Once upon a time, there were some ninth-graders who didn’t know how to learn. Their teacher, Laia Hanau, had just gotten her master’s degree and was doing her practice teaching. She went home and cried.

Her husband told her if she couldn’t stop crying, she should give up and find another profession. She reduced her cries to sniffles and went to bed. At two o’clock in the morning, she awoke with an idea, a two-part study method.

She told her class that learning is simple. “Everything you hear or read is made up of two things: statement and pie.”

Pie, she explained, stands for proof, information, and examples. She worked with the students, helping them determine if something was a statement or pie that supported a statement.

Look at this paragraph:

Larry beat Sally, George, Edward, Martha, and Tracy in chess matches. He has read more than 300 books on chess. He started playing chess when he was three. Larry is an excellent chess player. His father taught him how to play.

What is the statement and what is pie?

Larry is an excellent chess player. That’s the statement.

The other sentences are proof, information, or examples of his ability. So in your notes, you’d write the statement, then under it and indented a bit, you’d write the pie.

Once Hanau taught her students how to identify statements and organize ‘pie’ under them, their learning took off in a stunning manner. No matter if they were studying math or science or literature or whatever, they could sort out the material and make effective study notes.

Her success with high school students led to a position at the University of Kentucky Medical School where she taught the statement-pie method to medical and dental students. She also taught teachers her method.

In the 1960s and 70s, Hanau’s statement-pie approach was one of the most effective study methods a student could learn. So what happened? Where did the statement-pie method go? I’ll tell you through gritted teeth.

New educational theories took root. Tried and true methods of teaching were considered old-fashioned and unenlightened. Phonics, diagramming sentences, and memorizing addition, subtraction, and multiplication tables were thrown out in favor of a dumbed-down approach that prized self-esteem over knowledge and wishy-washy, feel-good activities over actual learning. (Outcome-Based Education – or OBE – I’m looking at you.)

Though statement-pie was a powerful tool that allowed students to organize their study materials and to learn effectively, it didn’t fit in with the new philosophy of education. Rather than being adopted, it was abandoned; forgotten.

Education has been in a downward spiral ever since, not because of teachers, bless them, but because of the education system itself.

There is good news. Laia Hanau wrote a whimsical book, The Study Game – How to Play and Win, that teaches the statement-pie method. It’s out of print, but occasionally a used copy can be found for $30 or so.

If you go to aadl.org/node/74446, you’ll find an interesting article about Hanau, written by Adaline Huszczo.

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