"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. " --Steve Jobs, in Business Week interview 1998
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." --Leonardo Da Vinci
In her 1994 treatise (The Tao of Teaching) relating teaching principles to the ancient Chinese 道德经
Besides language, Nagel advocates parallel simplicity in the most important teaching actions. "Similarly, helping other individuals can be accomplished through the most simplistic actions, from sharing food to sharing thoughts."(ibid.) She then recounts the story of a teacher who helped a young student overcome a discouraging home environment and low literacy skills by giving him opportunities to blossom by contributing his drawing skills to enliven classroom textual materials. The finer details in her work with the student involved asking for a picture of a strawberry basket, or requiring a couple of additional written sentences to complete a thought, but all of these discrete instructions played smaller parts in the broader, simpler, initial teaching strategy of helping students develop naturally by paying attention to their interests and needs, and then providing a rich environment and encouragement. Before this formerly discouraged student could feel the relevance of each piece of academic guidance, he had to feel the simple, more encompassing message from the teacher: I understand your situation, and I believe you can be successful. The successes, small and large, flowed, after that initial main message, more naturally from the student and with less intervention from the teacher.
My statements here are obviously not very simple and concise. I suspect the short Leonardo quote best makes the point.
Besides language, Nagel advocates parallel simplicity in the most important teaching actions. "Similarly, helping other individuals can be accomplished through the most simplistic actions, from sharing food to sharing thoughts."(ibid.) She then recounts the story of a teacher who helped a young student overcome a discouraging home environment and low literacy skills by giving him opportunities to blossom by contributing his drawing skills to enliven classroom textual materials. The finer details in her work with the student involved asking for a picture of a strawberry basket, or requiring a couple of additional written sentences to complete a thought, but all of these discrete instructions played smaller parts in the broader, simpler, initial teaching strategy of helping students develop naturally by paying attention to their interests and needs, and then providing a rich environment and encouragement. Before this formerly discouraged student could feel the relevance of each piece of academic guidance, he had to feel the simple, more encompassing message from the teacher: I understand your situation, and I believe you can be successful. The successes, small and large, flowed, after that initial main message, more naturally from the student and with less intervention from the teacher.
My statements here are obviously not very simple and concise. I suspect the short Leonardo quote best makes the point.
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