Be, or become, proud of You

Did the last post encourage you to put yourself in a more positive place? Know that often we can do little to change much of what surrounds us. Know that it is nobody's fault you are where you are. Know that if you want to change things around you, you can. If you were born into circumstance that makes most days a struggle for even the most basic comforts of life, do not commit to an entire existence in that position. Work to change it, even in the smallest amounts, over time. Keep your mind focused on where you want to get to in life. Put a small note on your bed, desk, mirror; somewhere you will see it often. Only small reminders that change often or they will be too constant and be either ignored or annoying. Refresh often. If you have a success, put that there too.

Putting it all in perspective makes the realisation of plans possible. Last summer it rained; a lot. On Facebook I posted that my boardshorts still had the tag on, my sunscreen bottle was still full. The status was a bit tongue in cheek, not really a complaint. Putting that in perspective made me flinch. The same rain that had kept me from the beach had sadly washed away homes, livelihoods and lives in some of the worst ever flooding in the area. Ouch! That's nature's perspective in action. Brutal. What do you need to put into perspective? How are your grades? Are they showing any signs of improvement? If they are stable, what sort of comments are you getting? Remember teachers and high schools are very cautious in writing comments because they do not want any comeback from the community. How much have you joined in this year? I do not mean compulsory stuff. What you should find is something you can do that would help out.

Make this year the year of consolidating a better future for you.

Begin the changes that will make you hold your head high and be super proud of what you have done and what you have become.

This is a great video called Success Achievement -- Your Guide for Moving Forward Daily

It is a top start the year and your advancement. Grow to who you really are.

Best of wishes for 2012.
Advancement plus for you

Be who you are

'I wish I was smarter, luckier, taller, more athletic, had straight hair, had curly hair, had black hair, had red hair.' Heard any of these? Oh yes. Haven't we all?

To be truly successful, you should accept yourself and your situation for who you are and what it is. It is the best thing to do. No good wishing for something that only a real miracle can change. The body type, brain power, color hair, location we start our lives with are all out of our control. At school, you are stuck with the teachers you get, good or ordinary, inspirational or boring; there they are right in front of you.

A short time ago I was feeling low. Heading downwards quickly. Yes, there's always someone worse off but I think that is one of the lousiest 'cheer up' statements ever invented. Who cares when you feel so low? Retail therapy? Crap. Things are not what buoys your spirit. Things wear out. Things go out of fashion. Things become dreary, waiting to be replaced by other things. No, when you are down, you need to drill into your spirit to find the required boost. What jolted me in this instance, more than anything, was a trip to the beach. The water was clear, warm; the day sunny. It dawned on me that I was so fortunate to be able to play in the surf; jump under waves; glide into the beach; throw the refreshing water into my face. It was an awesome jump start. How lucky to be able to do something so enjoyable. My spirit's energy grew; my thinking became more positive; I felt restored, renovated, more immune from the crap of life. I realised I am who I am. After all these years.

My problem had been that I had let business become an excuse for putting off all, and I mean all, that I enjoy. I had stopped doing the things that built my spirit, made me feel energised. Many of these were small but their omission had compounded to make a huge and negative impact on what I was able to accomplish mainstream. So, absolutely definitely, do not give up your joys in life in order to get more busy. You will have things that make your spirit stronger and you must retain their presence in your world. Learn to recognise them. Write them down and the feeling you encounter that makes them so good. From personal experience, it is vital that you avoid any excuses to put off these interludes, or worse still, forgo them.

What's that? Oh yes, I agree this blog is all about change. So what am I going on about here? Have I gone nuts and now say you cannot change grades, comments, stress? No, now I say if I am nuts, I must always have been and the 'nutty' was just waiting for a trigger to make it emerge. :) What I am saying is that you must be comfortable that you can recognise your current situation for what it is. Right now you are stuck with it. I do not mean comfortable in the sense that it feels good but in the sense that you can define it and tell us what is wrong with it. You can write down clues to you. House, family, school, success, your potential, things you have, things you need but do not have, the frills of life things like fashion label stuff. You know you. You can write you down. Best of all because you can document you now, you will be able to document changes. That will be powerful.

