When Something Doesn't Work

When Something Doesn't Work

In Educational Therapy, practitioners like myself rely on research, evidence-based practices, and intuition. Sometimes, we get it wrong. We may choose the wrong strategy or approach to try while building a new skill with a student. Every parent understands that what works for one child may fail miserably with another. The same is true in educational therapy (and every service-based provider, but we often forget this.

With my children, I know that with my oldest, I have to show her what I'm trying to accomplish and then step back and let her sort it out on her own, watching every mistake and keeping my dang mouth shut. This is how we did homework in middle school. This is how we built a chicken coop when she was 20. The coop will withstand a hurricane, but we were able to build it together. (I helped, I swear!)

With my youngest, I was able to work with her by making a lot of mistakes, intentionally. If she could point out my silly mistakes, all the better. She saw them, corrected them, and learned to read, slowly but surely, eventually, getting to the point that working with me was not a good option for school work, but that ability to make mistakes together opened up the ability to explore cooking and sewing and blacksmithing, and so many other things where mistakes are simply part of the learning. She finished high school a year early because that structure of learning didn't work for her, so she did everything possible to get out of it as soon as possible, without my help! I often feel like I got it wrong with my children because I didn't know then what I know now. I would have parented them differently. I would have worked with them during homework time differently. I would have advocated at their schools differently. They both needed help, and I did the best I could.

As a parent, I know you understand this. And because of this, I ask my students to try out my suggestions, my strategies, my techniques. Some will be a good fit, some won't, but we won't know until we try, and they give a really good effort to see what helps them reach their goals. My students always have permission to tell me when something isn't working. They have permission to let me know when something "sucks." Most students don't have that permission in a classroom.

Once they have let me know something's not working, then we really get to work and try to figure out the "Why." This is the important work. If a student can figure out why something is hard for them, they are learning how they learn and are learning how to articulate what they need in order to make their learning easier! WOW! This is where educational therapy is helping build lifelong learners, not just good academics.

Mistakes are important. Students make them. Educational therapists make them. Sometimes we just have to allow permission to say, "This is really hard, and it sucks." Sometimes, that's enough to try again.