In last Friday’s newsletter, I wrote about helping my sixth grader with homework:

I’ve been inspired lately by how many people I admire have moved to an analog notebook-based method of teaching. I really believe that in 2026 plain ol’ paper and pencil is the killer app. For example, my 6th grader needed to memorize the countries in the Middle East for a quiz and his dad got, erm, rather involved…

A reader on Instagram suggested we should try out MapTap, a daily geography game, but I think there’s something about copying things out by hand that makes you learn them really well. (Remember when Al Franken got up and drew the entire United States from memory? I’d like to see a current senator do that.)

I barely knew Iraq from Iran on a map, honestly, and what’s crazy to me is that a week later, I can still name — and draw, roughly — every country in the Middle East from memory.

From an old post of mine, “Learning how to learn again,” which was inspired by my eighth grader, when he was four:

I continue to be fascinated by how slow, seemingly inefficient methods make my self-education more helpful and more meaningful.

That was 9 years ago, and it’s even more true today.