The Ikea furniture problem <\/p>\n
One thing I\u2019ve felt over the years doing projects with students is what I\u2019ve been calling the “Ikea furniture problem.” I know the feeling all too well — the initial excitement of opening the box, of looking at the directions, of lining up the plastic bags from 1-4 — quickly fades as you put a piece on backwards, as you over-tighten a bolt, as a washer rolls under the pile of cardboard, as you realize that you\u2019re on step ten of thirty-four. <\/p>\n
This is normal. When Kima calls McNulty to complain about putting a crib together<\/a>, there\u2019s a reason he responds by asking what kind of scotch she\u2019s using. (Definitely NSFW, start at 1:11)<\/p>\n This is project work. This is the frustration you\u2019ll feel when you\u2019re working your way through any process, whether it\u2019s a short paper for a college class, a home renovation project, or recording a new song. If you\u2019re not frustrated, there\u2019s probably little at stake. <\/p>\n For students, though, there\u2019s a different set of issues. It\u2019s school, right? Whatever work you\u2019ve done as a teacher to build the culture, there\u2019s a still sense that it\u2019s just school and when you get right down to it, who really cares. You may orient your projects outwards, you may have done as much as you can to ensure that it\u2019s an authentic project, you may have slowly scaffolded the project so that, with work, the right work, they can do it well. Even with all that, you\u2019re likely to run into difficulties as it just won\u2019t matter. As a kid said to me yesterday, I can <\/strong>do it, I just don\u2019t want<\/strong> to. <\/p>\n Two, this frustration is likely new to them. It\u2019s thirty years ago but I remember the feeling of battling with calculus problems at night for my eleventh grade math class. Each problem would take 20-30 minutes and there was a sense of rage and impossibility behind it. Sometimes the problems would open up in the morning, other times not so much. I wish someone had talked through this frustration with me at the time said something like, \u201cthe sooner you develop strategies to deal with this situation, the better off you\u2019ll be. \u201c For example, one thing I learned pretty quickly was that when people asked me what\u2019s the matter, simply saying everything doesn\u2019t work. Learning to say things like, \u201cI\u2019m uncomfortable because I don\u2019t really know anyone and they all seem to know each other and they all know what to do\u201d makes it that much easier. (To be clear, that’s not what I would have said, but it’s what I meant when I said things like “I hate all these people.”) <\/p>\n Not only is the frustration new to them, it\u2019s also, given some of the school situations they\u2019ve experienced, it\u2019s unexpected. If you\u2019ve spent your school years in rows, filling out worksheets and taking tests, receiving minimal feedback other than report cards that precede one\u2019s promotion to the next grade, you\u2019re unlikely to have an inner sense of how one overcomes the frustration any project will create. Instead, you\u2019ll have an idea that when the day comes to an end, the work will be over, and the frustration can be avoided. (Some students have an inkling that something is wrong with this situation.) Crappy schools certainly produce crappy outcomes but knowing that there\u2019s nothing at stake makes it even harder. <\/p>\n Getting to know this feeling, this lost at sea feeling, the \u201cscrew it, I\u2019m quitting feeling\u201d, is just another reason a full project based model offers something to education that\u2019s missing too much of the time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ikea furniture problem One thing I\u2019ve felt over the years doing projects with students is what I\u2019ve been calling the “Ikea furniture problem.” I know the feeling all too well — the initial excitement of opening the box, of looking at the directions, of lining up the plastic bags from 1-4 — quickly fades … Continue reading The Ikea Furniture Problem<\/span>