The Complexity of Simplicity by Ashley Lasko

In the first few years of my education we’d have composition notebooks we used as a journal. We were always told to write about our weekend, what we did, who accompanied us, and if we had fun. Every Monday morning we’d sit in our assigned, elementary chairs and describe whatever we wished. We’d hold our pencils in the most impractical manner, misspell every word over three letters, and used choppy, three word sentences. I don’t remember much from these journals, except that we were constantly told to keep writing. If we stopped before the five minutes allotted to writing were used up, we were doing something wrong. If you couldn’t think what to write about, than just write the same letter over and over again. This was obviously a method to keep a student from writing two words than quitting, but it had a different effect on me. I remember hearing this, becoming scared stiff of disobeying the teacher, and writing whatever I could think of. I started to repeat myself and add unnecessary details to write something of substance.

This placed complexity over simplicity. I began to focus on writing something on appropriate length as oppose to something of appropriate context. As I started middle school teachers began to use the phrase “quality over quantity”. Teachers were trying to steer us away from writing for length as opposed to a point, but this was a sudden and ineffective change. It was difficult to change my focus of writing so abruptly, and I continued to write much more than I needed to in a paragraph or an essay. As a high schooler, I have improved my writing. I generally know when I have written enough and avoid repeating myself. However, I still feel more confident handing paragraphs as opposed to a few sentences.

Of course, there’s something to be said about the importance of complexity. Including every fact you learned in a lecture on the unit test can ensure a good grade. Adding details to a painting or drawing can help it appear complex and realistic. Writing vivid and intricate descriptions of scenery can help a reader stay interested in your story. However, simplicity can keep answers short and to the point, speeding you through a test. Fewer details in a drawing can provide a challenge to express an idea and give the piece its own style. Withholding information in a novel can add mystery and let the reader create their own characters in the story.

Both simplicity and complexity are important and are best in balance of one another. However, much more stress is placed on how complex, intricate, and detailed something can become, rather than the potential of it when all its excess is stripped away. When comparing complexity and simplicity, I used school, painting, and writing as examples. However, it’s not often these examples (with the exception of art, as minimalism is dedicated to simplicity) are simple as they can be. Rather, I feel people tend to make things as convoluted as possible, cramming details into whatever they can.

As a society, we focus on what we can add to something, or how we can increase the complexity of it. We ask ourselves what we can add to our habits, food, and clothing. This limits us. Taking away extra details does not make something less, but simpler. We do not need to add extravagant designs to every shirt we wear, we don’t need to add every spice in the book to make appetizing foods, nor do we need every minute of our lives dedicated to something. The simplicity of a t-shirt and sweatpants, the basic flavor of buttered bread, and the potential of free time can be just as impactful and important.

Whether writing an essay, deciding what to eat, or planning what to do, recognize that the simple is answer is not a bad one, but simply an uncomplicated one.

Similar Studies Can Equal Captivating Classes: By Ashley Lasko

Every student tends to have one or two classes they excel in and enjoy as well as one or two classes they tend to resent. This generally follows the rule of either a math and science student or a history and english student, but there are obviously exceptions. Loving both science and math, I am not among those exceptions. My affinity towards science and math does also mean I’ve never enjoyed english or history as much. (A bit ironic to write on an english blog). Incidentally, my blog discusses how the addition of science has elevated my experience in my english class. However, I’d just like to say that before Frankenstein both my english and history classes were amazing. I’d also like to add that I know both classes will stay amazing after. I have some really experienced and dedicated teachers this year. While I may never truly enjoy english or history as much as I enjoy math and science, it’s truly the effort the teachers have put into each day that keep the subjects both interesting and intriguing.

In our english class we recently began to read Frankenstein, a book written by Mary Shelley that details the story Frankenstein, a scientist. We have not read far into the book, however it’s clear Frankenstein has components of science despite being a book studied in english. Overlapping subjects is a rarity in most classes, especially before high school. While sciences, such as chemistry and biology, tend to go hand in hand, history was usually just a history class and math was usually just a math class. Teachers often never tried to incorporate other subjects into their classes on a large scale, with a few exceptions.

This is why, especially due to my affinity towards science, reading Frankenstein sparked my interest more than that other books we read this year. Reading a book for english while being able to apply interesting parts of science made the book easy to understand and more intriguing. This is partly since we’re focusing on older, classic books in english this year, so the writing itself is hard to understand. The fact that these books were written long ago also means they reflect a culture we don’t have experience with. The component of science in Frankenstein helps the book become more relatable and therefore more understandable. By making a book understandable it is easier to apply and analyze in class.

As I mentioned in my first paragraph, not everyone is going to love the sciences, and those people will likely will not have the different experience I will when reading Frankenstein. Even so, I think this combination of both english and science make something really clear. Integrating components of other subjects into an other one is a possible way to keep students learning. Yes, this maybe a bit of a personal approach to engaging students, but it's well known every student learns a little differently. I also know, especially on certain topics, integrating other subjects could be difficult if not impossible. I don’t have any experience teaching and don’t want imply I know what’s best, I simply hope I brought attention to the walls dividing subjects and the potential lack of need for them.

Just How Lucky We Are by Carlie Wilson

It’s Christmas time. A season of holiday lights, food, Santa Claus, snow, music, and of course, the presents. When I was younger, Christmas was my favorite time of the year, probably because I knew that every year I would be waking up to a pile of gifts under the tree with everything that I wanted and a delicious meal was waiting for me at my grandmother’s house.

When I moved to South Africa in fifth grade I quickly learned that Christmas is not all that it is cut out to be. No Christmas lights on houses, carols on the radio and in the store were rare, and Santa Claus was non-existent. In seventh grade I was given the opportunity to volunteer at a local elementary school once a month. On our visits there, we would simply read them books and sometimes we even played games with them. On our trip in December we were all asked to bring a gift and a book for our book buddies. I decided to buy my book buddy a barbie doll and some children's reading and writing books that would help her with her English that she was, at the time, trying to learn. Upon arrival, I was really excited to give her the Barbie doll because when I was younger, playing barbie with my sisters was what I spent almost all of my free time doing and I wanted her to be able to experience the same thing. When I gave her the gifts, she immediately pulled out the books, set the barbie aside and excitedly continued to flip the the pages of the book and then went on to show her friends the books leaving the barbie doll forgotten on the table. It was very interesting to see how much more appreciative she was of the books than of the doll. For me it was quite the opposite. When my mom bought science books, world maps, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader video games, BrainPop quiz books, the Rocket Science kits, and even Junie B. Jones books, though I was appreciative of them, I had received them every year, throughout the year, and had loads of them stacked up in our playroom. My focus was the on the bikes, American Girl dolls, the Wii, Easy Bake ovens, and Play Dough sets.

When I came back to America  I realized how much we materialize Christmas time. It was almost overwhelming to see how much time and efforts are put into a time that has lost  it’s real meaning. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Christmas time and enjoy the gifts that I receive, but it is hard to see Christmas the same when I have witnessed people who are unable to find a book under the tree (if they even have one at all) when they wake up in the morning. It just doesn't seem right.