Keep it simple, stupid.
KISS
It is a philosophy often suggested for design and communication, stating that things tend to work best when they are kept simple, avoiding unnecessary complication.
It is common sense.
I was reading a brief article about the suggestions from a working group at the ministry of education, dating that schools should get back to basics and focus attention on reading, writing, and arithmetic.
About bloody time!
The scope creep of education systems has been immense in recent decades, and while I do think they should cover some wider topics, far too much time and resources are spent on areas that parents should be taking care of anyway. And far, far too much on all the inclusion and diversity conversation.
Inclusion is easy, stop making up exclusionary labelling and instead treat everyone fairly and humanely.
Done.
Back to school education. There are far too many layers of complexity and far too much focus on making learning fun. Learning isn't meant to be fun, especially if looking to be very good at something.
Taraz is crazy?
Maybe.
But I call bullshit on the having fun learning speeds up the process. I expect that this is only true in the early stages of learning when improvement happens fast and quote easily. But getting good at something comes with the law of diminishing returns, meaning that increasing effort is needed for decreasing gain. Being great at something requires massive effort for tiny amounts of improvement.
It is not fun.
It is repetitive, boring, painful. It doesn't come with dopamine kicks with every move. OT doesn't come with any reward most of the time. The changes happen so slowly, they are barely noticeable. And this is what it takes to be great.
School doesn't reach the process of improvement.
I stead of teaching people how to learn, they have doubled down on what to learn. This means that as more learning is required, they have to pack larger amounts in, whilst also dealing with all of the problem learners in the classrooms. It just doesn't work.
Instead, they should be simplifying the curriculum and taking all they know about learning and teach how to learn while drilling the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Build the foundation strong and only then start widening the topics. Get kids practical experience with the process of becoming great and support them to excel at the basics. Help them be great at them. Once they are comfortable with real leaf in, they can branch out and learn what they want at a much faster rate abd depth than a school can provide.
Crawl before walk.
Shortcutting learning to get quick results doesn't have positive long-term effects, as we are witnessing now. It is like we have forgotten the tortoise and the hard story, and how slow ad steady wind the race.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
Get the basics right and learning becomes smooth, and then fast. Abd I would suggest that simplifying the classroom curriculum would result in providing a more stable environment for the kids who are having difficulties and free up resources to better help them anyway.
Simplification of systems should be the goal of all designers, because it leads to more reliable, robust outcomes. It doesn't matter if it is a gadget, an education or tax system, or social communities - they work better when they are simple. And no, it doesn't necessarily leave people excluded, because it can still be supplemented as required. But the supplements don't need to be applied to all, only to those who need.
Education systems are falling for many reasons, but a big one is that they seem to have made n assumption that basics aren't required. They are all that is required. Because just like a dance, once you know the basics, you can start building personal flair.
Anyway. I wrote this in bed on my phone, so it is likely packed with typos.
I am okay with that.
Taraz
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