![Picture of Albert Einstein standing at a chalkboard](/uploads/8/7/4/0/87406048/editor/einstein.jpg?1485461824)
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
does “simple as possible” constrain to non-complex?
I think for too many years in education we have tried to make learning simpler than it should be. We spend many years perfecting curriculum to take each standard or idea down to its simplest, most granular skill or unit. We teach and reteach and assess each skill and unit to ensure that every student masters that piece of the whole. And this is a good thing -- to have a whole you need each part...like with our cookie -- a missing ingredient can drastically change the outcome. But with such a focus on teaching the individual skills and ideas, the danger is that that we lose sight of the big picture, of recognizing and addressing what is the desired whole of the learning outcome. | For example, the traditional focus of math education has been on the granular levels of solving each step of a math problem. Teachers (and curriculum makers/textbook authors) make the problems easier for students to tackle and learn by breaking down the process into steps and giving repeated practice on the steps -- think worksheets. The problem with this approach is that it has largely produced students (and adults) who can do calculations, but struggle to set up problems from narrative descriptions and more importantly, cannot identify when they are using or need to use mathematical thinking as they interact with the world around them. |
Thankfully, the philosophy on teaching math is starting to change -- see more on the work of Jo Boaler.
Learning cannot be simple. It must be complex and challenging. To incorporate new ideas, to learn new patterns of thinking...to grow...is innately laborious. We definitely should not make the process more difficult and we should always remove every single barrier that can stand in the way. But we really can’t make learning easy. When we try to, it cheapens the experience of learning from something that can produce thinking to something that produces assimilation, compliance, acceptance ... memorization and regurgitation.
Thinking, at least the kind that students will need to be successful in the future they will face, cannot be non-complex. Therefore, we must strive to make education as simple as possible, but never simpler.