Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Quote-A-Day: Day 8

Great operate according 2 the : neither too hot nor too cold, nor too big nor too small.

The Goldilocks Principle has a lot of corollaries re: education.  Extremes in the world of teaching and learning are often fraught with difficulties; where possible, better to follow the morale of the Tortoise and the Hare. . .slow and steady wins the race.

When generating goals, we must keep in mind that those that are too extreme (or on the flip side, too "boring") simply won't work.  They'll either be useless (due to their simplicity or lack of challenge), impossible to accomplish (if they are too hard or convoluted), or ignored (if they are particularly dicey for various stakeholders).

To turn a goal into a truly great one, there must be some amount of challenge, some amount of risk, and a clear vision of what the goal will accomplish.  Only these goals, once met, will provide the requisite energy to propel a community to (and through) the next challenge.

While fairy tales are often simply just that, they go a long way to painting a picture of what works and what doesn't in education, and more generally, in life.

No comments:

Post a Comment