It could be worse . . . And maybe it should be?

No doubt you've noticed that different people can have strikingly different feelings about the same kind of learning experience. I'm sure many of the differences are due to personality and learning style characteristics. These are the factors that are usually pointed out. I think these factors miss something big, however.

As a homeschooler, I can't tell you how many times I've heard parents rave about how their kids finally came to love learning when they left school, while at the very same time I've also heard heaps of other homeschoolers bemoaning their children's lack of enthusiasm toward learning and wondering where they went wrong. Curriculum reviewers talk about how their children are finally loving math, while others lament their children's boredom or frustration with the very same curriculum.

These differences probably go beyond just what could be explained by personality, learning style, or educational merit. When you think about it, doesn't prior experience have as much to do with success as anything else? So much depends on the setup, the context, into which a learning experience is introduced.

A simple example: A student who has struggled through a math program with 50 practice problems a day might think a program with only 25 problems is like a vacation. What about a student who has always just done 25 problems, though? Or a student who is accustomed to doing 15?

I'm guessing they won't be impressed, to put it mildly.

Similarly, a student accustomed to a traditional, regimented, classroom learning environment may revel in the comparative freedom that even a rigorous homeschooling approach allows. A lifelong homeschooled kid may chafe at the very same program.

So the question that my mischievous little brain wants to ask is, is it ever a good idea to purposely choose a program or approach that we know might be unsuccessful, or at least not enjoyable, just to give our children a different frame of reference?

Most of the parents I know (myself included) tend to obsess over finding and using approaches that our children will like, as much as possible. When our children don't do well with the approach, we blame the method, thinking it is a bad fit for our child, and that we need to find something else.

An overwhelmingly common concern among parents is that they not crush their children's love of learning. In the face of this nurturing, and in the right context, many children flourish. But others become coddled, resistant to most effort and blind to the rewards of discipline.

This flies in the face of what most of us would call good educational technique - But maybe what we really need in some of these cases is an opportunity for a change in perspective.

(I guess that's a fancy, positive way to say "attitude adjustment".)