Is your child struggling with motivation? On curiosity and learning pits…

Students currently adjusting to learning at home experience a range of emotions, depending on personal circumstances. Each day can look and feel a bit different, with motivation sometimes zapped entirely.

What should we teach our young people during this uncertain time?

Kids of all ages love to study themselves! What better place to start than a 360 view of their own learning? Steady skill building - with tangible goals, plenty of reinforcement, and numerous opportunities for success - injects positive momentum into any experience. And turning your kids’ attention to a brighter future, in which education will carry them far, is never a bad idea…especially now.

Where to begin?

Take a moment to reflect on your own early childhood. What topics excited you?

The night sky. Flowers. Rocks. Dinosaurs.

Trains. Art. Music.

And books!

Curiosity and wonder shaped our first few years, propelling us forward to endless challenges and discoveries, moment by precious moment. And in an ideal world, we would remain ever curious and motivated, bringing a positive mindset to new topics and questions. We would feel energized by what we do not know and confident in our ability to tackle a variety of challenges. Comfortable requesting help from our peers, parents, or teachers when we need it, we would progress along relatively steady paths of achievement.

In reality, learning experiences are often interrupted by difficult emotional landscapes, causing students’ natural growth-oriented mindsets to shift towards more reactive, fixed states. Teaching students to reflect on their own habits of mind enables them to recognize these shifts before they become disruptive norms.

Showing students graphical representations of learning helps them reflect productively on their own experiences and identify key stages of challenge and growth. It’s important to point out that while every child is curious at the start, it’s common to lose momentum and motivation when encountering “learning pits” - times when clarity is outpaced by confusion. James Nottingham introduced the idea of learning pits in educational settings to help students and teachers see academic challenges in a new way.  

Confusion gets a bad rap, when it is actually a powerful driver of our learning process. Importantly, it helps us recognize when we’re working at the leading edge of our ability and in a position to grow the most. Learning pits with deep pockets of confusion, though, can be frustrating and even frightening, making it difficult for us to continue our journey up and out of our learning pit, and on to our “Eureka!” moment. 

A closer look at the topography of learning pits reveals 4 stages, each highlighting distinct aspects of learning.

At what stage(s) does your child excel? At what stage(s) do they tend to falter?

Stage 1 - Identify and engage a new study.

Students identify the gist or general relevance of potential topics of study and commit to deeper learning.

Stage 2 - Grapple with complexity.

Students engage their topic, appreciating its breadth, depth, controversies and unknowns.

Stage 3 - Construct meaning.

Students gain clarity by analyzing their topic, discovering features, relationships, and associations that convey meaning.

Stage 4 - Reflect and review.

Students return to their topic with more information in hand, considering how their views or understanding have changed. They apply and further deepen their learning.

Parents and teachers can help their students identify stages at which they typically become stuck or lose motivation.

Stage 1 - Some students speed their way into a topic, bypassing the first step altogether and never quite grasping the relevance or meaning of what they’re learning. Sound familiar? If so, recognize that in this case many of the details you learn later will likely remain abstract and thus lost quickly from your memory - eek! 

Stage 2 - Other students shy away from engaging the complexity, conflict, and confusion that comes with Stage 2, deciding prematurely that they’d prefer to remain at Step 1. These students are most comfortable hopping from topic to topic, skimming the surface without diving into the later stages of deep learning and personal construction of meaning.

Stage 3 - It’s also common for students to stall at the bottom of learning pits, struggling to find a toehold to begin the climb back to clarity. Learners who founder under the stress of confusion can appear passive or disinterested to their instructors while suffering within, paralyzed by an inability to find inroads to classroom discussions or other ways of approaching the content. If this resonates with you, pause for a moment. And breathe. You may be more vulnerable to feelings of detachment and a lack of belonging in your classroom to begin with, making it that much harder to reach out for academic support. You are not incurious, and your teachers understand! Rather, your curiosity has simply become shrouded by a more dominant emotional experience. Recognizing this is the first step you can take towards changing the course of your learning and academic experience overall. When this happens, as frightening or difficult as it is, ask your teacher or a peer for help!

Stage 4 - Some students blast through Stages 1-3 with loads of confidence but don’t take the time to reflect, review, or practice applying their new knowledge. These students are “eager beavers,” wanting to jump to the next topic. While their excitement is admirable, it can prevent them from developing a durable understanding of their topic - knowledge that “sticks.”

SYNAPSE helps students remember handy learning strategies and fundamentals while they climb up and out of their learning pits. Notably, the ‘Y’ in SYNAPSE represents the power of “Yes!” It’s important to reactivate one’s natural growth-oriented mindset throughout any learning challenge, especially when confused and working to construct meaning.

When students, teachers, and parents see learning pits as normal aspects of academic growth, the specific behaviors necessary to construct meaning, boost clarity, and successfully navigate learning challenges take center stage.

A parting tip for students…

You might ask your instructors about their own journeys within their discipline. When they were first learning this material, what parts were a struggle? When and how did the concepts and ideas become more clear for them? How did they end up with the position they currently hold? Did they have any special mentors that helped them along their way?

After a few meetings, you may just end up with a valuable mentor yourself  - one who can guide you through decisions in the future about courses, potential college majors, summer jobs or internships. Some food for thought…