Take Pain Seriously
If you suffered while learning to read, write, or do math, you might associate pain with effective learning. It doesn’t have to be that way however. Research shows that when a child is relaxed and alert, they are learning the most.
The appropriate level of challenge is similar to what a child feels when they’re trying to solve a puzzle, beat a level in a video game, or build a block tower that doesn’t fall over.
Make the challenge smaller and look for the hook—what makes it interesting and relevant to a child.
Wonder how to do that?
As you grind to the end of the year, be extra careful of creating pain related to learning. It’s easy to push push push thinking about the summer break ahead. Instead, use this time to indulge fresh experiences:
- stomping in rain puddles,
- looking for birds’ nests,
- visiting zoo babies,
- making lemonade from scratch,
- FaceTiming with grandma and reading a picture book to her,
- drawing a picture of a child’s favorite activity from the past year.
Your most sacred trust is protecting a child’s curiosity about each and every subject. That’s such a big job and it’s not easy to do!
Certainly some kids just need a break (they’ve done the deed, they’ve mostly completed the workbook, they’ve read the hard-to-read novel, they’ve handwritten umpteen pages). This is the time for that break. You can ease into the rest of the year paying special attention to cries of boredom or discomfort.
I wish we all cared more about preserving a child’s curiosity in each subject area than getting through and getting done. If you achieve that even in one subject, Gold Stars for you!
Keep going! But slow down. I’m rooting for you.
This post was originally shared on Instagram.
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