Exams, tight deadlines and interpersonal conflicts are just a few examples of the many events that may result in high levels of stress in both students and teachers. Research over the past two decades identified stress and the hormones and neurotransmitters released during and after a stressful event as major modulators of human learning and memory processes, with critical implications for educational contexts. While stress around the time of learning is thought to enhance memory formation, thus leading to robust memories, stress markedly impairs memory retrieval, bearing, for instance, the risk of underachieving at exams. Recent evidence further indicates that stress may hamper the updating of memories in the light of new information and induce a shift from a flexible, ‘cognitive’ form of learning towards rather rigid, ‘habit’-like behaviour. Together, these stress-induced changes may explain some of the difficulties of learning and remembering under stress in the classroom. Taking these insights from psychology and neuroscience into account could bear the potential to facilitate processes of education for both students and teachers.

考试、紧迫的截止日期和人际冲突只是可能导致学生和教师承受巨大压力的众多事件中的几个例子。过去二十年的研究发现，压力以及压力事件期间和之后释放的激素和神经递质是人类学习和记忆过程的主要调节剂，对教育环境具有重要影响。虽然学习期间的压力被认为可以增强记忆形成，从而产生强大的记忆力，但压力会显着损害记忆提取，例如导致考试成绩不佳的风险。最近的证据进一步表明，压力可能会阻碍记忆根据新信息进行更新，并导致从灵活的“认知”学习形式向相当僵化的“习惯”行为的转变。总之，这些压力引起的变化可以解释课堂压力下学习和记忆的一些困难。考虑到这些来自心理学和神经科学的见解可以有潜力促进学生和教师的教育过程。