Usually, educators are pretty forward thinking, and this case is no exception. Someone in our ranks thought to designate the idea of cognitive dissonance as our North Campus theme for the year. How perfect indeed.
The idea of cognitive dissonance to me was a new one. Don’t misunderstand - I experience it quite often; however, I could not have defined the term before they established it as our theme. To be sure we are all on the same page, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines cognitive dissonance as "a psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously." In the case of the North Campus, some of the students, their parents, and some of the faculty of the district hold in their hearts the belief that the seniors should not have been switched. Others of us believe good will come out of the switch.
The interesting thing I am coming to understand about cognitive dissonance is that it can strike if your belief is true to the real world or not. The idea that information you learn can call what you already believe into question works on you no matter the side you may take. This is a neat thing, in my opinion. It is like I told my Business Capstone students this morning. If something opposes your values or dearly-held beliefs, listening to the message of it or working to understand an opposite point of view does not mean you should give up your beliefs. A feeling of cognitive dissonance does not mean you should abandon how you feel or what you believe. It simply means there is opposing information available that needs to be considered. It is an important skill, one I don’t know if my students are exposed to enough, to be able to hold onto your belief and yet consider what others have to say. Listening to opposing arguments may even strengthen the beliefs you feel you should defend.
So, you may be asking yourself if I have a point I want to make here. Perhaps my meandering thought pattern may be causing YOU, dear reader, to experience cognitive dissonance. I guess I just wanted to spend some time and space thinking about what my students may be feeling right now when they are in a space and time that they had envisioned in a different manner. Maybe I just love the idea that learning can cause confusion and even mental anguish. Learning may indeed have unsavory side effects and that alone is worthy of a blog post or two. Maybe, we can all learn to keep our minds open and our beliefs close. Maybe I just like to use big words.