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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you know anything about child development, it is when a child is challenged that real learning occurs.

Vygotsky calls it the Zone of Proximal Development - that space between what a child can do independently and what a child can do with assistance.  This is the area where challenge should occur.

Piaget has pointed out that children go through stages of development and in essence, learning occurs during periods of disequilibrium.

So, for children to learn, they need challenges.  However, this does not mean that EVERYTHING must be a challenge.  [/quote]

Vygotsky and Piaget both say that children learn best when they are engaged in activities that are challenging to them.  But neither says that the challenge has to come from the teachers.

People here talk about "challenge" as something that adults provide to children, rather than as something that children do for themselves if you prepare the environment and step back.  In fact, when public schools attempt to do that, through structures like independent reading or writer's workshop, people complain because they want their kids pushed through structures like spelling lists and reading groups that remove the responsibility for challenge from students and place it on adults.  These things essentially teach kids to be passive learners, reducing the likelihood that they'll seek out challenge in the future.  There's nothing in Vygotsky or Piaget that supports that thinking.[/quote]

When I say I want my child challenged, I don't mean it just in terms of reading level or math complexity.  It means I want her to be asked to stretch herself just a little bit beyond what she can do now, and then a little bit more, etc.  It doesn't mean I want her pushed to read "harder" books, it means I want her to be pushed to read more critically, to think about what she read, be able to discuss it, relate it to something else, etc.  It means that when she's mastered one thing, I want her to be both allowed and encouraged to try something new, something a little bit harder, a little bit different.  In some ways, worksheets and books written purely to be at a certain reading level are antithetical to what I mean by a challenge--it doesn't just mean constantly giving a kid "harder" assignments.  It means giving kids the opportunities to stretch themselves, to think in new ways, to think critically, to take ownership of a more complicated project.  It means recognizing that space where a kid has the ability to succeed, but that success will require effort rather than coming too easily, and encouraging the kid to try.  Worksheets and leveled readers are possibly the worst way to do this.  Questioning, reasoning, critiquing, predicting, researching, experimenting, observing--these are the skills I want my kid to develop, and the only way they develop is if kids are asked to go a little outside of their comfort zone, but not punished or shamed when they fail along the way.    [/quote]

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