The teaching of introductory economics is often organized around a set of principles. Those principles provide a useful structure around which additional discussion can be organized. Having these principles is pedagogically efficient; they make grading easier, and help students remember the material. Critics of economics often object to these economic principles, arguing that we are teaching the wrong principles. I disagree; the principles we teach are fine, as long as they are presented with the appropriate nuance, by which I mean that we emphasize that the principles are tools, not rules. Used appropriately, these principles can be highly useful. Used inappropriately, these principles can undermine student’s understanding of economics. Many professors add the needed nuance in their lectures, and textbooks generally add it in their in-depth discussions. Unfortunately, students often have a hard time integrating the inclass presentation of nuance into their understanding of the principles. They focus on memorizing the principles because that’s what they believe that the exam will focus on. The problem is getting worse. More and more, the teaching of economics is being built into online learning systems structured around the principles found in the texts. The online learning systems are structured so that they highlight only the principles; they purposely blur out the discussion where the nuance generally exists so that students aren’t distracted by the discussion. That, in my view, is a problem. It means that unless the nuance is directly embedded in the highlighted principle, the nuance is lost.