Do you remember that point in some movies when a team of protagonists overcome a suspiciously unchallenging situation and at that very tense moment someone says, “That was too easy.”? It’s about at that time when radioactive ninjas spring out of nowhere and reveal a super villain's devious trap. When I asked my students if my job was to make things easy or challenging for them they replied, “easy”. I shocked them by teaching them that it was actually the opposite- challenging and really challenging. Many of my students just sat there momentarily stunned. I explained to them that if I make things easy, just cover things they already know and ultimately do the work for them then they will learn next to nothing and our class will become pointless. They quickly understood and we immediately proceeded to get to work.
However, I asked myself this question, “Where do our students get the idea that their teachers are supposed to circumvent all struggles and make things easy for them?” The answer was painfully obvious- us, their teachers. These same students sacrifice major parts of every day to make their sports teams, leave school each day to work jobs, and spend hundreds of hours trying to conquer video games that increase exponentially with each new level. Yet, when they show up in our classes many of them expect their teachers to take it easy and just hope that high levels of learning happen with very little effort.
Many teachers try to make things too easy for students and convey the attitude that we should seek the path of least resistance. I often hear teachers complaining that a certain learning activity will be too hard for their students, or that they are looking for a way to make things “easier” for their students. It is one thing to make things more efficient in our classes, but it’s an entirely different matter when teachers try to simply make things easy. When teachers say, “That’s going to be really hard for their students to do.”, I reply, “I hope so.” When I let my students strive and struggle through a learning goal, they not only learn more about the lesson, they learn how to persevere.
The amount of learning is equivalent to the amount of effort spent to learn. This isn’t a new revelation, but why is it often overlooked in our classrooms? The truth is that teachers often try to make things easy on their students to make things easy on themselves. It’s challenging to challenge students, but it is absolutely necessary for high levels of learning. Consequently, if we want our students to learn we must challenge them, and to challenge them we must be willing to abandon ease and do the arduous ourselves. Let our students be challenged, let them struggle, let them learn.
Wil Codilla is a public school teacher, designer, and speaker. @WilCodilla
However, I asked myself this question, “Where do our students get the idea that their teachers are supposed to circumvent all struggles and make things easy for them?” The answer was painfully obvious- us, their teachers. These same students sacrifice major parts of every day to make their sports teams, leave school each day to work jobs, and spend hundreds of hours trying to conquer video games that increase exponentially with each new level. Yet, when they show up in our classes many of them expect their teachers to take it easy and just hope that high levels of learning happen with very little effort.
Many teachers try to make things too easy for students and convey the attitude that we should seek the path of least resistance. I often hear teachers complaining that a certain learning activity will be too hard for their students, or that they are looking for a way to make things “easier” for their students. It is one thing to make things more efficient in our classes, but it’s an entirely different matter when teachers try to simply make things easy. When teachers say, “That’s going to be really hard for their students to do.”, I reply, “I hope so.” When I let my students strive and struggle through a learning goal, they not only learn more about the lesson, they learn how to persevere.
The amount of learning is equivalent to the amount of effort spent to learn. This isn’t a new revelation, but why is it often overlooked in our classrooms? The truth is that teachers often try to make things easy on their students to make things easy on themselves. It’s challenging to challenge students, but it is absolutely necessary for high levels of learning. Consequently, if we want our students to learn we must challenge them, and to challenge them we must be willing to abandon ease and do the arduous ourselves. Let our students be challenged, let them struggle, let them learn.
Wil Codilla is a public school teacher, designer, and speaker. @WilCodilla