What crosswords and sudoku can teach us about learning!

We all know someone, and it might even be us, who spends some of their downtime working on a crossword, doing a sudoku, a puzzle or a word search.

Why are we spending money and time on things which are essentially 'testing' ourselves?

Is it because we enjoy the deep satisfaction of struggling with something, thinking hard about it, getting it wrong, going back and correcting it, realising our mistake and then getting it right?

Critical to this ‘testing’ is that it is done in private.

No-one is watching, no-one is making us feel a muppet.

We might get annoyed with ourselves, but what’s different is that there is no-one out there pointing at us and making us feel inadequate.

The struggle and the joy are personal, private things. And we can choose whether to share our results with others.

We can tap into this deep satisfaction of grasping difficult things and doing them well. The struggle is part of the process.

But what is crucial is that this is not a public, humiliating struggle which dehumanises the person, it is the private conversations we have with ourselves about what is working and what isn’t.

The second strand is that the circumstances are always low threat. No-one else can see our struggling to get the solution.

No-one is pointing the finger.

It is when we feel safe at this deep level that we are prepared to risk things and have a go.

This has big implications for inclusion for all our pupils. We want every child to have a go at difficult work.

I’ll be going through how we might create high challenge and low threat in our classrooms, with examples for primary and secondary. Tuesday 6th May 4-5pm.

Available on Myatt & Co, live and recorded. Access with a group or annual single subscription.

Until next time

Mary