We've all heard about the teachable moment -- that elusive and precious time when a person is most eager and receptive to learn a skill or some information.  Most of the advice on the subject focuses on recognizing that moment and exploiting it.

In this article, we will talk about how to create such moments through play and how to turn productive frustration into lasting learning.

 

What is productive frustration and how does it differ from the nonproductive sort?  Non productive frustration is what leads to golf clubs thrown into the water hazard, and a student shrugging and saying “I don’t know” before even hearing or considering the question.  Productive frustration leads to a desire to learn. In the field of augmentative and assistive communication, we use the term "communicative intent."  Until a person feels the need to communicate, he or she is not motivated to do so, especially if it requires extra effort.  Remember the joke about the boy whose first sentence, at age three, is "The oatmeal is too hot."  When asked why he had not spoken before, he said that he had never had a complaint before.  A speech therapist looks for a client who is frustrated when people don’t understand him or her.  If the client is not frustrated, the therapist tries to create a situation where the client MUST use the desired form of communication in order to have a need fulfilled.  Think of Annie Sullivan in “The Miracle Worker” insisting that the Kellers not feed Helen unless she sits in a chair at the table and uses the appropriate utensil.  Food is a basic human need, and it is obvious that withholding it can motivate a nonverbal person to try to communicate.  We can also understand that placing a desired object just out of reach would motivate an attempt at locomotion. What about other areas of knowledge?

 

Typically, we tell students that they must learn the times tables, or spelling and grammar rules because they will come in handy later.  It is hard to imagine that more than a minority find this a sufficient reason.  A larger number may be motivated by grades.  Very few will become frustrated enough by their lack of knowledge to be ready to learn.  In my own case, I memorized the basic formulas for trigonometry, but it was only when I took astronomy in college and the triangles involved had the sun, planets and satellites at their corners that I understood what sine, cosine and tangent were and why one would want to know them.  Within a week, I had learned what Miss Fitzgerald had spent an entire semester of keeping me after school trying to teach me.

 

Competition and time limits within games can provide a situation in which an individual wants to have the knowledge necessary to win.  Any board game can be played with dice and moving can be made dependent upon the player completing a certain calculation.  For example, if we are teaching place values, each player can be asked to roll three dice, calculate the largest possible number and then identify the tens, hundreds, or ones digit.  Students can be asked to calculate the smallest possible number or choose the first prime number larger or smaller than the calculated number or any other task.  Under the pressure of competition, the student wants to be able to make the desired calculation as quickly as possible and becomes receptive to learning the procedure and practicing in order to develop proficiency.  In a game like Geography (I must name a geographical feature that begins with the last letter of the last player’s choice) or Authors (each player must name an example of a certain category beginning with selected letters of the alphabet), the player with the greatest fund of knowledge is most likely to win.  When a student desires to improve his or her chances of winning, the educator can help him or her develop strategies for learning additional facts and/or keeping records of previous winning choices.

 

Competitive play excites the mind of the players, increasing their interactivity with their environment.  It can provide opportunities for frustration – not the unproductive kind that forces him or her off of the field of play, but the productive kind that and increases their receptivity to learning.