Archive for School
The basics of the importance of health and well-being for being successful in school
Posted by: | CommentsThe study demands of the final years of school and tertiary education are akin to training for a major sporting event. In this case, however, you not only have to develop intellectual fitness but maintain the physical condition and stamina necessary to stay the course. Health concerns – diet, exercise, not burning too much midnight oil, avoiding the byways of drugs or smoking or the many other routes to debilitation – are as important for academic achievement as for athletic prowess.
This need to get yourself into shape physically and intellectually, and even emotionally, is part of your academic workload. Mind and body are part of the whole living organism – you neglect one at the expense of the other. A dumb athlete will seldom achieve much, an unfit student who lacks the staying power to handle the demands of study will also find the going hard.
That is not to say people who are handicapped or at some physical disadvantage cannot succeed. Rather, it means that they have to invest more effort in the intellectual process to make the grade.
Planning for exercise and recreation is an important part of organizing your study comprehensively to allocate time for everything, especially adequate sleep and relaxation. It has always seemed to me unfair that an adult can go to work, complete the tasks demanded of him or her during the working day and return home with time to put their feet up in the evenings or on weekends. But the unfortunate school or university student must do homework or extend on the educational institution’s contact hours by home study, and this sharply reduces the time available for socializing, keeping fit or just flopping out in front of the TV. Yet these activities are as vital as a good diet for health and well-being and will often determine the overall capacity of the student.
The basics of how your lifestyle can help you define your workload in school
Posted by: | CommentsIn planning the year you need to arrange convenient living and perhaps traveling facilities. You must have suitable study space, quiet and easy access to libraries and other resources.
Find out the times when public institutions (such as museums and local government offices) can be used, what happens on weekends or public holidays, and when public use is least to facilitate a quiet working environment. Now for three golden rules.
1. Build into your study plans one day a week when you have nothing to do with study. Do no reading, no essay writing, nothing that even suggests an academic purpose. By clearing your mind for a day each week and having a total break you will return to your task refreshed and clear-headed (provided you don’t spend the day off in pursuit of some debilitating excess).
2. If you get very tired and are unable to concentrate, take a break. Take a whole day off or more if necessary, to give your batteries a chance to recharge. Working when you are exhausted is unproductive. Better to rest first, then do the work in half the time and twice as efficiently.
3. If you are unfortunate enough to get flu or any other infection, by all means use the time spent recovering for reading, organizing your notes or whatever, but don’t force yourself back to work too soon. Many infections leave you excessively tired, during the recuperation phase. By pushing yourself too hard, too soon, you only delay your recovery, the work probably won’t be worth much and you may well succumb to another bug.
The basics of how effective communication can make or break your marks in school
Posted by: | CommentsSo much of what is written in the world today is plain boring. If a student can learn to write sparkling essays or answer questions intelligently and so sustain the interest of the reader, he or she will convey an enthusiasm for the subject and an involvement that goes beyond a pot being filled with facts. If the reader is interested (in this case the examiner or essay marker) he or she will assimilate what is being said and that must mean more marks, provided that what is said is accurate, reasonable and persuasive.
This ‘persuasion’ in part is about convincing the examiner/marker that you know your stuff and have taken the trouble to go beyond the bare requirements of the classroom or lecture notes. How, you groan helplessly, can this be done?
Not only must the text be readable and interesting, it has to sustain the reader’s interest throughout. The reader in this case is a person well steeped in the subject matter. He or she has not only heard it all before but has probably been subjected to endless, sound or idiotic interpretations (or misinterpretations) of the facts to the point where much hair may have been pulled out in despair and blood pressure has no doubt risen alarmingly. For a teacher at any level of learning – secondary or tertiary -there’s nothing more galling than spending a year teaching someone some essential material only to have it handed back in a garbled and misstated form. So your first responsibility is to get it right.
By thinking about the topic and applying the judgment developed during the period of study you are then able to interpret the facts correctly and make a much more complex presentation of them.
The last thing you need to do is upset the examiner or assessor. To avoid this, remember about layout and presentation, refine your English language usage and don’t let bad communication get in the way of what you know and wish to say.
The basics of doing your research systematically before you start writing in school
Posted by: | CommentsAssess where you need to go beyond your notes and study materials provided by the teacher or lecturer to research new information, new facts. Simply regurgitating the well-digested stuff will not do. An essay is intended to stretch your mind. It is a framework on which you can take the topic and pull it in all directions until you get a much rounder and more satisfying picture of the issues involved. Boring and passive reruns of old facts and tired clichés just won’t do.
If you are going for top marks, something much more exciting and rewarding is needed – and the only way you will achieve this is through thorough and careful research. The material you need could come from books, journal articles, media reports (wherein facts may be at a premium), conversations with enlightened people, tape recordings or interviews, oral history… whatever. Tell the examiner/marker something he or she didn’t know…
Consider the principles of marking
Put yourself in the position of essay marker, marking your own contribution. How are you going to assess the standard? You can pick out facts and place a tick in the margin for representation of every essential point. Or you can read the whole piece and assess whether the writer has presented a convincing argument. Or you can give marks for comprehension, scope, logical exposition, relevance or any other criteria that seem to fit the task. But at the end of the day any assessment will nave a measure of subjectivity, whatever standards and rules are imposed on the assessors.
This is why exam papers and essays are often marked by more than one person. The average of the marks may give a fairer picture of the student’s performance where this is done. It also lessens the possibility of personalities and even vendettas intruding on the process of marking. If marking always has a subjective element, that is that each individual marker will see things differently, then you can gain marks by winning over the marker with the goodwill that flows from (and to) a good essay, well presented, without fluff and nonsense.
The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Support the School
Posted by: | CommentsBoys are growing up in a male culture that questions the value of social and academic success. No single person can change that culture. What we can do to encourage boys to believe that it’s cool to succeed, however, is strengthen the ties between home and school, and support each other.
If you are a parent:
* Avoid complaining about your son’s school in front of him, even if you’re unhappy with it
* Wherever possible, both parents should attend meetings about a boy’s progress in school; the absent parent should telephone his teacher for a summary
* Try to make time to watch him take part in school events; avoid saying: ‘Not another thing that school/club/you want me to do!’
* Attend fundraising events with your son so that he feels part of the school
* Help him gather/remember the things he’s been asked to bring to school
If you are a teacher:
* Let parents know when things are going well, not only when there may be problems, so that they can feel proud of their sons and therefore good about themselves
* Take parents’ worries seriously, and respond to their concerns with respect
* Avoid appearing to criticize a boy’s parents: ‘Didn’t your mum know you’d need sandwiches for today’s trip/check that you had everything?’
* Make parents’ evenings focus on what parents can do to help their boys set and achieve realistic, short-term targets in learning
If parents respect schools, and schools respect parents, there will be fewer cracks for boys to fall through, particularly during the earth-moving time of adolescence. Parents who distance themselves from their son’s school and its events not only create split loyalties, but also make it easier for boys to team up with the tearaways rather than the teachers.