Teaching Resilience

Core to my idea of avoiding “type three errors” (solving the wrong problem) is that people could solve better problems or solve problems better if only they knew how to do so. Most of my posts are told from that point of view: me trying to teach you (the reader) how to avoid type 3 errors. However, there is another related angle: Me trying to give you the tools to teach others how to avoid type 3 errors. By the end of this post I hope you have some new tools to help someone else be a better problem solver.

As parents and educators, we often try to help children get better at problem solving. When I write or speak on the “meta-problem” I often point out that we try to teach children this general idea of “problem solving” by teaching them to solve specific problems with specific methods. How well that skill generalizes to what you put on your resume clearly will vary from person to person… but I firmly believe that actually teaching the general skill is not only possible, but just takes some simple messages that build on how we usually teach kids.

Now, just to be clear, we still need to teach methods themselves. I presented to my daughter’s 4^th grade class, and I asked what 28 divided by 26 was. I was a little surprised when one child answered “1 with a remainder of 2.” It was a good reminder that people will only learn fractions, or decimals, or conventions like the answer I expected was “1 and 2/26ths” if you teach them those things. However, general problem solving can be a separate lesson where we teach students much like how we coach them to be prepared for a multiple-choice exam.

So, what are the skills to be a good problem solver? In my opinion the most fundamental building block is resilience. Now, resilience is a combination of skills, so I’m cheating a little… But the stories kids tell themselves when they hit a speed bump are really what enable them to dust themselves off if the first thing they try doesn’t work.

The reason I think resilience is the key to “general problem solving” is a logical argument that has convinced me and might convince you. It goes: If the way to solve a problem was obvious, maybe we could reasonably claim that teaching specific methods is all you need. But if the way to solve a problem is not obvious, everyone can expect that at least some of the time, they will get it wrong. If we (and our children) expect to get things wrong sometimes, then there are a couple important implications:

1. Anyone solving non-obvious problems should accept the fact that they will make mistakes.

2. Anyone solving non-obvious problems should be on the lookout for clues that they have made a mistake.

Based on those observations, we have a few core lessons we need to teach children:

1. It’s ok to make mistakes. I have been trying to teach this by saying “You solved a different problem than you meant to.” It still suggests a mistake was made, but I think the framing makes it much clearer that you have the opportunity to fix that mistake.

2. If you have made a mistake solving a problem and can fix it, go for it! I have been trying to teach this by saying “If you solved a different problem than you meant to, it’s a puzzle to figure out the difference between the problem you solved and the one you meant to.” This is meant to build on the previous point by reframing “fixing a mistake” as “a new and interesting challenge you can conquer!”

3. Everyone makes mistakes. This one isn’t all that novel, but it is something that I always keep front of mind. If teachers, children, and everyone can make mistakes, you should always be on the lookout for them. I have had a couple times where I made a mistake, and other people noticed but assumed it was intentional and didn’t let me know!

4. I also sometimes try to teach how I recognize that I might have made a mistake. Some examples: I’m uncertain to begin with, I’m distracted, it’s a specific kind of task I tend to make mistakes on, the task is murky, the answer doesn’t make sense. (Feel free to post other clues in the comments!)

Some of these points are the specific things that are useful to tell yourself to help you bounce back when you’re in a difficult situation (resilience). Others are more about teaching general problem solving directly.

For the record, this is new territory for me as well. I have always tried to teach my own kids general problem solving skills, as well as resilience. But only since this summer have I really put some of this stuff together articulately. Like most kids, they don’t always listen to their parents and so it can be hard to tell if I’m succeeding. But I think teaching problem solving explicitly is a heck of a lot more likely to work than not doing so, and so I keep trying.