Challenge yourself

I had a great time on a climbing wall recently, my first time trying it. There’s different levels of challenge on the different walls, and even on the same wall. You can start by climbing however you like, or challenge yourself on the same wall to only use blobs of a certain colour to make it harder.

RockReef in Bournemouth

Somehow the situation invited me to get started without great hesitation, and to naturally push myself harder until I find my limit. One of the most exhilarating climbs required quite a severe leap, after a brutal arm-heavy route on some ropes, to hit the button at the top.

I missed by a whisker and fell, abseiled down, and didn’t have the energy to retry it. It was a little bit frustrating but I got a real buzz out of finding my limit, and being so close to achieving something (minor!).

On reflection I wondered how the climbing wall had created such a positive mindset. I contrasted it with the dread that so many (including myself to be honest) feel when opening a tutorial sheet.

The theoretical concepts relevant here are our beloved zone of proximal development, and self-regulated learning. Somehow climbing the wall enabled me to self-regulate my challenge level. In contrast tutorial sheets seem to send me beyond with no way to regulate myself back in again.

Perhaps part of the difference is that I went climbing for pleasure, whereas homework is prescribed. Or maybe it’s the way shortcuts are so obviously ‘cheating’ in the physical realm compared to the intellectual one.

In climbing the easy route is an option, just as in homework peeking at the answer or solutions is. It’s not a perfect analogy though. Maybe that’s the difference. Homework problems feel less flexible. There’s a shortcut straight to the answer, but rarely a sense of choosing a slightly easier ‘route’ to the answer while still making the steps oneself.

There are odd questions that suggest different methods, but they are not the norm. Maybe that’s something to aspire to.

I’ve tried, implicitly, in the past to do something like this. I think of something ‘obvious‘, and make an exercise out of it. For example, using systems whose properties we already know as background knowledge – cars, buildings, etc. Or a result we’ve seen before, like Bernoulli’s equation or the quadratic equation.

The result in those exercises seems to be that students are particularly perplexed or lost. I seem to achieve the opposite of my intention. It’s as if these questions make more starkly clear the problem that students often don’t know the deeper intention of their course of study.

So it remains a mystery to me how to empower a student through tutorial questions to embrace the challenge, other than to be in the room with them tutoring interactively. But the climbing wall gives me inspiration and food for thought. Something to aspire to!

Addendum: after publishing this post, and seeing the photo with fresh eyes, the element of choice stood out to me. The wall invites you to decide what to do. The tutorial sheet prescribes your path. The prescription works well if it’s perfectly posed – but it rarely is.