Abdulrahman Al Oraini presents his system for learning, with an eye toward physics, chemistry, and math, in Minee Strategy: Convincing & “Courting” of the Mind.
Al Oraini taught physics for 25 years and has studied many educational theories and systems. In addition to Al Oraini’s original ideas, the book borrows concepts from other educational research, such as “Bloom’s Pyramid” and the “Pareto Principle.” Filled with flow charts, graphs, and illustrations, the book attempts to communicate the process and advantages of the Minee System (named for a combination of the author’s term “Mind Tree”), but is often more puzzling than edifying.
The mechanics of the Minee System include “Tree planting,” or thinking upward, and “Fruit Picking,” or calculation downward, best shown in the book’s flow charts. Minee aims to offer a simple process that can be applied to complex questions, and several helpful examples are provided. Minee also attempts to embrace the brain’s creative parts, for example encouraging students to draw clouds instead of circles in their flow charts.
Unfortunately, the book’s problems are many, some of which revolve around Al Oraini’s awkward English, misspellings, or inconsistent formatting. For instance, what seems to be a quotation is presented in parentheses on one page, while the next page offers another in quotation marks. Elsewhere, the author refers to “science and math curricula taught by high school students,” where “taught to” seems more appropriate, and writes “The mind likes simplicity…It dose [sic] not like complexity.”
In some places, it’s possible to discern the author’s intended meaning, but the errors are distracting and confusing. Describing the benefits of Minee strategy, he writes that it is “[..] much easier than [..] the traditional solution and its seamless arrangement.” “Seamless” typically has a positive connotation, but here its meaning is unclear.
While the book may interest some educational professionals, many readers will not judge the benefits of Minee Strategy enough to justify the sustained effort required to understand it as presented.
