Struggling hard, Gary Glasspool

Struggling hard Gary Glasspool agrees with Arthur Clough – say not the struggle naught availeth

I’m not sure whether the overall plight of teenagers has become harder or easier over time. Sure, the pressures that teenagers face continue to evolve – digital living, global peer groups and increasingly odd recreational activities – but to say that times are tougher now would be to forget the difficulties of the past. There is little doubt, however, that the educational landscape has changed. The proliferation of available ‘knowledge’, and the few simple clicks it takes to access it, means that students nowadays have to navigate truth, fact and opinion in a more sophisticated and nuanced way than ever before. Guiding students through these murky waters is an article for another time, but, by way of a starter, we should perhaps focus on the benefits of making an effort, of struggling, and even struggling hard.

With every attempt by commercial organisations to make young people’s lives easier through some new piece of hard or software, students lose an opportunity to experience sufficient levels of challenge. If they don’t know something, within two or three taps Google tells them or YouTube shows them. This, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing – we have all used such tools and found them useful – but the incredible immediacy of response means that our young people have become accustomed to getting the answer too quickly and too easily. They have forgotten how to be challenged and the importance of struggling.

Describing pupils as strugglers carries with it all sorts of negative connotations within education nowadays, which is a great shame. Struggling and struggling hard through difficult conceptual issues is the mark of a committed student and one who, in the end, will most likely have a better understanding because of the struggle. Through her seminal work on mindsets, Carol Dweck has brought the idea of facing challenge in education into the pedagogical limelight, but in reality these ideas are far from new. There is little scientific research needed to validate the concept that determination is the bedrock of success. I do worry, however, that students think our constant mantra of ‘effort = reward’ is hollow and ‘just something teachers say’, though that is all the more reason to reinvigorate the message. We should allow students to struggle, to need determination, to see the reward of effort: we should not be too quick to provide the answer. It might be gratifying in the short term to sense their relief, but until you allow them to ‘struggle hard’ through problems and come out the other side, they will not be equipping themselves with the skills they’ll need in the big wide world. Teachers should, and always will, be there to support their students, but we must take a moment to think what that support looks like. If a child falls off their bike, we should pick them up, dust them off and give them the confidence and advice to have another go. We shouldn’t end up riding the bike for them, or, worse still, show them a YouTube clip of Chris Froome!

Dr. Gary M. Glasspool is Head of Teaching and Learning at Churcher’s College