Keeping it Simple, Making it Work

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It may be one of my most core of core convictions that we make education so complicated that it disappears in our schools and often in our homes. Among the many reasons for this are the unnatural and harmful modes of assessment that we apply, which undercut the practices that make learning possible (such as a close reading instead of a series of cursory introductions) and the disciplines that make us useful and satisfied with our accomplishments (such as graceful handwriting).

In other words, losing the simplicity at the heart of education, we lose the education built on that simplicity.

You can imagine, then, how pleased I was to find this elegant little post on teaching Aesop’s Fables at table and how simply it was done – and how effective. I only wish I had understood this when my children were younger.