Just-Right Challenge
Climbing the retaining wall is a rewarding challenge for preschoolers!
Think of the last time you felt the deep satisfaction of trying something completely new and mastering it. Maybe it was a sport: learning to swing a golf club, ski, or play pickleball for the first time. Maybe it was a new craft or hobby like knitting or cooking a complicated recipe.
You might recall the initial uncomfortable feelings of confusion and perhaps frustration as you tried and failed, missed the mark, or got exhausted. But if you persisted, kept trying and practicing, I’ll bet the feeling of elation you got when you finally mastered the skill, reached the top of the mountain, or completed your first project was even stronger.
Conquering a “just-right challenge” gives us a big dose of self-satisfaction that helps shape our identity as a capable person. It builds confidence that we can rely on when we approach the next new thing: I’ve mastered other things; I am a smart / strong / creative person, so I can try this one, too.
Finding just-right challenges for children is what teachers do every day. It may be more of an art than a science: observing where a child’s skills are, then gently offering a new prompt, a problem to solve, or a task to try that’s only slightly above their current comfortable level so they need to stretch a bit. Not so high out of reach that they get frustrated and give up, but also not so familiar or easy that there is no growth. Something that requires them to exert effort and sustain it. Then a teacher offers enough “scaffolding” to give them a little boost over the gap – just enough to get them started, then letting go so they can complete it on their own.
Scaffolding might mean starting the zipper on a toddler’s jacket but letting them pull it up the rest of the way to close the jacket by themselves. It might mean offering a 48-piece jigsaw puzzle when the 24-piece puzzle is now done quickly — and perhaps demonstrating how to look for the edge pieces to start. It might mean going on a longer group hike than they’ve ever done before and assuring them that you KNOW they can make it.
In late spring as the school year winds down, teachers have to up their game. The children have changed so much since September. What used to be challenging might now be too easy, leading to restlessness or to children pushing the boundaries in the classroom. Teachers brainstorm together at staff meetings what we can offer during the last few months of school that is a just-right challenge for each child, recognizing where they are today – that’s different from where they were even in early spring!
I just signed up for the next level of a wheel-thrown pottery class this summer at the Eagan Art House. Adults need to find our just-right challenges, too, so we can keep learning throughout our entire lives!
Toddlers are challenged to paint something from real-life in the art studio