Learned Helplessness

[u/ReesesNightmare]

[u/FLVoiceOfReason]

This video, or ones like it, are used in psychology class. They really help students understand how real “learned helplessness” is and how powerful it can be on us.

[u/ReesesNightmare → u/FLVoiceOfReason]

i was talking to an old teacher a few weeks ago and he was telling me how they arent allowed to do stuff like this anymore, after i brought up the "test" where you had to read the directions that just told you to write your name them only do questions 1, 5, 10, and 15 instead of every single one, to teach kids how to read directions.

parent claimed it was mean to expect your students to fail if they didnt follow directions

for lack of a better word, i was dumbstruck

[u/retrorefl3ctor → u/ReesesNightmare]

That’s a real shame because my third grade teacher did something like this with our class—basically, the directions said read all the questions before starting, and the final question was something like, don’t answer any of the questions, wait for the teacher to tell you to start. I was one of many kids in the room who jumped into answering before reading though fully, and I didn’t realize my mistake until I got to the last question. Afterward, my teacher did a great job of talking us through why we did that test and the importance of reading directions carefully and fully. It made a huge impression on me!

[u/frisbeemassage → u/retrorefl3ctor]

Were you one of my students? Lol I taught third grade a long time ago and did this exact same thing!

[u/retrorefl3ctor → u/frisbeemassage]

Either way, let me say thank you on behalf of all the students who you taught a valuable lesson! Classrooms are for more than just academics, they’re for instilling the foundations of critical thinking skills, and learning the importance of being able to stop and fully assess a task before jumping into it without taking the time to gather all the facts is really, really important. You did your students a real service!

[u/FilteredRiddle → u/retrorefl3ctor]

I remember my teacher doing this, though I don’t remember what grade. I was so mad when I got to the last question and saw I’d just done all of that work for nothing, because I didn’t follow the dang instructions. 😂

[u/WalmartGreder → u/retrorefl3ctor]

Ha, I remember doing that same test, except I was one of those kids that did read all the instructions.

I remember sitting there, not doing anything, while almost everyone around me was writing as quickly as they could. One of my friends had leaned over and asked, are you already done? I told him, read the last direction. He stopped, read all the way down, and then laughed and put his pencil down as well. It was really fun being called out by the teacher as one of the few that had followed directions.

[u/loonygecko → u/ReesesNightmare]

Ironically I think the danger is that for fear of learned helplessness, the pendulum has swung to trying to make sure kids ALWAYS succeed, even if you suck, you get a trophy and pats on the back. The end result is degredation in trying hard, I mean why try to do better if the outcome is the same? And there's also a heavily reduced ability to tolerate failure and criticism, because they've never experienced it, but in the real world, you WILL have to deal with those things.

IMO there is a balance were too much failure can lead to learned helplessness but letting them have zero failure ever is not a better option. In fact we've probably all experienced learned helpless and frustrated feelings of wanting to just give up because 'it's hopeless,' and part of growth and becoming stronger is to learn how to recover and battle back instead of rolling over and giving up.

This video induced learned helplessness in 5 minutes but it was also a learning experience, especially by the 'losing' side as they learned how much attitude alone can make you fail and how important a good attitude is in success. So by inducing learned helplessness, she was actually also teaching them how to not so easily succumb to future learned helplessness.

[u/ReesesNightmare → u/loonygecko]

100%

[u/khaldun106 → u/ReesesNightmare]

Oops I did this with my class for April fools. I must have missed the memo.

[u/FredFlintston3 → u/khaldun106]

You got it but didn’t read to the end!