Here's the scene. Your teacher is going over new work or may be reviewing past lessons, when you come across a point you do not understand. 'Understand' means you could explain it to a friend clearly enough that they could understand it too. What do you do? Put up your hand to indicate you need a better or fuller explanation? Not a cool thing to do? I wonder if that bit of information is the difference between getting a higher grade and staying where you are; worse still, going down. Do you find that you often have time left in exams; time where you could add a few valuable lines to your paper? Was that the piece of information you could have asked about?
Sometimes it takes courage to put up your hand in a class of students who are too cool to put up their hand. Academic courage is not trained or taught. School systems push us in one end and out the other, over a decade later. Do we learn enough on the way? Some care, others do not. Take heart, you are not alone. There are other ways around this problem.
Be a leader. Someone has to take control. Try to talk to some friends who may be willing, on a signal, to put up their hands, giving strength to others to do the same. Even approach the teacher to see if they will join in your scheme. Most teachers would love to have more students asking questions. Two things happen. Firstly, it makes them feel good and secondly, it's always good to have an ally in the staffroom. That can be useful to you. This 'ally' will feel more inclined to spend a bit of time extra with you to help out.
Take careful notes and hope that between you and your friends you can eventually sort it out. Maybe someone has an older brother or sister who is good at the subject. You can see plan two has a few time constraints that will eat into the time you have slotted into your schedule as 'spare', 'play', 'shopping' and so on.
Even more risky is you could just wait and hope that before next week's test the teacher revisits the topic and you actually understand it. Youtube, Google, Answers and other online sources are other time consuming ways that may give you the answer. The library? Where's that? How about you make an appointment with the teacher to meet with them for help during a break? Lots of ways to get sorted that do not take up too much valuable time.
Read Sun Tzu's Art of War. It's full of strategy that all manner of professions take from the battlefield for which it was written to their own interactions with associates and competition. That may help.
Mostly, get the itch fixed. A small point can make all the difference. At this point, not learning, not finding out is not an option. No one's worry but yours. Get stuck in and do something. Email me if it's a real emergency but do something. Your Success at School is the most important thing to get out of school, right alongside some wonderful lifelong friends.
Get that point clarified as early as you can. These small points are the ones that form really effective stops to further learning in a topic even though, in themselves, they may only need a minor explanation. They create roadblocks to assimilating new knowledge and confuse thought patterns as your brain tries to work its way around what it sees as corrupt information.
Make a plan and carry it through. Tomorrow you'll feel good about it.
Get the most from school. Have a great day.
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