Rush the Iceberg

I no longer want to be David fighting Goliath.

Rather, I want to be that little kid on the shore throwing starfish back into the water.

I am going to further explore the Japanese concept of Ma, or negative space this summer and how it relates to my classroom next year. Below is a quote from Wikipedia:

Ma is not something that is created by compositional elements; it is the thing that takes place in the imagination of the human who experiences these elements. Therefore ma can be defined as experiential place understood with emphasis on interval.

I feel that we often throw too much at our students. Too much homework; too much after school activities; too much technology; too much go go go….

The article I mention above discusses how Steve Jobs focuses on what to take OUT of his products as much as what to put in. Too often reduction has a negative connotation (denotation, that’s another thing!). However, think about sushi or the drumming of Ringo Star….

Credit: ???

HERE is an excellent article about Ma, Steve Jobs, and Apple. Below is quote from the article:

That ability to express by omission holds a central place in Jobs’s management philosophy. As he told Fortune magazine in 2008, he’s as proud of the things Apple hasn’t done as the things it has done. “The great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products,” he said. “We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.”   Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/28/apop012811.DTL&ao=all#ixzz1Q2sMVWFs

In what ways can we contribute to our students understanding and learning through omitting things?

Update: Special thanks to Jen Wagner for the eagle eye editing!