When “just-right” is wrong: A Recalibration
Sometimes, when describing what I do to someone, I deliberately don’t mention who plays epistemic games. When the inevitable question comes, and I reveal that middle-schoolers are redesigning their city and presenting to the mayor, and elementary-age students are using spring-mass modeling simulations, people are usually shocked. Just last night, someone at a party confessed that she thought the games were for 18-year olds. This reaction is typical, and reflects a tragic and very dangerous tendency to underestimate the capabilities of young people.
In a recent piece (registration required) in the New York Times Movies section about appropriate movies for children, A.O Scott brings up what his children’s teachers have referred to as “just-right books,” which are books that are “just-right” developmentally, not too easy and not too hard. The idea of coddling children in a comfort zone so that they get neither too bored nor too frustrated seems to make sense (in fact, structuring our schools by grade level reflects this philosophy). As a parent (and movie-writer), Scott rejects this approach when he decides what movies are suitable for his children to watch. While he fears he may be ignoring the “pedagogical expertise of the professionals,” he argues that there is “pleasure to be found in bewilderment, in the struggle to make sense of what is just above your head, and there is wisdom as well.” Thus, he tends to allows his children to watch movies that other parents may deem to be too sophisticated.
It turns out that Scott was simply listening to wrong professionals. Lev Vygotsky, one of the most influential developmental psychologists of the 20th century, would argue that the bewilderment that Scott describes is in fact what is “just-right.” Vygotsky calls the struggle to make sense of what is just above your head “the zone of proximal development.” Because children learn by participating socially in new, challenging activities and internalizing strategies so that they may later accomplish the same task on their own, Vygotsky suggests that what a child can do with guidance from an adult or a more accomplished peer is a better predictor of the child’s future capabilities.
The “just-right” approach of Scott’s children’s teachers is very useful for shifting blame. If a child’s ability is simply a product of the child’s intelligence or maturity, then it makes sense to blame the child’s intelligence and maturity for failure. But if ability is the product of what can be done with help, the failure is shared by the helpers: the teachers, the mentors, and even the design of the learning environments themselves. As How Computer Games Help Children Learn explains, epistemic games follow Vygotsky’s sense of “just-right.” They are designed so that players get stuck on difficult challenges very often, but also so that there are multiple options for seeking help.
The catch, of course, is that Vygotsky’s method requires much more work. Scott watches movies with his children, and recognizes that the conversations that inevitably follow are not always easy. Conversations about why Russia invaded Afghanistan after watching “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and conversations about sex and teenage pregnancy after watching “Juno,” can be difficult for parents. Pleasing stakeholders and clients is very difficult. But as Scott describes, there is joy and learning in the difficulty, and if we don’t challenge ourselves to challenge young people, we are surely doing them a disservice.
