I recently had a teaching experience that surpassed many others in my life. On February 25th, I presented at the CU Psychology Club on “Why Is Heated Rivalry Hot!” I described the presentation as a look at the intersection between psychology, neuroscience, and storytelling through Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan framework.

Now, I am by no means an expert on gay hockey romance. I do, however, have strong credentials for discussing what makes a good story, having studied writing and storytelling for the past 11 years. I’ve also been teaching college-level psychology since I started graduate school in 1999 and became a full-time instructor in 2007, so I know something about how the mind works.

I also had the enthusiasm and support of the psych club behind the presentation. In January, when they asked me to present, they suggested a few ideas. The psych club president then asked me what I wanted to talk about. I jokingly answered that I would like to talk for 45 minutes about Heated Rivalry, having just finished the show and reading book 2 in the series over winter break.

I was mostly kidding. The response from the psych club was so gleeful, we decided, why not?

I have given many lectures in my life. As a teaching assistant and teaching fellow in grad school, I taught psych stats. My first go-around in teaching was predominantly stats, research methods, and a capstone course where students complete a senior thesis, with an occasional general psychology or upper-level course taught every so often.

Here at CU, I’ve been thrilled to shift to general psychology and upper-level lab/methods courses in positive psychology and conservation psychology. And I enjoy it so much!

But I have never had the chance to give a lecture that combined what I love best about stories with some really cool research on psychology.

I was so excited!

In the weeks leading up to the presentation, I knew that there was a lot of positive chatter about it, and on the day of the presentation, we had a good showing. What I was not expecting was how attentive the students would be.

Laptops, iPads, and smartphones weren’t the norm in the classroom when I left teaching in 2016. Nearly every student uses them now. On any given day when I lecture, I compete against billions upon billions of distractions all at the touch of a student’s finger.

So imagine my delight when the entire classroom gave me their undivided attention for a solid 50 minutes. I didn’t see one student on a device, and at one point, everyone was so excited after I asked a question that it took a few tries to get them to quiet down.

I worry a lot for this generation and the damage that social media has inflicted upon them, not to mention how their attention has been stolen for the sake of monetization and capitalism.

Why Is Heated Rivalry Hot showed me that it is possible to be focused in our chaotic, oversaturated, and overstimulated world.

Just one more reason I love stories!

For anyone local, I’ll be giving the presentation at the Westminster Library on Sunday, March 29, at 2:00 pm. You can register here: https://westminsterco.librarycalendar.com/event/why-we-are-hot-for-heated-rivalry