Why minimalist education? It’s a pretty ubiquitous feeling that most of what we learn in school falls by the wayside. We know that large swathes of the hours we spent learning in classrooms ends up being a massive mental void.

At the beginning of our homeschooling journey (almost 16 years ago!), trawling through the internet used to leave me in a panic. There was so much to learn, so many curriculums to teach it, and so little time!

At some point very early on, I decided that I’m just going to focus on the key skills- skills that many other skills are dependent on. I decided that everything other than these key skills can just happen as and when, but secondary to the really core concepts. I think of these core concepts as threshold concepts as they are like a gateway for understanding other concepts.

During my teacher training, I found out a lot about evidence-based teaching practices and the science of learning. The biggest thing I took away from it is the concept of cognitive overload, or as we better know it as, information overload. It was an eye opener to find out how how detrimental information overload can be to novice learners.

As a minimalist educator, I want to avoid information overload. I want to avoid a constant input information without giving things a chance to stick. More is not always better.

On bad days, I doubt my ability to teach. I almost always have the feeling that what I’ve done could have been better. This is when, either the advice and encouragement from the people around me, other homeschoolers’ blogs, or teachers’ blogs and podcasts have really helped me out.

A large part of doing this blog is to give back some of what I have freely received. 

I still have a lot to learn about teaching and learning effectively. As I also teach in classrooms, I am also constantly looking for ways to teach engagingly and inclusively. What I learn, I try to implement in the resources I make, which I will share on here.

I hope this helps some of you out!

If you spot any mistakes, want to share any feedback and suggestions, or just want to reach out, please email me at contact@minimalisteduction.com.