Define everything you can about yourself and what happens around you. Keep it in a special place where you will not lose it. Leave it flexible enough to change because you do. Start on a fresh piece of paper and write down the things you would most like to change about your situation. Not hair color, brainpower and so on. I ask you to do this because in our society education is the key to change. Better education means more opportunity. If you are feeling that you want change, look to Success at School to help you. That is what we are all about here. Do you have a career plan? What grades do you need to get started? Write it down.

Finally, think about your school results and comments. Think about the stress that study, assessment and assignment causes. Are they all good? Many students think not. There are of course other stresses in high school that we will also deal with so if you have these too, add them here. Write down all you can that is good and all the things you would like to change. Again, it cannot be the teachers, school and so on because we are usually stuck with these.

End up with three lists. You and your environment; things you want to change and aspire to; you and your schooling. Keep all this information in a safe spot. We will be going back to it often.

Have a great 2012
Hope this is a turn around year at school, especially if you have struggled

Last time you got a bad result!

Now and then you get handed back some work on which the grade written is so awful, it takes you by surprise at just how bad it is.  It could have been graded A, B, or F, depending on what you had expected and, maybe, just how important the subject is to your future.  How rotten did it feel to get that bad result?  Almost sick inside?  You wonder if there is some mistake.  You try to think of excuses, blame something, or someone, for what lies on the desk in front of you.  But, really, the result is down to you.  Remember that you earned it.  That grade has been recorded against your name.  Do not be mistaken by the idea that your teacher gave it to you.  No, your teacher merely added the points up that you gained for the work you submitted.  Most high schools have standards drawn up for each assessment item so that students are graded fairly and with equal chance of excellence. 

There is nothing you can do about it.  You can, however, use that low feeling.  What you need to do is hold that bad feeling  as a constant beacon reminding you that you will deliberately work to avoid such results in the future.  That grade has been indelibly recorded against your name.  There for you to disprove.  Disprove again and again.  Make it a target; a target not to be hit again. 

Did you know in your heart that you really could do much better?  Was there really a good reason for your poor result?  If yes, then you may forgive yourself.  Think very hard before you let yourself off.  Otherwise, begin the repair job right away by thinking deeply about the feelings you had personally on seeing that result.  Plan a bit of time to sit and plan a way for this not to happen again or at least to be less likely to happen again.  Take your time; find time alone, quiet, no ipod, use paper to write or sketch your thoughts.  Doodle, let the ideas flow.  Do not force it, just relax and follow your thoughts.  Be sure to keep them on track.  The time you take will be determined by how relaxed you can get during the process.  Make sure the whole picture is only be about you.  This part cannot be influenced by what happens or has happened around you.  It may be that you felt: frustrated, ill, inadequate, that you let yourself down, stupid, had too little time, not good at studying this subject, you took poor notes or absolutely anything else that comes to mind.  It is well worth spending as much time as you can on this reflective process. 

This is not about beating up on yourself but knowing your how your emotions interact with your results.  A very, very valuable exercise.  Do not rush.  Expect the best from it.  What do you want to get out of it?  A single piece of paper.  It most probably will not be the first draft.  If it is, you need to work a bit longer to make sure everything has been drawn out.  In the end, done with time to relax, the paper will guide you to your next step in the planning process:  'How to prepare better for my next assessment'.  It will reveal some of the flaws in your current strategies.  Put this revealing work somewhere prominent in your study area.  Make sure it holds at least one key to those bad feelings you experienced when you saw that awful grade.  It will be another good prompt for future prevention.  Like an insect spray for bad grades.

Starting with this process will take you beyond individual subject boundaries and gear you for strategies that are useful across the whole academic structure.  So that's the end.  Now to you.  Begin the travel to your future success at school that waits for you with this simple exercise.  Go for it.

Have a great day.  Good luck with your studies.

Turn good into excellent

Why should I plan? Why should I finish assigned tasks early? I can do it the night before and still pass. Here, I must ask, is just passing really what it is all about?

Once you have finished a large piece of work, spend some really valuable time on it and review it. Valuable? Yes,valuable, because it will give you more value than just another passing grade will give. If you have basically finished an assigned task, then you have done all the hard work; researched, reviewed sites and articles, sorted the information and written it into something that flows reasonably well, found definitions and put it all down and then transformed all this into your report. If you get this far, you have done all you need to do to get high grades. You may, however, still get a low grade. Even after the hard work, missed fun with the gang, loss of sleep and even stress, your mark may not stand out. Why? How can this be?

