Productive Struggle

There is actually an idea in psychology that makes the connection even stronger: the Yerkes-Dodson law. This law posits that the ability to learn requires the right level of arousal. Too little, and you get boredom and disengagement. Too much, and you will react too quickly with hide and watch (or even fight or flight, the best-known natural behavior) to situations that might yield more learning with bolder exploration.

Venkatesh Rao, Tempo

In more progressive education circles, the concept of “productive struggle” has been in vogue since at least the start of constructing the Common Core efforts. Its premise is simple in concept, and remarkable in its implications: to learn and grow effectively, you must struggle. But not too much.

If you’re trying to learn (or being taught, or trained) something new, but the material you’re working with is too easy, you might get a nice quick dopamine hit right off the bat as you feel good about yourself…but then get bored and go do something else, never really internalizing the related concepts. Crucially, this applies to getting help, too; if a learner keeps receiving assistance instead of struggling to complete the work themselves, they won’t absorb things at depth.

If the material you’re working with is too hard, you’ll grind without much progress. Different folks have different amounts of grind they’ve got to give, but in the end, you’ll get frustrated and give up.

You’ve got to be challenged, but not stonewalled. You’ve got to struggle–productively.

While what “too easy” and “too hard” is varies by the person, the overall concept of productive struggle appears to be universal–at least enough so to get a lot of top-tier teachers really excited about it. So when you want to grow, or when you need your team to pick up new skills and concepts, make sure there’s struggle (but not too much!), and don’t interrupt it out of a desire to share the right way.