Learning Commons

Party people:

The good folks at Kodiak Cakes did it. They solved pancakes. Dark Chocolate Power Cakes Flapjack & Waffle mix: delicious, filling, just-add-water, beloved by both young picky eaters and their nutrition-minded parents. Can you even believe those macros?…

Thank you, Kodiak Cakes. Humanity now has everything needed to thrive in the domain of pancakes. Further solutions are not needed.

What if someone solved school? Imagine that someone wrote a perfect recipe, a clear set of instructions that was sufficient and necessary for thriving in academic courses.

What would happen to students?

Well, what happened when Kodiak solved pancakes?

• People benefited! Hordes of souls were buoyed by the chocolatey whole-grain goodness. Hordes of bodies were nourished by the well-balanced macros and the avoided excess sugar common in other pancakes. 

Similarly, let’s do try to solve school—let’s do try to name what techniques promote academic health. But,

• Due to human imperfection, humanity receives the perfect pancake imperfectly. My son still prefers to add syrup. I can’t eat Kodiak cakes because they contain wheat. My wife got bored of them.

If I care about my family’s enjoyment of food, or about our nutrition and health, Kodiak’s perfect pancakes turn out to be surprisingly unhelpful. The limiting factors are our individual circumstances and tastes, so progress must come from interfacing with those.

If we care about fostering academic health, progress mostly doesn’t come from perfecting advice around tracking assignments, making notes, and studying. There are absolutely better and worse ideas about those topics. But even a perfect set of ideas is often surprisingly unhelpful.

“Ask more clarifying questions.” It’s good advice…unless you give it to students who don’t yet know enough to yet to articulate what they’re missing.

“Study by quizzing yourself.” It’s good advice…unless you give it to a student whose notes aren’t helpful enough to study from.

“When you’ve mastered what’s assigned, stop studying and don’t add further practice problems.” Generally good advice…unless you give it to someone who’s not ready to hear it.

When we work for a person’s academic health (including our own), the study skills pancakes are important pancakes, but they’re the easy part. The real work is to connect the guidance with the person’s circumstances and tastes—what they know, how they feel, and what they care about.

It will be never boring, always meaningful. Let’s go!

Song recommendation: “Lickus Interruptus” by The Waybacks.