As parents we often find it too hard to watch our kids struggle with a particular math example or spelling certain words. We’ll often step in to correct them before they’ve worked it out for themselves or forbid that they turn in a homework assignment with a wrong answer. Our guest blogger Joanne brings home this lesson for parents.
By Joanne Arcand
I failed my first driving test. I couldn’t parallel park in the postage stamp section of curb that the examiner picked, hit the curb twice and ended up so far away from the target that the examiner suggested I go back to driving school.
Practice Makes Perfect
I still switch seats with my husband when I have to parallel park, but I did pass the second driving test. Like many of the students I tutor, I had to rely on my strengths to get me through. I reread (this was before ‘Googling’) the paragraph on parallel parking and watched my dad parallel park.
I split it up into four steps, counted how many rotations of the wheel were needed for each step, and put little stickers on the window for lining up the car with the car in front. Once the technique had been broken down, and with supports in place, I successfully convinced the very same examiner that I could navigate Main Street during delivery hour.
You Remember the Failures
I don’t remember any of the tests I passed. I remember all of the failures. The fact that I was frustrated with my driving motivated me to struggle through and made the experience memorable a quarter century later. Riding a bicycle, learning a language, or making a budget are only learning experiences if one fails at first. Making errors is the only way to reinforce how it’s really supposed to be done (which, I have also learned, is NOT a good excuse for burning the meatloaf ). Ever forgotten your partner’s birthday? Bet you only did it once.
When I’m watching my sons getting frustrated with puzzles, reading, or basketball it is important for me that I hang back and watch for a while. I also let them see me get frustrated and work through problems. We use language to try to sort it out (as twins, the boys have a strength in verbal language) and have developed strategies to sort through these problems. It is important that they be allowed to make mistakes, none of us is perfect.
Fear of failure is one of the biggest blocks to math learning, and it’s a block that is placed early on. Once mistakes are seen as the only way we learn, test scores are seen more of a report of progress than a final judgment. The next step is to try to find ways that the mistake doesn’t happen again, and that’s where the real parenting begins.
Joanne Arcand is trying to juggle her role as a math teacher with her other life as mom of twin boys. She lives in Oakville, Ontario.
