Puzzling

I was in a conversation today with some colleagues about the importance of raising children’s levels of belief that they are good at learning. Studies have consistently shown that people rise to their level of belief in themselves – if you think you are good at learning something, you actually do learn it better – and vice versa.

Unfortunately poor children and children from ethic minorities are consistently told they are inferior learners, and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a difficult trend to reverse, but when children are given an opportunity to learn by doing things they already know they are good at -like playing computer games – there is real potential to level the playing field and give these kids better educational opportunities.

I am always astonished at how the mere knowledge that something is possible can change everything. Until Roger Bannister ran a four minute mile in May of 1954, many people believed it to be impossible. But then John Landy broke Bannister’s record a mere forty six days later.

I’ve seen this sort of thing operate in my own mind. For example, for many years I was completely incapable of finishing The New York Times crossword puzzle on Saturday. For those of you who don’t know, the Times puzzle increases in difficulty throughout each week – Monday is easy, Tuesday a little harder, and so on, with Saturday being the killer (the Sunday puzzle is very large, but it’s generally somewhat easier than Friday).

Each week I would start hopefully on another Saturday puzzle and then proceed to wrack my brains in frustration for an hour or so. At some point I would generally put down the paper – which was usually remarkably unblemished by answers – and go to the kitchen to make coffee. Then I’d circle back around warily, glare down at my fiendish newspaper nemesis, pick up my pen and look the whole thing all over again, scanning uselessly for something to dawn on me. Sometimes I’d doodle in the margins while waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes I’d even make more coffee. But none of it ever worked. Eventually, as the day wore on, I would always have to admit defeat.

But all this changed one day in March of 2002 – the day that The New Yorker came out with an article about the world of crossword puzzlers, and I finally got an inside glimpse into that fascinating collection of brilliant eccentrics and literate cranks. One datum in particular jumped out at me: one day in 2001 famed crossword puzzler Ellen Ripstein had managed to finish a Saturday puzzle in four minutes and forty six seconds flat.

Here I was not even able to finish the darned thing, and there were people out there who were doing it in under five minutes. The next Saturday, when the paper came, I vowed that I would stick with the puzzle until I finished it – and so I did. Then I finished it the following week, and then the week after that, and the week after that too.

In fact, in the six years since I read that New Yorker article I’ve never not finished a Saturday puzzle once I’ve started it. Sometimes it takes me a while – I don’t think I’ve ever done better than thirteen minutes, and it usually takes me about twice that, but I always finish.

All it took was to know it was possible. Go figure.