Post 7

"But the path to simplicity is littered with complexities. And I suspect that it is hard to figure out how to simplify our lives if we haven't cluttered them in the first place. Sure, we teachers clutter up our classrooms with too much claptrap. The fribble is often alluring at first, and it is hard to recognize that the more gadgets we rely on, the poorer we are - at home as well as at school." (119)

This passage is really good for two reasons, the first is the point Ohanion states that, "it is hard to figure out how to simplify our lives if we haven't cluttered them in the first place." This is an important point because it explains that we have to have cluttered lives to be able to simplify them. As a teacher, you have to try many methods, work out which works best in each situation and then simplify to just the techniques that work. But the important part is to try many ways and clutter to begin with, then to simplify once you know what works for each person.

The second reason it is a good passage is when she states, "it is hard to recognize that the more gadgets we rely on, the poorer we are." This is especially important in this day and age of science and technology, where everyone strives for more technological advances and uses technology for everything. At most schools the goal is to integrate technology into the classroom and use it as much as possible. In fact it seems that many believe that technology in the classroom is the key to successful learning. Subsequently, people are relying more and more on gadgets, which is reducing the amount of human interaction in the classroom. This is making our education more poor, although we think otherwise. Whilst some technology can be good it is important to have mainly human interaction whilst in the classroom, or else we lose a huge aspect of our learning. In school we learn subjects and discover many academic things, but we also learn how to interact with others, how to be polite and courteous and many others. In is this second aspect of learning that we lose when we over use technology, and this is a huge problem in a child's future. Without the ability to communicate successfully and be sociable a person loses many opportunities and it can create many problems in all aspects of their lives: relationships, work, family, etc.