No-one wants to feel like a muppet!
Well hello there, and welcome to update #088!
High challenge, low threat
We are a challenge seeking species. We all know someone, and it might even be us, who spends some of their downtime working on a crossword, doing a sudoku, a puzzle or a word search.
Why are we spending money and time on things which are essentially 'testing' ourselves?
Is it because we enjoy the deep satisfaction of struggling with something, thinking hard about it, getting it wrong, going back and correcting it, realising our mistake and then getting it right?
Critical to this ‘testing’ is that it is done in private.
No-one is watching, no-one is making us feel a muppet.
We might get annoyed with ourselves, but what’s different is that there is no-one out there pointing at us and making us feel inadequate.
The struggle and the joy are personal, private things. And we can choose whether to share our results with others.
We can tap into this deep satisfaction of grasping difficult things and doing them well. The struggle is part of the process.
But what is crucial is that this is not a public, humiliating struggle which dehumanises the person, it is the private conversations we have with ourselves about what is working and what isn’t.
The second strand is that the circumstances are always low threat. No-one else can see our struggling to get the solution.
No-one is pointing the finger.
It is when we feel safe at this deep level that we are prepared to risk things and have a go.
If we are a challenge seeking species, how does this translate into practice?
Many leaders talk about the challenge and why it is satisfying. And that sometimes we don't get the right answer, but the journey is always worth it, for the insights it brings.
Sitting alongside is the idea that making mistakes can be a good thing.
Health and safety aside, which of course must never be compromised, mistakes can be a springboard for new learning.
It is in the struggle of the challenge, when we are working our imaginative muscles that the real work of learning takes place.
We are all hard-wired to enjoy challenging, interesting things to think about.
We relish dilemmas, problems, puzzles, questions that have no obvious, immediate answer, and this applies to pupils as well.
If we are serious about providing pupils with an ambitious curriculum, we need to consider how the ‘high challenge’ is balanced by ‘low threat’.
First, what do we mean by challenge? We might make the case that it is material that will
make pupils think
be above their current paygrade
deepen their understanding of previous content
prepare the ground for new understanding
Challenge does not mean drawing down content from later years, for example key stage 4 material into key stage 3. It means grappling with big ideas.
The risk in offering demanding material is that pupils might be overwhelmed, they might be worried that they won’t ‘get’ it. This is where ‘low threat’ comes in.
We need to do work on making sure that our classrooms are characterised by ‘high challenge’ alongside ‘low threat’.
What does this look like in practice? It means that
we signal that we are doing difficult work
it is interesting
that is is fine not to know
that misconceptions are springboards for new learning
High expectations for learning mean that we want to get to the heart of the matter and it is going to take some tough work to get there.
Until next time
Mary
PS There’s free content on Myatt & Co on the impact of faster reading and inclusion, you just need to register.