It’s 4am and I just solved Wordle in two.
Yesterday, however, I fell short on the Sunday crossword (no, not the NY Times version, I’m not that good). While I have gotten very close a couple of times, I have yet to successfully solve one of those and I am more often left feeling frustrated and disappointed.
But today? Wordle. In two. And despite the early hour, I feel energized, excited, motivated to accomplish something else, as though my day can only continue on this high level of success.
Wordle requires me to only get one five letter word right. I probably got somewhere around fifty words right on the crossword puzzle and yet it left me feeling frustrated. I didn’t get Wordle in two because I guessed well. I had to really think about letter patterns and syllable patterns and there was a lot to this word today that used what I know about English that helped me get it successfully in two attempts. So why don’t I feel even more energized from all the words I got correct on the crossword?
It is a quick and easy reminder of where my students are at, or as I fear is more often the case, where they aren’t at. In educational terms, we call it the “Zone of Proximal Development,” but more simply put, it’s the place where a learner is challenged just enough that it’s worth the effort, but not so challenging that it’s out of reach and frustrating. It’s a careful balance of providing tasks that a student can do with minimal assistance, and yet without being so easy as to be worthless. The rate of return on our effort has to be possible; we have to believe we can succeed in order to put in the work. Wordle has that in spades for many of us. It’s just challenging enough that we feel a sense of accomplishment by solving it, but it’s not so difficult that we quit, or get frustrated (at least not often). The crossword, however, is still just beyond the zone for me and so it leaves me feeling inadequate, even though I have actually been quite successful, even when I only solve 80% of the puzzle on any given Sunday.
In an ideal classroom, we would teach within that zone for each of our students. But this means that at any given moment, I know exactly where each of my students are in their learning, on the myriad of topics we cover in an elementary classroom. Not only that, but it also requires me to have the skills, resources and time to provide exactly what each student needs next to keep them “in the zone.” Ideal, yes, realistic? Not so much. But, my joy and enthusiasm over Wordle today reminds me how important it is that I try, how critical it is to my students that I do whatever I can to help them work within that zone as often as possible.
I wasn’t there for the first two days of our state testing last week, but I was there on Friday when a couple of my students were still finishing up the ELA section of the assessment. They were somewhere around five hours into the test and they still hadn’t finished the fifty questions. The one girl’s body language said it all as she got her Chromebook from the cart and left the room with the parapro to go finish; slumped shoulders, head hung low, moving so slowly the parapro had to keep nudging her to come along as others were waiting to get started. The test was far over her head and beyond the zone of anything that made her feel successful. Instead, it had been five hours of torture and her only hope was to be done with it soon. My heart ached for her.
As I look ahead to the last eight weeks of school, I hope to find ways to help my students feel successful and accomplished, but I know that comes with placing tasks and concepts in their hands that are just challenging enough without being overwhelming. I need to make them reach, but not too far. I hope to end the year improving their sense of self, their belief that they can do hard things, and to help them take some small steps towards appreciating perseverance, which we all know is lacking in many of our students today.
In short, I need them to have a Wordle-like experience as often as possible in my classroom. Imagine the joy of learning, imagine the pride and smiles, imagine, just for a moment, what a room full of ten year olds would feel like if they all had a “Wordle-in-two” experience every now and then. That’s a zone I want to create.
Teaching at 3am 