Today I am diving in on what exactly “Crazy Simple Education” means and what inspired us to name our company after the concepts and ideas discussed further below. Students can learn far more than we ever expected. To accomplish this for kindergarten students all the way through college, we have to replace the practices that we all inherited. These practices support and encourage the notion that causes kids to feel as though the longer they are in school the less and less they care about learning. We have almost 100% of our kindergarteners coming to school excited to learn, and every year fewer and fewer of them continue to carry that passion for learning.
There are three inherent aspects that are part of the design, these are not the fault of any student, teacher or administrator in our schools, it is a design problem. It is similar to a skyscraper experiencing instability during a hurricane. You wouldn’t blame the people who are in the building because it doesn’t seem to be very steady during the storm, it all comes back to a design flaw. That is what is going on in the schools causing this loss of enthusiasm for learning. And then diving in deeper, for elementary schools in particular, it is impacted further by instruction. With all levels of instruction at Crazy Simple Education we talk about the learning, with varied focuses as the grades progress. For example, at the elementary levels we zero in on the core set of reading, writing, and math, ensuring the education and teaching that takes place makes sense. These modalities make a significant impact on the lives of children of all ages.
A number of years ago, Steve Jobs got up in front of an audience and said “Apple is going to give you three new inventions. The first one is portable music, you can carry your music around with you wherever you go.” And then he said, “We have another invention that will make it easy for you to be connected to the internet, and a third invention that is going to allow you to keep your phone in your pocket.” Naturally people were buzzing with excitement waiting for three different products that Apple was planning to offer, and then he amplified the excitement by adding “And guess what, it is all in one product! It is the Apple iPhone, all three conveniences in one handheld device.” While certainly not as life changing as an iPhone, that is what we have worked to develop at Crazy Simple Education.
It is three in one:
We can replace all three of those with one process we have come to call “The LtoJ Process”. As students progress through the year their score tracking graphs are moving from the L shape curve, through the bell curve and arriving at the J curve.
So, what do we do in elementary school for instruction? We want all students to have the confidence that tells them they can learn to read. There are only three approaches to reading that we have used in the United States, we have used one that starts with sounds, we have another method that starts with words, and we have another approach used that starts with sentences. All three have been used and none by themselves are successful with 100% of kids. What I am suggesting, and what we do at Crazy Simple Education, is provide ways for kids to practice, this grows their confidence so they always know they can learn to read at a more accelerated pace. One of our favorite ways to practically implement this approach is by publishing wordless books for young authors. With these tools the children tell adults the words and story that goes with the pictures that are already in the book. They practice reading it and the most exciting thing is, they can read it, because it is their story and they are so proud of themselves. So, whatever approach that you are using to teach reading along the way, we want to keep the confidence high. Just like they have confidence that they can talk, we want that same confidence that they can read.
Writing should be ever present, it should be in elementary school, all day long, continually, regardless of the subject. We want writing to be their favorite subject. If students have ideas that they can express through talking, they can write them. We have the freedom to create a couple crazy simple things so that writing becomes their favorite subject in elementary school.
Equally important, mathematical instruction has to make sense! I love John Maxwell’s quote, “The longest distance between two points is a shortcut.” Math instruction overtime has been composed of a series of shortcuts. Right off the cuff we tell students here is the shortcut on how you get it done, but it doesn’t make any sense, cause they didn’t learn the comprehension behind the shortcut. We can reach success much faster by teaching them so it makes sense to them and then when they learn the concept, you will notice students will even “invent” the shortcut all on their own, because it makes sense to them.
So, don’t allow students to ever say, “I cannot read.”, once a student says that and the adult responds, “Oh, yes you can.”, the kid says “No, I can’t.” - the kid wins… No, don’t ever allow them to get to the place where they say they cannot read. Don’t let them ever say, “I hate writing.” It has to be a joyful experience, sharing with everybody how clever they were in their writing. And finally, math has to make sense, they need you to explain it. Division for example is easy to explain, division is really repeated subtraction - just like multiplication is repeated addition. These are easy simple explanations, but in many of the current education settings it is crazy. Crazy Simple Education, it is who we are and that is what we do.
Students can learn far more than we ever expected, if we get rid of the inherited habits that destroy their love of learning and we take reading, writing, and math and make them the most thrilling things that you could ever do. We can extend the passion and the excitement for learning far beyond their preschool years.
If the idea of Crazy Simple Education sounds like something you would like to dive deeper with, please reach out to our team to talk further. It is a no cost, 30 minute chat to talk and go over details of how we can support your team. It is crazy and simple and can be done in a Christian school, in a public school, in a charter school, any one of them. We have worked in all education settings and can tailor staff development to match your specific needs and requirements.
