The Death of Struggle: Why Instant Answers Are Killing Persistence
In 1994 in Southampton, I spent three days stuck on one line of code.
No DeepSeek. No ChatGPT. Just me, a computer in the university lab at Southampton, and a mistake I could not find. My supervisor would only say, “Look again.”
On the third evening, I found it. One semicolon was missing. I still remember the feeling — not frustration, but pride. I had not given up.
Last semester, a colleague at a university in Education told me a different story. His bright 23-year-old M.Phil student faced a similar error in his thesis code. He pasted it into an AI tool. The answer came in 2 seconds. He fixed it. Then he told my colleague, “Sir, can AI do the next chapter too?”
From 3 days to 2 seconds. Same error. What disappeared was not just time. It was persistence.
I have been teaching university students since the 1980s. Many of my colleagues who are still teaching in universities share this experience with me — they see a new pattern.
In our last blog, The Death of Boredom, we talked about the Bored Gap — where creativity lives. This blog is about its brother: The Hard Gap.
The Hard Gap is the uncomfortable space between a problem appearing and solving it. Persistence is built there. And AI, with all its good intentions, is closing it too fast.
If you only have 1 minute, read this:
Persistence is not built when a child gets the answer. It is built when they almost quit, but don’t. When AI gives every answer instantly, children lose the practice of staying with a hard problem. The fix is not to ban AI. It is to protect 5 minutes of struggle before AI is allowed to help.
Why Struggle Is Not a Problem. It Is the Training.
Dr. Shaheen Pasha taught me this. She was a teacher in a special school in England when we were in the UK, and later served as Professor and Head of the Department of Special Education at the University of Education, Lahore, where she taught BS Special Education students for many years.
For over 35 years she has used one rule: “Don’t steal the struggle.”
She means this: if you help too early, you steal the exact moment the brain learns to persist.
Research supports her wisdom. The concept of Productive Failure shows that attempting to solve a problem and even failing before receiving instruction can lead to deeper conceptual understanding than receiving instruction first [Kapur, 2008; Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012].
Similarly, the literature on Productive Struggle in mathematics education emphasizes that struggle is necessary for learning with understanding, as long as it is supported and the student is not left alone to become overwhelmed [Warshauer, 2015]
This is related to the idea of Desirable Difficulties — conditions that make learning feel harder in the short term but lead to stronger long-term retention and transfer [Bjork & Bjork, 2011].
When AI gives the first step instantly, the child gets the product but loses the process. And the process is where persistence and grit are built. Grit, defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, is a strong predictor of achievement [Duckworth et al., 2007]. Grit cannot be downloaded. It must be practiced.
Key takeaway: If AI always gives the first step, your child never learns to take the first step alone.
How We Accidentally Removed Struggle
Again, with love:
Homework: “I don’t get it” → AI explains the full answer → child copies.
University assignment: Stuck for 20 seconds → AI generates the full literature review.
Thesis writing: Error → AI fixes it, no need to read the error.
We think we are helping them be efficient. We are actually teaching them: “If it’s hard, get a machine to do it.”
Over months, this becomes a habit. The tolerance for frustration shrinks from minutes to seconds.
Try Tonight: The 5-Minute Struggle Rule
This is the sister of the Bored Jar from Blog 4. You don’t need to ban AI. Just change the order.
Step 1: The Pause
When your child says “I can’t do it” — don’t give the answer or the phone. Say: “Let’s do 5 minutes of brain wrestling first. I’ll sit with you.”
Step 2: The 3 Hints, Not the Answer
If they are truly stuck, use this script we use with our BS and M.Phil students:
- Hint 1 (After 2 mins): “What have you tried so far? Show me.”
- Hint 2 (After 3 mins): “What part is confusing? The beginning, middle, or end?”
- Hint 3 (After 5 mins): “Now, let’s ask AI for a HINT only, not the full answer. Type: ‘Give me a hint, not the answer.'”
Step 3: The Win Note
When they solve it — even partly alone — write it down: “On Aug 11, you stuck with fractions for 7 minutes and solved it.” Stick it on the fridge.
Persistence grows from remembered wins, not from easy wins.
A Final Thought From Our Home
During my PhD, I thought my supervisor was being unkind when he said “Look again.” Now I know he was protecting my Hard Gap. He knew that if he gave me the answer, I would finish faster but learn less.
Our children and our university students don’t need us to make everything easy. They need us to make them strong enough to handle hard things.
AI can be a wonderful tutor. But a tutor should not do the push-ups for you.
What About You?
When was the last time your child stuck with something hard for more than 5 minutes? What helped them stay?
Share your story in the comments. We read every one.
About Authors
Dr. Shaheen Pasha is a Professor of Special Education with over 35 years of teaching, research, and academic leadership experience. She served as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Special Education at the University of Education, Lahore. She earned her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Southampton, UK. She has published more than 35 research papers and co-authored two books. Her expertise lies in child development, cognitive growth, and special education.
Dr. M. Anwar-ur-Rehman Pasha (widely recognized in academic circles as Dr. M. A. Pasha) is a Professor of Computer Science with over 35 years of post-graduate teaching, research, and educational management experience. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, UK in 1996. His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, and Computational Thinking. He has served on different academic and administrative positions and has published two books and over 30 research articles.
References
Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A. Gernsbacher et al. (Eds.), Psychology and the real world (pp. 56-64).
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101.
Kapur, M. (2008). Productive failure. Cognition and Instruction, 26(3), 379–424.
Kapur, M., & Bielaczyc, K. (2012). Designing for productive failure. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21(1), 45–83.
Warshauer, H. K. (2015). Productive struggle in middle school mathematics classrooms. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 18, 375–400.