Less Is More

There were two columns in the Inquirer (May 25) that contained an opposite view that I recently wrote about on a blog. It is the consideration that less is more and we receive this truth throughout our lives.

Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of education and history at Penn, commented on his view that Harvard got it wrong regarding grade inflation. He said the real problem was that the courses did not have uniform rigor. His answer to this issue is to have the students read more and have more homework. That was his definition of rigor. I couldn’t disagree with him more. In fact, I would suggest that his point of view is what is ruining education today. Students aren’t motivated because their classes are not interesting or challenging. Class time is where the real learning should take place not in the world of homework.

In fact, students are excited in class when they are excited to problem solve and to discuss real world problems that relate to them. I will make a bold statement that I thought that I did it the right way to counter Zimmerman’s view. First, I told the class that they wouldn’t have a lot of traditional homework. I gave them short readings about the content we would be covering in class the next day. They were required to think about what we covered in class the next day and how it might relate to them. No busy work.  But what they did have to do were essays that applied the content of the course to problems.

I told them I would give them a significant part of their final exam. They would take everything that they learned in the course to answer the question “why do I do what I do?”

I likened the course to a gourmet restaurant where when you enter, they give you a menu which is what the course will do. You don’t choose everything on the menu, and you won’t choose everything covered in the course. The only person reading your answers will be me.  The more you can apply what has been covered in the course, the higher the grade you will receive. Don’t write it for me or a grade. Make it real! I have been around long enough to recognize authenticity vs. BS. A lot of their answers on the essays round up being on their college application essays.

They called the course full contact ethics because once you entered the course you couldn’t hide. Everybody including the shy ones had to contribute. A common comment was I didn’t know such and such thought that way. I thought I was the only one. I always gave my view last. They should be free to question my point of view again using material from the course. Nobody ever, not once, dozed off in class. Homework was to think about what we covered in class that day and come up with a comment that they should have said. Students chose the course as an elective, and the classes were always large. More important the class became part of dinner time conversation. If you missed the class and depended on homework you would be lost.

The other Penn person was a student, Maria Balhara, who was also a Chaplain intern at CHOP. She said what she learned was when you were with a patient less is more. There were times where she just would sit with the patient and their family. She had to get use to less is more after getting a dose of loads of homework at Penn where presence with the patient or family was what was most important. This was counter to her learning experience at the university as CHOP only deals with the most serious scenarios in their patients’ lives when nothing needs to be said and to be guided by the patient or family.

Less is more dates to the Greeks emphasizing the removal of excess elements to bring about clarity.

Bob Venturi, EA class of 1944, is one of the top architects in the world who ushered in a movement in architecture which was minimalist in design. If you go to Wikipedia and put in his name you will also see a picture of the chapel that he designed for our campus.

Less is more affected the fashion industry. It reached into clothing design as seen in the miniskirt.

It was Alfie Kohn, author and educator, argues against memorizing as education. He would say that the poorest teachers apply the most homework. Teachers should be evaluated based on what happens in class.

Then there is Trump and Hegseth. Somebody better tell these two bullies that “they don’t have the cards” to use Trump’s phrase. Research and my experience say bullies don’t know what to do when someone stands up to them. Less is more. Trump and Netanyahu got us into this Iran war of choice. Clearly America and Israel have a lot more resources. Trump attacked when he thought, as most bullies do, that Iran with less resources would wave the white flag in the first day of the military punch. But they didn’t plan on the fact that Iran controlled the waterway where 20 percent of goods were transported through it. It looked like Less to the coward Trump, and he discovered that the apparent less is more. He has no clue of how to disengage from a war that he and Netanyahu planned and neither did the Israeli government. They both look like fools in the eye of the world.

Less is more!

Mark 12:41-44 – The parable of the widow’s mite - Jesus notices that the wealthy were giving great sums to the Temple treasury while a woman gave two coins, the lesser amount but all that she had.

Matthew 13:31-32: - The parable of the Mustard Seed - It is a story that indicates how the Kingdom of God comes from small insignificant beginnings but grows into something inclusive and globally transformative.