lsa - just one minute ago, I got off the phone with my DS5's montessori teacher (who thankfully is very into learning about all this stuff in order to better serve her students). Among other things, we talked about the very issue of simple is hard vs complex is easy, and she related a story about how ds was uninterested in a bunch of simple works that eventually lead to a more complex "stamp work" (I think this is math work). Apparently, he was able to do the more complex work first, and after doing that he had a better understanding of the simpler works that lead up to it (like the thousands beads). In effect, he is learning backwards, which is just how the theory is described (kind of like complex vs. simple is an adjuct principle to whole vs. part) - I am eternally grateful that his teacher understands this!! I can't believe it. Meanwhile, I could hardly articulate the principle, but somehow the teacher understood what I was trying to say.
We really lucked out with her. DS5's twin brother, who is probably more balanced between visual-spatial and auditory-sequential, has a very different teacher (older, more than 20 yrs experience) at the same school, who I can imagine bristling at the idea of me, a mere mom, giving her educational tips LOL.
