Last week, I shared a TED-Ed animated riddle with my students (try it yourself here). In less than four minutes, the whimsical video lays out in the simplest of terms a zombie-themed version of a classic type of logic puzzle. A group of people (running from zombies, of course) has to cross a bridge in the correct order and combinations in order to reach safety before being caught.
In order to solve the riddle, students simply have to understand the premise and try different combinations of characters until they figure out the math; there is no dirty trick or silly caveat. It just takes patience and effort to succeed. Most importantly, it takes time.
Unfortunately, many students have developed neither the quality of extended patience nor the habit of serious effort, and time is one of the most precious commodities in any school. Still, I wanted to share the riddle with my classes, in the hopes that it would stoke some budding intellectualism within them. Plus, they love zombies.
With my first class of the day, I showed the four-minute video and then gave students a few minutes to ponder it, but I was immediately disheartened by their blank stares and frozen pencils. They were intimidated, and so they simply did not try at all. I walked them through the answer, but it felt like a hollow lesson in the end. Feeling guilty for "wasting" more than five minutes of precious class time, I moved on to literature.
Only then (sadly, not sooner) did I remember the story of the experiment in which two groups of children, one group Japanese and one group American, were given an impossible math question to solve. The American students gave up almost immediately, while the Japanese students battled until they were forced to stop. (To read more about the study, see Alix Spiegel's 2012 story for NPR).
It was a problem of perspective; one group saw a tough problem as an interesting challenge, while the other saw the same problem as demeaning, probably distressing punishment. One view was positive, and one was negative--I think that strikes at the core of why so many of my students, all high school seniors mere months from graduation, continue to struggle to reach even the simplest academic goals (like merely attempting to solve a riddle). Rather than wanting to rise to an intellectual challenge, they shrink back from what they perceive as a personal attack. Some of them lash out at teachers, and we are perpetually frustrated as to why, because we see only the challenge we mean to offer and not the attack they see us leveling.
With this in mind, I approached the second class differently. Once again I showed them the video, but this time I played it twice and set up a five-minute timer on my laptop to stop myself from rushing them. I also showed the timer and asked students to commit to puzzling for five minutes without giving up. When they were still stumped after five minutes, I gave them a hint, and then another, until I had basically fed them the answer by the time they solved the riddle. They had all put in a little more effort this time around, but again, time weighed heavily on me and I moved on when I realized they weren't getting there on their own, so none of them got to solve the riddle independently.
The third class began. I focused on creating a positive environment to spur their effort further; I knew I needed enthusiasm on their side to find success. I talked about what a treat it is to solve riddles, told them the story of the children and the math problem, and challenged them to be different from the American group in the study. We watched the explanation twice and I set the five minute timer, but after five minutes, I didn't ask who had an answer; I asked for a show of hands of who thought they might be on track to find an answer eventually. Five or six students raised their hands. My more lackluster pupils guffawed, but this only added to their enthusiasm, and so when I asked if they would like another five minutes to try, the worker bees firmly agreed. We waited. After the second five minutes I was getting nervous--how long could I justifiably spend on this? Does it come across as lazy teaching? Is this even Common Core? But the five or six determined students were still working diligently, and finally, one threw his hand into the air.
I led him to a corner and let him demonstrate his logic out of hearing of the others, who watched intently (except the ones who were still working and were banking on him being wrong). He was wrong, but he was on the right track, and we all felt a surge of optimism at last. When I sent him back to his desk to keep trying, I noted that some of my lazy students had finally started moving their pencils. Maybe they just were resigned to not being able to wait the activity out, but perhaps they also felt that if no one else could solve the riddle in ten minutes, then there would be no harm in them trying it too while they waited. Maybe they were intrigued.
In the end, I caved after fifteen minutes and gave the class a good hint, after which two students in quick succession solved the riddle. The others threw up their pencils in disgust, but thankfully, it occurred to me to let them keep working. One after the other, they solved the riddle. Even the laziest students started working frantically when they realized that more than half of the class had already been successful. Every time a student found the answer, I ran around for a high-five. After twenty-five minutes, I chickened out and told the remaining few the answer (assuring them that they were all over it, of course).
When the fourth class came in, I was determined. I followed the same format, but this time I gave no hint. They were working with patience and effort, and I just had to give them the time to succeed. When, after ten minutes, I asked if they wanted a hint, the class refused. At the eleven minute mark, for the first time all day, a student solved the riddle entirely unassisted. After a total of thirty-five minutes, nearly the entire class had succeeded with no help from me. They were delighted with themselves and demanded future riddles; some asked for the video link so that they could riddle their parents and siblings.
Was it worth the class time? I think so. Those students actively used their brains for thirty-five minutes of constant effort to solve a tough problem. That's what college requires. Heck, that's what adulthood requires. The whole experience made me question whether we in education remember often enough what our students really need to learn; it's not always the content, but the method, that means the most. I wish the process had been easier for them, but that's not the point. I don't think my students are remotely dull. If they took an exceptionally long time to solve a relatively easy riddle, I think it reflects on how we have raised and taught them, not on their intellectual potential. In the end, they tried and they enjoyed trying, even when they failed--I need more ways to teach that!