Thank You For Being Confused

Last week, I had a great experience with a student.  I had explained the concept of Archimedes' Principle (a concept I am comfortable with in terms of my ability to explain it clearly).  One of my students, however, was still confused about neutral buoyancy.  As a way of trying to clear it up, I did something I had not done before.  I picked up an aluminum pie pan, which I had used to demonstrate how much weight could float if enough water was displaced, and filled it with water.  When I lifted it, just a bit of water came out of it.  It was just enough, as it turns out, to make the combined weight of pan and water equal that of the displaced water.  When I let go of the pan, it stayed exactly in place.  The students were in awe, and I now have a demonstration to use for the rest of my career.  I thanked her for being confused because it helped me as a teacher.

Confusion isn't pleasant, but it is necessary to the learning process.  What I tell my students is that if they are never confused, we have never taught them anything.  While I generally try to avoid invoking the likes of Maslow and Piaget in this blog (and in my life, for that matter), this is one case where Piaget's theories are helpful.  It is a stage of learning he called "Equilibration."  The idea is this.  Most of the time you are walking around in a state of mental balance, or equilibrium.  When you encounter something new and challenging, it throws your brain out of balance, a state called mental disequilibrium.  This state (also known as confusion) is uncomfortable, so you either abandon the new activity or master it in order to relieve the discomfort be restoring equilibrium.  Since the new balance now contains a new skill, you have made the learning permanent. 

I know we live in a time when we try to keep everything unpleasant away from ourselves and our kids, but we should NOT object to anything that confuses them.  If we do, they will never know more than they do now.