How much help or support should teachers provide for their students?  At the outset, the answer to this question seems obvious! Surely students deserve as much support as they require?  However, within this solution, lies the problem which is rooted in the age-old distinction  between “needs” and “wants”. Providing a student with the support they need to master a skill or solve a problem would be considered perfectly acceptable.  However, as anyone who works in a school would know, young people have a tendency to seek solutions that require the least amount of effort to gain the desired result! Therefore,  helping students every time they ask for help, could actually do more harm than good.  Habits develop over time, and behaviours- sometimes damaging behaviours- can be learnt quite quickly.

“Learned Helplessness” is a concept linked to the psychology of dogs, dating back to the 1960’s. However, some educational theorists propose that the same is true of the perceptions in children that a solution is beyond their control.  This could be created by the notion that they are incapable of completing a task, or that the solution is too simple (“the teacher will help if I ask!”). Either way, they give up and stop trying.  Think about this! How often do we  answer a student’s probing question without first challenging them to find the solution on their own? Are we afraid to allow them to make mistakes?  Why? Because we have tasted the bitter pill of failure ourselves, and want to protect them from this?  Do we learn more from success or failure?  Surely we learn equally from both? Doesn’t the experience of “failure” build resilience? (“What doesn’t kill us…..” and all that!).

Use of the term “failure” may seem harsh here, but it has been selected for a reason.  In “over-supporting” our students by providing help the moment they ask, we may in fact be reinforcing their self-perceptions that they are unable to work independently, or why else would we “lend a hand“? Students then attribute the support to the fact that they are incapable of success, and that this is due to their own short-comings!

However – all is not lost!  There are ways to change the mindset of learned helplessness. Research suggests that the following strategies may be of use:

• Encouragement: If students believe they can succeed, they are more likely to try! Try to create a Growth Mindset – I can’t do this – YET!
• Effort Feedback: In focusing on the effort and not the outcome, the language of “success” and “failure” is removed.  Everyone can try their best!
• Individual Goal-setting: Set targets for students relevant to where they are on the continuum of learning.
• Questions For (not about) Learning: Use questioning to encourage metacognition.  E.g. “Why do you think this is true?” or “Have you considered another idea?”
• Stop giving answers!: Help students to develop strategies (e.g. Brain, book, buddy, boss) to work it out themselves.

So let’s teach young people to avoid learned habits to seek a single right answer, in favour of exploring the learning process! Let’s start to empower our students to take control of their learning, accept failure on occasions and develop a positive mindset. Surely, in this way we will be supporting them to become independent resilient learners?

J Bamsey