Learning is a struggle, an active process that requires us to face a challenge and tackle it head on. When we encounter something difficult and we push through it to achieve success, any degree of success, we have learned something useful and profound about ourselves. On the other hand, if we encounter something easy and find success, we rarely learn anything from it, and certainly learn nothing about ourselves.
It is my hope that all students struggle with math. To be clear, I do not hope that students stumble or give up, but learn to push through a challenge and conquer it with the same intention as someone trying to wrestle an opponent to the ground. In doing so, we learn a bit of math, but we also learn that we can be victorious in the face of true challenge.
As in the image below, if we can leap over the pit, we probably aren’t learning.
More about the learning pit image at
http://www.challenginglearning.com/learning-pit/
Or http://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/learning-pit/