This week, one of my students told me that the text I’d sent him to read was a little harder than expected. It left him feeling frustrated.
I completely understand. And I’ll admit it. That one was on me.
I remember very clearly that the same thing happened to me as a student, and two moments in particular have stayed with me.
The first was at secondary school, when we had to translate a very complex passage from Latin. About a battle between the Roman consul Gaius Marius and various barbarian peoples. Difficult context, difficult syntax, an awful afternoon.
The second was at university, in my second year of Polish, when I came face to face with the poetry of a Baroque period author. Beautiful, indeed, but extraordinarily complex, with rich, archaic vocabulary and layers of references I had no way of unpacking.
For me, as a student then, and as a teacher now, difficulty has real value. Raising the bar a little each time is the right way to learn, to feel challenged, to stay motivated. Doing things that are too easy is simply boring.
Almost always, the problem isn’t the student. It’s the material I chose. And that’s exactly what happened this week.
It isn’t always easy to find the right content for each person’s level. Sometimes the bar is set a little too high. And when that happens, it’s not good enough.
We can improve Italian through small steps because small steps are what keep the pleasure alive.
And studying as an adult, in your own free time, simply can’t work without pleasure.
Has a text or exercise ever left you feeling frustrated? Tell me about it. It helps me calibrate better.