May 23, 2022

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

Listen to this issue below the Resource section or on SoundCloud!

In The Book of Delights, poet and author Ross Gay coins the phrase “cognitive athleticism” which, he explains, is “figuring something out, which is something we all go to school, some of us for years and years, to forget how to do.”

I love Ross Gay for many reasons; but when I read those words (actually I heard them, since I am experiencing The Book of Delights via audiobook), I knew him to be a kindred spirit. Ross Gay’s words challenge teachers and parents to face the question: Could our efforts to help our kids be getting in the way of their learning?

As educators, we understand the importance of allowing students to engage in productive struggle – an important component of Purpose, Persistence, and Action, one of Inspired Teaching’s Core Elements. We do our best to find opportunities to step back and offer students the space to figure things out on their own. But the pressures of school can compel us to step in and offer a “proven” strategy for solving a challenging math problem, or structuring a paragraph, or inserting ourselves into an argument between friends, instead of allowing students to figure these things out for themselves.

Parents feel this pressure too. As a recent front-page Washington Post article pointed out, many young children arrived at school this year (after a year of at-home learning, thanks to the pandemic) lacking basic skills such as the ability to tie their shoes, open a juice box, or even turn the pages of a book. For parents who spent a school year and then some with their kids learning on a screen in the kitchen while they worked their own jobs across the table, fixing things for kids was a reasonable and expedient thing to do. It’s far more efficient to tie kids’ shoes when it’s time to head outside, turn the pages of the book during bedtime reading, and open juice boxes carefully instead of risking purple stains on the carpet.

During this extremely challenging year when mental health issues in young people are at an all-time high, it can seem counterintuitive to step back when kids are struggling. Yet, the experience of puzzling through a low-stakes problem (and yes, math problems are low-stakes problems) and arriving at a solution on your own builds self-confidence and resilience.

If we want to set our sights on building “cognitive athleticism” in young people (and I highly recommend we do so!), then we need to entrust children to be in charge of their own learning. And that means allowing them to figure things out for themselves and avoiding solving problems kids can solve. Below you will find some suggestions for where to begin.

As the child psychologist Jean Piaget said, “Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself.” Though it takes time and patience, allowing our children to struggle and learn for themselves will help them build the self-confidence and resilience that will serve them well in school, at home, and in all aspects of life. The past two years have shown us that this kind of resilience is essential in navigating the unknown, and our children deserve every opportunity to cultivate these problem-solving skills when the stakes are low so they will know how to employ them in the world beyond our care.

Resources

3 Ways to Bolster “Cognitive Athleticism”

Offer feedback and encouragement to young people as they learn. “What can I do to help you get started?” “What can I do to help you finish?” “I can see how quickly you solved that problem.” “I can see you’re taking your time with that problem.” Words like these, which my mentor Judy White taught me, show our children we support them, and trust them to figure out how to tie their own shoes, turn their own pages, open their own juice boxes, and navigate any other problems they may encounter.
Help our children and ourselves to “right-size” problems and learn to differentiate between those that require parental intervention or support (cleaning up broken glass off the kitchen floor) and those that are ripe for productive struggle (figuring out how to open a snack bag). Is this a problem about safety, or does it involve pushing through frustration into learning? When a problem is challenging due to difficulty and frustration, one strategy that works well with children is to ask them, “If you had to put this problem in a box, show me with your arms how big the box would need to be.” That mental translation of our feelings of frustration into something tangible can offer a useful pause for reflection and help us as adults to adjust our response in equal proportion.
Start a conversation with the parents in your school community. Share this post with them and begin a discussion. Brainstorm a list of things to stop doing and a list of things to start doing in school and at home in order to support students’ ability to figure things out for themselves.

InspiredTeaching · May 23, 2022: Resilient Children

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.