Failure and Flow: Review of "I left My Homework in the Hamptons"

(Part 2 of 3)

One of my main disappointments in reading I left My Homework in the Hamptons is that Grossberg doesn’t spend much time talking about the kind of work she does with students. I was hoping she might explain more about her particular methodologies, what I would call her praxis. After all, she has been in demand in New York City, with a long list of clients, so what does she do that actually works?

After making repeated disclaimers that she doesn’t write her students’ essays, she offers a small window into her methods: she begins her sessions with a two-minute warm-up, then tries to find the right metaphor to activate the student. Beyond that, it isn’t clear how, precisely, she’s helping. Maybe the average reader doesn’t share my interest in her pedagogy, but I wished she had more fully acknowledged the intricacies of her work. On two occasions, however, she lightly touches on important ideas that require some expansion.

One of Grossberg’s strongest points centers on the way the so-called “failure” doctrine, developed by psychologist Carol Dweck in connection with her work promoting a “growth mindset” over a “fixed mindset,” has been distorted into a pat educational mantra. As the theory goes, kids develop a “fixed mindset” when they are closed off to challenges and afraid of failing. By promoting failure (or at least by trying to normalize it), educators hope to reward students for their effort, and theoretically help them develop a mindset that allows them to see themselves as changing—and changeable—in positive ways.

The trouble, according to Grossberg, is the faddish way that some parents apply the terminology: insisting that their children have a growth mindset, as if it were permanently fixed, which even Dweck has said is not possible. Rather, they, like everyone else, alternate between the two. Grossberg concludes, “The truth is that it’s hard to understand the process by which kids learn, and it can look like nothing is changing when serious, deep changes are going on. It’s not a linear process, and it’s of course not without setbacks and reversals” (99). I couldn’t agree more.

Expanding on Grossberg, I would add that the way the slogan “it’s ok to fail” gets tossed around either sends the message that kids need not put in the effort—because “Why bother? Failure is okay. I’m off the hook.”—or else it ignores how painful it is for the student to feel failure every day without any sense of comfort or glimmer of potential success.

Some students feel they’ve failed whenever they get a B. Some students become demoralized when they experience particular subject matter that is so difficult, or when particular teachers have such high standards that it’s impossible to meet those lofty expectations. (Grossberg calls out teachers who fail to provide important context regarding works of literature or historical periods because they expect the kids already to know it, and such dereliction is simply unfair.) Teachers may justify their unrealistic expectations with “it’s ok to fail,” but that attitude has led to ever-higher standards for high schoolers that go far beyond what used to be deemed appropriate. Students are now expected to succeed at everything—Honors Math, and English, and the SAT, and squash, and the violin, and multiple languages, and AP Exams. They understandably end up feeling deficient when one or two subjects slip through the cracks. But that’s not failure. That’s simply being human.

Flipping “it’s ok to fail” into “these are the steps to success” lies at the core of tutoring, in which students couple effort to achievement in productive and personal ways. Because some classroom teachers now set such high standards, it frequently falls to learning specialists and tutors to help calibrate the machinery of learning so that it can lead to a mindset that can “grow.”

Grossberg also mentions author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow,” which he defines as “the psychology of engagement with everyday life.” In Grossberg’s paraphrasing, flow refers to “states of productive absorption in one’s work… at peace and so absorbed… they don’t notice time passing” (47). She laments that experiences of “flow” have been stolen from the American childhood because of elevated expectations and overscheduling. But her presentation of flow as a good trip on magic mushrooms is not an adequate description of the full phenomenon Csikszentmihalyi illuminated.

I was fascinated with Csikszentmihalyi’s work when I encountered it after college. I think Grossberg not only mischaracterizes it, but also misses an opportunity to explain some of the key ways that “flow” relates to academic performance. For one thing, flow is a deeply personal phenomenon that reflects the way an individual’s internal resources (physical, emotional, intellectual) match external challenges. But flow doesn’t just happen spontaneously. It requires an initial application of energy and is only maintained by a careful calibration between skill/ability and challenge. Too much challenge with too little skill results in anxiety. Too little challenge with too little skill results in apathy. Flow is the sweet spot at which a high degree of challenge meets a high level of skill.[1] But it is not a permanent state. Going in and out of flow is normal and, more to the point, if skills improve faster than the challenge at hand—or, conversely, if the challenge outpaces the skills—then the elusive flow will be lost until there is recalibration (skills improve to meet challenge or the level of challenge decreases). It’s also important to note that flow is not synonymous with mastery; one can find flow doing anything, not just the most difficult academic challenges. 

For Grossberg’s private-school students, I believe the reason why they never enter a flow state is because the challenges they face in so many subjects and extracurriculars overwhelm their emerging skills. They can never achieve that careful balance, leading many to disengage; they don’t apply the initial energy because they have no reason to believe they will ever achieve what they are expected to—and instead of their work being personally fulfilling and enjoyable, it only leads to more work. When demanding teachers expect a sophistication and mastery that students are not yet capable of, students tip into persistent anxiety. Similarly, students who think only about grades (end results), and not about engagement with a particular topic (process), deny themselves the ability to enter the flow state because they are not finding something in the work that grabs and absorbs them. But because taking time to explore a tangential curiosity might cost the student a top grade, they become trained to complete assignments and not to follow and develop internal interests.

This is precisely where Grossberg’s praxis as a tutor would have been helpful in explaining what she does to guide her students toward absorptive engagement. What skills is she helping students to develop to meet those lofty expectations? How is she helping them to understand failure, to find flow, and to pursue a “growth mindset”? She never says.

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[1] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, New York, BasicBooks 1997.