Learning should feel good

Babies are learning all the time. (Image credit)

Many of the students we work with at The Little Middle School and The Rulerless School are seeking refuge from unhappy learning experiences.

Our job is to help them find satisfaction in learning again.

So many students have come to believe that being wrong is dangerous, asking for help is unwelcome, and that no matter how hard they try, they still won’t be good enough. It’s hard for them to trust their teachers, having been stung by indifference, hostility, or inconsistency in the past.

It’s true that to get to a world-class level in any pursuit, you’ve got to push through discomfort and frustration. You’ve got to work harder than anyone else and challenge yourself to a degree that most would find intolerable.

But that’s not where we start! No, that’s the shortcut that we take once we already have confidence in our ability. In order for a learner to get to the point where they have the fortitude to reach the highest level, they have to have some experiences that teach them how good it feels to learn, along some wins that help them to hang onto the belief that they are capable of accomplishing what they set out to do.

If the teacher tries to raise the bar before a student has had a chance to clear the lower one, they aren’t setting a high standard. They’re setting an arbitrary one.

And if they only point out the ways in which a student isn’t living up to their standard instead of praising what’s working or changing their approach, the teacher is not maintaining rigor — they’re being lazy.

It takes effort to meet a student where they are and nurture their abilities; to thoughtfully design learning experiences that encourage the student to feel a sense of satisfaction; to reflect a student’s progress back to them so that they can see how far they’ve come and build anticipation for what’s next.

It takes effort, but it pays off. If a student feels good about their own learning, they’ll be motivated to continue to stack wins upon wins. They will seek out opportunities; they’ll start asking for more challenges and critical feedback, and they’ll evaluate their own performance with discernment.

It is rarely beneficial to push. It is never necessary to be unkind. And shame has no place in the world of education. These myths need to die, and the teachers who continue to espouse unhelpful beliefs about the suffering inherent in learning need support in order to change. Meanwhile, the students who study under such teachers should be given the opportunity to try something else: learning that feels good.