Success is measured by how well we do. But who is the judge? Too often the high school 'system' is the judge and that is the cause of much grief. You may be judged 'satisfactory' with a grade of C and 'excellent' with an A grade. How bad is that? What if, in the past, you could only manage a D for a subject? What if you tried really hard, put in lots of extra hours, worked on homework and notes, and finally got a C grade. Surely that is worth much more than a 'satisfactory' type comment? It sure is. To do that is awesome. To repeat that result is outstanding.

We should measure ourselves against measures that give a true picture of our achievements, not by 'perfection is great but less is questionable' but by how we stack up against ourselves and people similar to us with similar opportunity and similar support. So to step above satisfactory on that scale is where we really want to go. If that can be done, the other kudos and awards will follow.

How to do it on the assigned task we are talking about here. Well, firstly, be proud of the work you hand in. Be honest about what you put into it and what grade it should be awarded. If you finish well on time due to good planning you will be able to submit work that really does represent you at your best. After all, it will be how you are judged. Not by potential but by what you put in front of the teacher. What you submit that says 'this is my level of ability'; because that is all anyone has to go by. No use arguing because the thinking is: 'why would anyone submit stuff that does not show their best?' So in your mind you are an A level student being awarded a C-. From the employer's point of view or the College's point of view, you are a C- student who is making excuses for bad marks; less than 'satisfactory'.

Do something about it. Now.

Firstly, the reason to finish early is that your brain is now full of all the information it needs. Your brain knows all the hard work is done and so it can relax to assemble a better representation of that information. This is what it does best. If you just hand in work straight after it is finished, there is no opportunity for polish. So, let your brain go into automatic and work out better sentences, reasoning, structure. It will do this in the background; while you eat, play, dance, sleep. While it is doing that, try to get someone to read through your submission. Not to understand but to see if it seems to flow, to see if explanations read well, to see if it answers the question(s) put to you by the task. The easy bit is to make make good, excellent. You will find yourself readily deleting waffle and adding quality. As you do this, automatic learning about structure is taking place. This is hard to teach but such skills will strengthen your future submissions enormously.

Re-read. Re-type.

Submit something of high quality that truly represents work matching your capabilities. You will know that what sits on the teacher's desk awaiting grading reflects something you are proud of. What they do with it is up to them. You know at this very point you have done what you can. Relax and wait. There is no more you can do.

Good luck with your high school experience. Find successes

Have a great day

Taking notes II

Read  the earlier Post about note taking and reviewing. Why is note taking so important? Why is regular review so important? These two very simple processes are absolute key to Success at School. Your high school years are full of maxi and mini events. What you do every day is almost always influenced in some way by the requirements of the school system. They are often tough to fulfil. They are often unclear. They often lead to stress. Getting properly organised for note taking and reviewing can reduce stress to manageable levels and give you a better chance of improved exam grades. If for nothing else, that must make these skills worthwhile.

Surely taking notes is just copying off the board? Get down what the teacher writes on the board. There's even time for a quick chat. No need to listen too hard, it will mostly be there for later reading, usually much later. If you miss a few bits here and there because of distractions, you will have most of it and should be able to fill the rest in later. Not a good plan. The bits you missed? Filling those in will get harder the longer it is left. Get good notes at the time they are given. You're mad if you don't. Your notes are essential to success at high school. Some students seem clearly proud about how scruffy and full of graffiti and other artwork their notebooks are. Scraps of words from the lesson, mixed with scraps of words from another lesson, another subject even; days all mixed up with work put into any available blank space; ripped and crumpled pages all go against good grades. Best use for these notebooks? Starting up the Sunday barbecue. They are next to useless as tools for learning.

Anyone can copy. Anyone. Ask a student from a very early grade, who can basically write and copy shapes, and they could do a reasonable job of copying. They will be a bit slow because they are not familiar with the style and the symbols. Their writing will be a bit more basic but it will be there. Do they understand it? Almost certainly not. You see, the thing about copying is it requires almost no thought if we are familiar with the numbers and symbols. That's the trouble. Too easy to copy. Too easy to think we have it all. Do not kid yourself. Copying without thought is pretty much a useless exercise. Copying has nothing to do with learning unless it is done with thought and commitment.

OK, 'I get it' I hear you say.

