often has some specific stimulus, anxiety is more diffuse. It´s a way in which fear is already becoming corporeal, it´s experienced in the body. In addition, the person begins to have a tunnel vision. Instead of having a broad vision to see what happens, one has a tunnel vision sometimes too self-centered, emotions are amplified, what is felt is amplified, psychosomatic behaviors of all kinds begin to be in relation to anxiety. And this happens when you let yourself be carried by messages that affect you over and over in catastrophic situations. 

Alejandro Iborra interior
Alejandro Iborra Cuellar

- In relation to anxiety, it is true that it limits the skills of the student when concentrating, what routines do you think can be positive to control these situations?

More than routines, I like to talk about habits, it's not the same. The routine occurs when a habit has already been created, you can generate a routine around it. We all have habits, we must all have new habits at the start of the course, sometimes contact the habits that we already had as maintaining a level of work, working hours, but also leisure or rest. Lately, I think it's very important to maintain attention and concentration. Sometimes, we forget that in such important attention it´s where we focus as what we actively stop caring for. Actively attending and ignoring are part of the same process.

The first part of creating a habit is working the disposition. For example, when you start a class, you can start it without further, or you have a guideline to start it. Students can do this by wondering how they are available when starting a class or video conference, how they are available when they finish a class, what resources I need, etc.

For example, the awareness of our breath is part of the predisposition, as you are preparing before what activity is. Then comes the activity itself with its own habits, for example, taking notes of what is relevant, how you organize the information, as you consider solving doubts or questions before the teacher, ...

A good habit, for example, might be to establish good communication with teachers. In relation to tutoring, many students are unable to establish adult-to-adult communication with their teachers, either out of shyness or lack of experience. While it´s true that master´s and doctoral students are able to use this resource in a different way, in wich they can take more advantage of the synergies of student.teacher communication.

The last part tha is often forgotten when it comes to talking about habits is about assesing what has happened. For example, I start the day with sport. Apart from the initial arrangement when it comes to sports (warm-up, preparation, ...) we consider the assessment of what you have felt during the session once it has finished. This process does not often happen, as we do a lot of tasks without realizing and thinking about what we have achieved with that activity. Therefore, another good guideline, therefore, will be establish a time where we recognize the positive value of what we are doing. Sometimes, we tend to focus on the negatives and we don't have a habit of recognizing the positives and even if it fills you up or reward what you´re doing. It´s therefore important to include this valuation task to make sense of individual daily activity. It´s not about taking notes and then repeating them, the learning process now has to do with being much more involved in education at the individual level.

- Finally, in relation to a text that you wrote a few years ago with Professor Monica Izquierdo, 'Encouraging collaborative learning' we are in a course where it´s evident that this kind of learning will be developed in e-learning contexts. How do you see this situation and what resources do you recommend to students?

On the one hand, I would first try to tell teachers to try to foster collaborative environments, that the learning process involves all the individuals involved in that process. We are becoming more and more comfortable, in addition to collaborative activities, in dialogical activities, generating a dialog, generating a conversation.

In our culture, we are not taught to converse, there are no conversation models. There are many tv shows, for example, where people talk to try to impose their point of view, not to build a shared meaning. But if we want to work in an organization or are working on a class project, I ask students to take the opportunity to talk to classmates and try to involve the teacher in the conversation looking for a way to learn more among all. The main responsibility in the context of the classroom is the teacher, and that´s the challenge for many teachers, since dialogue explains what kind of relational context we are generating.

When we talk about collaborative environments, we are talking about a special relational quality. Collaborating means a desire to listen to the other, that other listens to me and go beyond what we think, and that is the most challenging thing. All people tend to impose our ideas; if you have an idea you don't usually listen to each other anymore. The more convinced you are of an idea, the harder it´s to consider others.

Another good habit in these digital contexts is to communicate more. There are different ways and means of performing communication processes. Teachers must also communicate more. In this connection, the UAH is disseminating a series of courses for teachers to maximize the performance of digital tools. One of the advantages of these courses, and it´s added, is to be able to comment with the other teachers who participate in the course, what is the situation in the are in their faculty, department or specific area. So these collaborative meetings generate many positive synergies.

Publicado en: Inglés