Learning is hard. Sometimes understanding something can feel like driving through a fog. It can create uncertainty, worry, and stress, not knowing if you will emerge on the other side unscathed.
For some students, this is an occasional experience; a temporary state in which they manage to navigate their way through until they reach the clarity of daylight on the other side. Each time they do, they are left with a feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration. The memory of this is the driving motivation to persist; to recover from failures and setbacks and continue.
For other students, their whole school experience can feel like driving through fog, never fully emerging from it. They may have given up or just hope they can reach the end of the journey unscathed.
Still, other students will sit somewhere in between these experiences and their learning journey can feel like a rollercoaster, with all the ups and downs of tests, assignments, homework, and class time. Learning will bring joy and pain.
As parents it can be difficult to sit on the sidelines and watch all of this. At times we may be able to help, but as our children move through high school the curriculum can move outside our own expertise. Sometimes we may engage a tutor to get them through or other strategies to rescue them. Sometimes these can be helpful, but in the long term these can steal away an opportunity for them to work through their struggle.
As an alternative, and one that I will be encouraging the students to embrace, is to highlight the need for more struggle. By struggle, I mean to push through the difficulty, make a greater effort and work through the content. Too often we want the quick answer or solution, but true learning is a wrestle with our minds until things become clear. The temptation to give up, find other distractions or find easier pathways will not lead to deep understanding.
A useful quote I recently came across says:
“When you steal a student’s struggle, you steal the learning. When you support the struggle, you take that student further than ever. “
Our role as parents and teachers is to support the students through the foggy patches of their learning journey. We are cheerleaders on the sidelines, but it is their race. We can hand them drinks, ensure they have the right equipment and occasional first aid, but it is their marathon. This will set them up for life and teach them perhaps the greatest lesson of all: to not give up.