Op-Ed: Twitter condemns dad who let daughter struggle to open a can. What should he have done?

When musician John Roderick’s 9-year-old daughter asked him how to use a can opener, he saw it as a teaching moment. But this reaction shows overconfidence in the answer to a difficult question, one that’s especially relevant as parents assist with remote schooling: When kids ask for help, what’s the right mix of support and challenge? But the most intriguing prediction — that solving problems makes learning deeper — isn’t true. More surprising, those who did learn via their own exploration didn’t show especially deep learning, as measured by their ability to apply this knowledge to new problems. The difficulty of creating “just right” hints may explain why, even though teachers say kids learn best by solving problems, in classrooms teachers often choose to explain.