We have talked about the importance of a separate notebook for each subject and using few colors of pen. For a ruler, you can use almost any straight edge. Just writing and highlighting, no extra bits. If you like to doodle take a doodle book with you to class and keep the sketching and arty thoughts there. The cleaner the page is to study, the better.

The photo above is the bare minimum I use. I like a mechanical pencil because I never have to sharpen it and it doesn't leak ink all in my pocket. Use a soft lead (I use 2B) that will make dark lines which are easy to read when you are tired. Leads harder than this are too light and will cause unnecessary eye strain if you have to read a lot. The small notebook is for incidental information for every part of high school and holds a wonder of information about when stuff is due, if I am running out of things or if I need to remember to do something, graffiti and odd bits of artwork even. This has taken many forms over the years but this one can easily fit into my pocket. As you can see I travel light to class. To highlight, I circle. To emphasise, I double underline. The eraser is there for show. I usually just cross something out if I change my mind about it. This set up has the other advantage of being cheap. Of course, there are smaller books you can get. I recommend a fairly large size to fit any sketches or long bits of information on one page, rather than breaking it up. Remember, one notebook for each subject. Judge the size of the notebook by asking or by last year's volume of work in a subject.

Make sure your notes count. Look at them as you go. If the teacher says something to fill in a bit of information, get it down. They cannot possibly write all they say in a lesson on the board. Make sure you know what is on the page. Put a * next to bits you are not sure of as a signal to get extra information here. Ask a question, if you want. If that is not done in your group; google, other students, the teacher, the library could all help. If you had a bit of difficulty following some reasoning, again add * to go back and fill in more until you are happy with it. The * will also be clues for when you study as you will know you had some difficulty first time going over it and so you can make sure you feel comfortable with these weaker areas. Study is not about what you know but what you had trouble with or are a bit fuzzy on.

A bit of hard work in class will pay back generously when you come to review and study.

Good luck with your exams.

Have a great day

Get the prize of prizes

Throughout our high school experience we watch many award ceremonies; best this, highest that, fastest, most, greatest, top, longest, shortest; on it goes. Awards are a constant reminder for some of us that the passage through high school is filled with evidence that we are not of the highest calibre; that there are always others in front of us. There is no doubt that many of us find school hard. We struggle with math, creating the most basic of essays, writing a science report and understanding the complexities of art. Sometimes, many times, it all seems too much. For those of us not very academically or athletically inclined nor talented, there are twelve or more years of struggle, culminating in years of heartache in high school. How do you keep your head held high under such a repressive system? How do you keep smiling under the constant highlighting of those who are better?

Do not be discouraged. You are worthy of praise and prize. The praise can come from doing your best; the prize is that you give yourself every advantage to take opportunity of further training and improved career prospects that would not ordinarily be available to you. Best not to concern yourself with the flight of the gifted, talented or better supported. It just happens that way. Some are born already advantaged, some are not. Make the best of who you are and where you come from. Focus on what you need to do, what is best for you. Others fade, you must not. Be sure that some of us who struggle the most will rise to high posts in this world.

As early as you can, start to research as many College, University and other training institution entry requirements as you can. This will give you a good idea of what is required and, importantly, how to apply for entry and for scholarships. Practise writing a few applications. Get a teacher or family member of friend to read through it. The more you do this, the better will your applications become. Immersing yourself in this knowledge will also empower your schooling. You will know which subjects you should put more effort into. The further into the system you go, the more importance this information and strategy takes.

Post high school training is not the only path to success. Entrepreneurship, on the job training and experience will also bear fruit. Never, ever get too despondent if one of your strategies for success does not go according to plan. Every successful person will tell you there are many trails to follow on the way to the top; some more direct than others, some easier than others, some more clearly signposted that others. No matter. The trail to your success will be there and will have your own name attached to it. Your task is to find it.

Enjoy the journey, knowing that persistence will get you there. The prize at the end is far more rewarding than those gifted at long and often boring high school ceremonies. What can be better than such prizes of recognition and prestige? The awesome gift you give to yourself and future family; freedom from hunger, a safe home, a secure life.

Enjoy high school with the vision of how it is set up not to praise others but to help you step into a wonderful life.

