Matt May is the author of “In Pursuit of Elegance; Why the Best Ideas have Something Missing”. He also authors a blog by the same name. As Matt puts it, “…the full power of elegance is achieved when the maximum impact is exacted with the minimum input.” Matt steps further into elegance using 4 words…Symmetry, Seduction, Subtraction and Sustainability. I believe his approach has deep implications for education. I recently asked Matt to weigh in.
Q. In general, how well do you believe the American school system fosters elegant thinking?
A. I’m not sure I know enough to answer that question thoroughly. But I am a customer, having been through the system myself through the graduate level, and with three children who are products of the American public school system. In general, our schools are mostly about the acquisition of knowledge, not the creation of new knowledge. In other words, it’s all about getting the right answer to a predetermined question, or meeting a completion standard. It’s not about learning how to deepen what we’re born with, by which I mean a natural curiosity, and to focus more on asking the right questions. Based on what I’ve experienced in to the modern business organization, the American school system has missed the boat on creative thinking skills in general, in favor of knowledge acquisition skills. More homework, more assignments, more rote.
Q. What do you mean by symmetry, and how might it apply to education?
A. Most people think about symmetry in terms of a mirror reflection, which is a visual left-right balance. But that’s just one example of a kind of symmetry, of which there are many. In fact, most of the natural world is symmetrical, characterized by infinitely repeating patterns. So the best way to think about symmetry is the way Hermann Weyl defined it in his 1952 book, Symmetry: “A thing is symmetrical if there is something you can do it so that after you have finished doing it, it looks the same as before.” Symmetry is about dynamic properties of ordering, organizing, and operating. And the real lesson of symmetry is this: a few simple, non-negotiable rules or agreements are all that are needed in order to create a beautiful, self-organized behavior.
Most U.S. schools have pages, if not complete handbooks, of rules and regulations — compliance issues along with consequences. Compare that, say, to the approach taken in Finland. Finnish teens rank among the smartest on the planet, placing first in science and near the top in math and reading on the international test administered to nearly half a million students around the world by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) which is funded by 30 countries. The U.S. Is barely middle of the pack. Guess what the only rules are in Finnish schools? No hats, no iPods, no cell phones. There are no tardy bells. There's no Internet filter in the school library. You can kick off our shoes in class and walk around in socks. You might even find a math student napping during class, undisturbed by the fully aware teacher. You can pick out your own lunch,
which, contrary to the cliché, is free.
Q. In your book, you talk about how ideas need to be seductive in order to be elegant. How might that apply to education?
A. Seduction is about information overload. Limiting information creates engagement and curiosity, which I’ve said I think is missing in the school system. In the Finnish schools, there’s little standardized testing. You don't start school until you're 7. You get a half hour of homework at most...in high school. Teachers are not chained to scripted curricula; rather, they are free to customize to the needs and talents of each individual student, and as they see fit to meet national standards. That alone makes Finnish teachers more creative and innovative, more like educational entrepreneurs. They are effectively identifying areas of natural interest and proclivity in children, making them aware of knowledge gaps in their respective areas of interest, and providing the path to deepen that that learning. Rather than pushing information onto the kids, they are creating a “pull’ by increasing curiosity.
Q. Do you believe subtraction can and/or should be applied to education? After all, the world is a complex place. Wouldn’t subtraction short-change the students?
A. Subtraction means refraining from adding non value-adding things, and removing what doesn’t matter to leave room for more of what does. Looked at that way, there are a lot extraneous things, just from a teaching standpoint, that can be subtracted. I read not too long ago about a study that examined teacher activity, versus student learning time. Out of a typical 6 hour classroom time period, only about 35% was spent in productive learning. The rest was spent performing incidental work enabling that learning time: prep time, admin time, explaining assignments, handing things out, etc.
Q. Given our large dropout rate, how do you think American students could be better motivated? Do you have an example you could share?
A. High school dropout rate in Finland is about 4%. In the United States: 25%. So you’re right. And I do think we miss the boat by focusing on extrinsic motivation, rather than intrinsic. By that I mean we reward the wrong things in the wrong way. And that touches on the concept of sustainability. One of my favorite parables is the story of an old woman who lived alone on a street where boys played noisily every afternoon. One day, the din became too much, and she called the boys into her house. She told them she liked to listen to them play, but her hearing was failing and she could no longer hear their games. She asked them to come around each day and play noisily in front of her house. If they did, she would give them each a quarter. The youngsters raced back the following day, and they made a tremendous racket playing happily in front of the house. The old woman paid and asked them to
return the next day. Again they played and made noise, and again she paid them for it. But this time she gave each boy only 20 cents, explaining that she was running out of money. On the following day, they got only 15 cents each. Furthermore, the old woman told them she would have to reduce the fee to a nickel on the fourth day. The boys then became angry and said they would not be back. It was not worth the effort, they said, to play for only a nickel a day. Sound familiar? The old woman’s scheme effectively stole from the boys the very thing they loved most to do, what they were in fact doing for free.
The moral of the story is pretty clear. If we’re not careful, we can replace a natural motivation with a synthetic one. We can rob creative power from people by attaching a financial reward to ideas.
Teachers are notorious for the practice. They want students to read more books, so they reward the completion of books. Maybe with a homework exemption, or extra credit. Or even vouchers to the local Taco Bell. So the quick and easy books get read. The superficial books get read. Even the good readers, the ones who love to read, get swept up in the program. They stop reading the classics, turning to the quick reads to score points. Then the program is discontinued, because it simply can’t be sustained from a cost perspective. Guess what? Everyone stops reading. Even the best readers lose their love of books.
Here’s the end result: 40% of high school graduates never read a book again.
Q. It seems to me that the American school system is focused too much on information rather than creative uses of information. Do you agree, and where do you believe creativity should fit in to American schools?
A. Yes. It should be front and center, because applied creativity, aka innovation, is what we need now and in the future. Quick story: 19-year old Finnish senior Elina Lamponen had to repeat the year she spent in the U.S. at Colon High School in Colon, Michigan, when she returned home. She discovered that while Colon had strict rules, the students were disconnected and ambivalent about school. All the tests were multiple choice, versus essay as they are in Finland. Little in the way of creative thinking, or writing.
Q. Finally, could you sum up how your ideas fit into our educational system?
A. They don’t. I think we need an entirely new system.
Thank you, Matt! I refer to Matt's work frequently in this blog.
