Small Steps, big Impact for an educational system rehaul

First, for context, I am a fan of the Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson and I try to respect some of the mentioned principles there. I often find myself browsing through this book. It is an easy read, but quite powerful.

In simple terms, one of the principle says that "small steps, done often” is one of the greatest ways to grow. It does not matter the level that you are at today, or talent( I might say), only thing that matters is to actually do the steps in the right direction. 

This is nothing new for many, I am sure. But, there is a lot more here. This works for entire groups of individuals also and that is why it is magical to observe it happening at this magnitude.

When we first launched LIVRESQ and its public library, the pandemic was just starting and for the educational system it was a drama unfolding. I would say that back then, the quality of educational content creation for schools was not that great. Many teachers were doing “online education” by using their phones to take pictures of their written notes and sending those pictures via whatsapp to their pupils, and that kinda was it. This was something happening everywhere, rural and urban.

A few days back, I had an internal argument with one of my collegues on the topic of quality of educational content produced by teachers. What happened? As part of the hats that I have, I see each fresh lesson that is being pushed to the public library of LIVRESQ. A few days ago I found something that caught my eye, a lesson on bees. I liked it and as I normally do, I took the link of that lesson and announced it on our “Fun & Stuff” channel in Teams and it created a short debate. Some were saying that the lesson was lacking, some were saying that the lesson was good and getting the objectives done. For me it was great, let me tell you why. 

The library now has around 6600 public lessons, I have seen the first lesson published when we launched the library a few years back and I have seen the last one being published today. The evolution since the start of the pandemic is visible. 

What I have witnessed over these years is a perfect example of the Slight Edge principle at work—small, consistent efforts leading to significant change. When we first started, the quality of content was, as I mentioned, rudimentary. Teachers were forced to adapt, using whatever tools were at hand. But now, we see lessons that are far more polished, interactive, and engaging. This transformation didn't happen overnight. It was the result of very small, incremental steps every day, learning from their mistakes and their peers, iterating on their designs, and gradually improving.

The debate itself is proof that we are now at a stage where we can have these discussions about quality and effectiveness—something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago when the goal was simply to get anything online.

Regarding the debate, we were both right, my collegue was looking at the individual lesson and comparing it to the cream of the crop, i was looking at the system that was producing the lesson.

This incremental progress is what gives me hope for the future of education. It's not about a single revolutionary change but about the cumulative effect of many small improvements.