Have a great day

Success at School also means better comments: II

'Success at School also means better comments.' What do we mean by this? In an earlier post we saw that even if we do not get on well with teachers, we can begin to improve on our future prospects by working in our local community and how that small contribution can spiral outwards to leverage opportunity. We saw that it can link us with potential employers or other contributors to a more successful future. It gets positive comment flowing around us. That is valuable.

All well and good. 'How do I get more postive comments from my high school? Are these not very important too?' Absolutely. If your school gives you a lot of bland comments, employers can easily read into this that you have not really tried to do much, just cruised, did not join in, were not a team player, needed to be pushed all the time. All these conclusions can be reached from bland but non-negative comments. Most schools these days brush over the truth of the matter with bland, beige, non-personal, half-truths so they do not offend. Trouble is, then everything has to be interpreted by parents, by employers and by higher learning institutions.

What can you do to make the situation reflect better on you? First thing to remember is that teachers like to write positive comments because it reflects well on them. If they have a class full of hard working, attentive, curious, homework doing, organised, pleasant, polite, respectful, collegial students, the thinking is that it is they who have worked hard to create such a utopian classroom. If they can use these and other, similar, adjectives to describe students in their classes, they will tell everyone, knowing it positively influences their reputation. In high school that environment is very much down to the individual student.

Above all, remember it is the teachers standing in front of you each day who contribute those comments next to your name at the end of each semester. It is those comments that build a picture of you for people you may need to impress. Do not wait for too long to get those comments going because you want a consistent, non bland, picture of you to emerge. As always do not rush it, or the job will seem too big but also because you want an emerging, not static, picture as this creates a sense of growth in the person. It's just a perception thing, as most of what we do is.

What are your favourite two subjects? What sort of comments did you get on these? Were they strong, descriptive and complimentary? Did they reflect you in your best image? Did they faithfully represent you in that class? If they did, go to the next two and ask the same. Wherever you find that the comment is not as good as you would like it, take it on as a challenge to improve by the end of semester. Your target is at least two more clearly positive comments.

It is easy to do. Your teacher can hate you but must report factually. Use this. Here's how. What sort of comment would you like to see added to your next report? Some comments to get you thinking: works hard; works independently; asks questions if needs clarification; is polite; helps others in the class; submits excellent reports; is respectful of others; has a positive approach; finishes all set tasks; is organised; work is of high quality; cheerful; attentive; always prepared with equipment ready. You get the picture. There are a lot more we could keep listing. Now pick the two you want to work on. See, two will do because teachers do not write about each subject endlessly so they write about the things that stand out most.

Now about once per fortnight during the semester you have to follow up. The time in between each confirming action in the middle could be slightly longer but I would not risk it because teachers are very busy and so need constant affirmation of their thoughts about students for it to be embedded in a positive manner. How do you get '[insert your name] respects the needs of others in our class' next to your name? Show it. 'Morning sir/miss'; or whatever the standard greeting in your area is will start the process. You can do this around the campus out of earshot of those who may tease, if you are worried about that. So, not necessarily in the classroom in front of everyone. Then the real confirmation comes in the class itself. Look for it. If a student has no pen and you have a spare, ask through the teacher if the student wants to use yours; '[insert penless student name] can use mine sir/miss, I have a spare'. No loss of face there. If two students have no text to share and your buddy sitting next to you has one, offer your text. This does not need to happen often. What does it say? It says to the teacher that you realise that some people need a hand, that you value the learning of others, that you are courteous, that you respect their right to learn ... There are many conclusions a teacher may draw from this but all must be positive. Do this only a few more times during the semester and you are a stand out for a great comment. Impossible to ignore. If you need help with other ideas, email me.

Attack only two at a time, or you will give the teacher overload as they can only write about so few. Add another next term/semester.

Good luck with your studies. Hope you start to get more positive comments now you know how easy it can be to get them.

Have  a great day

Relaxing for exams II

From the first second of your first class of the high school semester, your work load starts to build up. It builds up quickly, exponentially if you are mathematically inclined, quicker than flies around sh.. on a hot summer day if you are not. Take control early, maybe from the second second. I liked writing that 'cause it sounded neat. At the end of the first day, take a look at what has happened in all your subjects. Did you get a guide to assessment in anything? Did you get outlines of courses? Were there any events mentioned that would mean missing classes? Keep track. You need to know everything that is going to affect your learning. Don't think you will always be able to fix things up as they come along. Not so. At least, not always. The further through high school you get, the more risky it is to leave things go.

