April 2015
Learning is Challenging!
"It is too hard, I don't want to do this anymore."
"Ohhhhh....not balancing equations again!"
"...but I am no good at..."
These student comments have really struck me...and made me look further afield.
How can I help students realise that learning can and is tough at times; that you don't necessarily "get it" straight away; that all of the greatest thinkers and doers had to persist through challenge?
A colleague suggested reading Karen Boyes' blog and post on Modern Learning Environments - the underlying philosophy to success.
, especially:
'Explain to your students that your job is to cause learning to happen and this will not occur if you give them easy work. However you must also give them the skills to cope with the hard. Can your student persist, think flexibly, be creative, take responsible risks?'
I took Helen's advice, and the following day my co-teacher and I discussed Jame's Nottingham's Learning Pit with our students:
Famous Failures (youtube). The students shared their own past instances of something they found challenging and succeeded with (e.g. riding a bike; learning to read).
We have continued this over the term, by celebrating moments of success-despite-challenge; sharing my own persistence efforts as a teacher; and the students are noticing and sharing when they or others are succeeding despite challenge.
Thanks Charlotte for sharing this blog post, I have been reading up on creating a safe learning environment for children to experience failure, and scaffolding and co-creating skills the children need to be able to self manage or self direct their learning? How are the leveled mountains going in your Hub? Are the children more motivated and do they know what this looks like now?
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