Tell them that struggle is good.

We live in a culture that works hard to reduce discomfort. That instinct is human. And it made its way into schools the same way it made its way everywhere else. Quietly. With good intentions. Over a long time.

As a response to discomfort, educators broke hard things into smaller pieces. We designed ways around every imaginable roadblock our students might face and smoothed the path. We wanted kids to succeed, and quietly, the tools went from the kids' hands to the teachers’.

These practices aren't wrong. But somewhere in there, we took something valuable away from kids without meaning to.

Then the research arrived.

We learned that ability is not fixed. That working through hard things actually changes the brain. That the discomfort kids feel when they are stuck is not a signal to rescue them. Carol Dweck called it “Growth Mindset”. Robert Bjork calls it “Desirable Difficulties”.

Educators embrace these ideas. Growth Mindset showed up in professional development and school improvement plans. “YET” emblazoned posters in classrooms.

But knowing the research and understanding how to apply it are two different things. 

Teachers are already doing a million things. A student in crisis, a behavior to manage, a standard to cover, a parent to call back. In that context, a mindset shift feels like a soft add-on. Something to get to when things settled down. It doesn't feel urgent.

Here’s why I focus so much on the mindset shift to student agency. It helps students solve the very problems that feel urgent. A student who understands that frustration is part of learning is less likely to need the calm corner in the first place. The mindset work is not soft. It’s foundational. 

We just never had a clear way to make that case, or a practical way to put it in front of students directly.

So the research stayed in the background – informing our decision making and planning – instead of our conversations. We used it to shape how we designed lessons, how we scaffolded, how we intervened. But students were still moving through hard things every day with no framework for understanding what was happening to them as they tried to learn. Nobody told them the discomfort was part of the process. Nobody named it as a sign of learning rather than a sign of failure. So they continued to understand it the only way they knew how: something is wrong, and someone should fix it.

We redesigned the experience. Kids haven’t changed.

What if we just told them?

Not softened it. Not cushioned it. Just told them: your brain is building new connections right now, and that process is uncomfortable, and that discomfort is not a signal that something is wrong. It is a signal that something is right. Learning is happening.

I do this directly with my students. Before I send them into something difficult, I tell them, “You are about to become uncomfortable, and that is okay.” Then I let them work. After a while I stop and ask how they are feeling. I hear,  “Frustrated.””Confused.” I reply, ”Yes! Your brain is doing exactly what it is supposed to right now.”

When I say it enough times, something shifts in them. They begin to expect the discomfort. They name it before I do. They stop treating it as a reason to stop.

This is not a small thing. These are learners in and out of the classroom. What they internalize here goes with them.

But the conversation is not the whole answer. Shifting how students understand and own their learning is bigger than any single exchange. It involves putting tools in their hands, giving them language to talk about how they learn, and teaching them to use the tools and language to navigate their learning journey, rather than be passengers admiring the scenery. The conversation can be a shift you make. Today.