Struggle Isn’t the Problem

If you teach math, you’ve seen it: a student reads a problem, picks an operation, and guesses. Or they stare at the page, unsure how to start. It’s tempting to jump in and help right away. But here’s something to consider: what if that stuck moment is exactly where the learning lives?

When we talk about productive struggle, we’re not talking about frustration or floundering. We’re talking about the kind of challenge that gets students thinking. That pushes them, a little past what feels comfortable. It matters not just for test scores, but for confidence, reasoning, and access to real problem-solving. Ellie Cowen puts it well: “Teaching that struggling is part of learning math encourages creativity and builds authentic engagement.”

What Productive Struggle Is and What It’s Not

Not all struggle is productive. Some of it’s just plain frustrating. That’s not what we want.

Productive struggle happens when students are wrestling with something they’re close to getting. It’s effortful, but doable, with the right support. The Science of Math Project warns, “Productive struggle does not deepen understanding… unless deliberately supported.” 

Just handing over a hard problem and hoping for grit isn’t enough. Students need structure. They need language. They need us to guide, not rescue.

Comprehension Before Computation

This is where the Structures of Equality work really comes in. When we give students space to make sense of a problem before we ask them to solve it, we’re creating room for productive struggle.

Think about it. When a student names the relationship in a problem, like comparing or composing equal groups, they’re not just hunting for a number. They’re reasoning and making meaning. They’re doing the real work of math.

In fact, naming the math main idea is often the hardest part of a problem, and the most powerful. It slows students down, asks them to think in context, and gives them language to explain their thinking.

Structure That Supports, Not Scripts

Here’s what it might look like in your room:

When a student gets stuck, instead of jumping to, “What operation do we use?” you ask:

• Who are the characters?
• What’s the action?
• What is this story describing? What’s the relationship?

You might take the numbers out of the story, use a Sorting Mat, or leave the question off. But the goal stays the same: get students to think about what’s happening in the story. That’s productive struggle.

Yes, it can be uncomfortable. But when kids push through, talk it out, and revise their thinking, that’s when you know it’s working.

Mindset, Misconceptions, and Test Pressure

Productive struggle is threaded through everything we write about at SoE. In the posts on growth mindset, I’ve talked about how effort alone isn’t the goal; thinking is. Productive struggle puts that into practice.

In the post on test anxiety, I shared how structured thinking calms panic. When students have practiced making sense of complex problems, they don’t freeze on test day. They’ve been here before. They know what to do first: understand the story.

We challenged the idea that struggle means failure. Productive struggle reframes it: struggle means you’re doing something meaningful.

The key takeaways?

• Effort isn’t enough. Students need structure to make their effort count.
• Struggle doesn’t mean failure. It means thinking is happening.
• Students don’t freeze on tests if they’ve been taught to make sense of problems first.

What Teachers Can Do

You don’t need a new curriculum to make space for productive struggle. You need:

• Time to pause before solving
• Questions that guide, not give away
• Tools and frameworks that support comprehension
• Language that affirms struggle as thinking

Try this: choose one story problem this week. Before students draw or solve, ask: “What’s the relationship happening here?” Let them wrestle with it. Give support if needed. But don’t take over.

Struggle, the kind that builds reasoning and not frustration, isn’t the problem. It’s the path.You don’t need to overhaul your practice. You just need to give students a little more space to think and trust that thinking will come.