Again, keep track. Get a small, cheap but durable notebook for this. The importance of noting down has been emphasised before. This book can be strong enough to last for a couple of years or for the whole of high school. Get one. Its content will be a recipe of what to do, when to do it. It will be the best planning tool. Write 'to do' lists, comments by teachers that relate to assessment and content, important ideas, thoughts about how you are going. Do not confuse it with a diary.

A 'to do' list is a seriously strong ally in keeping the growing mountain of requests and requirements down to a volume you can keep a clear picture of in your head. If the pile grows too big, your head will start to spin with the workload. This creates some serious blocks to clear thought and creates doubts about your ability and stamina to finish off a workload, growing virus-like in your head and in your school room. Your back starts to bend and groan under the load. Don't let it get this far. Remember you are starting to keep the load down from the second second :) Still like that eh?

So, the 'to do' list. Keep it really simple. A priority column and a description of the job to do. That's it. For priority, I use I, II, III, IIII and so on so that as one job is done, I can update priorities easily. You'll invent your own as you go. If you get to the end of a page, take all unfinished jobs off that page and put them onto next page, with priority. If there are several large jobs to do, get some sort of order to them, broken down into do-able bits if necessary, and write them as first to do and absolute must do on your page. It is better if you can clear at least one large job from your list each day, especially if you have several queued up. Feel good when you do because you know some of your buddies and some of your competitors will be looking at that same task, waiting for divine inspiration to get going. Smallish, do-able chunks is what you want. Stay on top of the pile to keep it from growing beyond the possible as deadlines become exhausting, brain fuzzes over and will fades.

How does this help relax for exams? Well, because you are less stressed the whole semester as you stay well in control, your brain will be less tired, your thoughts clearer and your ability to do well under stress will be stronger. It is the stress and strain of trying to overcome the multi-task mountains that leave us tired and frustrated. If we stay on top of things with a few simple strategies, we remain more relaxed. This comes from knowing everything is under control and by being able to take a break during the semester; playing sport, going to the beach or just chilling with friends. It all improves our health in both body and mind.

Take charge in the second second. Stay on top of the load. Have more fun in doing so. Watch others struggle and stress. Help them out if you can.

Best of luck with your studies. Have fun.

Relaxing for exams I

How would you like to go into the next exam feeling more relaxed and ready to go?

Want to find out how to get to this idyllic state? We'll have a look at how that may happen. It will take a few articles to go through but any one of these will give you ideas and help.

The thing about the brain is that it can work well under all conditions. It performs better as the conditions become more familiar. It performs better if it is not stressed too highly. It should come with a well rested body. It also performs better the more easily it can retrieve and use its vast storehouse of information. Ohhh. That sounds like a lot of pre-conditions. Luckily you can set this all up with not much, if any, more total effort than you currently use in the lead up to exams. So let's get going. Working towards best results at high school.

Personally, I think the best thing is to be ready well ahead of time. One of the absolute must do exam preparations is to go over the information you have covered on a regular basis. This does not mean you spend hours and hours each week on a single subject and multiply that up to get a huge total number of hours for all your subjects. You can sneak small portions of spare time. It will probably, but not necessarily save you a few hours when exam cram comes by. Sneak. Surreptitious study. Oh that sounds so cool. So how to get so cool? You need only to go over the material you met very soon after you meet it. Tidy it up. Your notes, I mean. Fix up the pages and numbers on the pages. Put important information into the back of your notebook. Read through the tidy notes twice. First time to refresh what you did and organise the bits you did  not understand. Second read through, comfortably this time because you know it and know where it is in your notes.

This will help store it in the same way you got it. In a tidy manner, ready for easy retrieval. How much time do you need? Little. You could do the information for one subject in much less than a lunch hour break. This could be the tidy up part as it does not need to be an area of calm and, if you get interrupted, you can get back onto it. You will get used to the timing you need very quickly. You do need to do the second run through quickly. Most lessons should only take a few minutes to review. Add some homework to this and you will be surprised how quickly you can get on top of your learning, ready for improvement in your grades and more success at school. Find time between classes, on the bus, at home, before you go out, in class down time such as when the teacher is absent. You get the idea. You will soon find your own ways to sneak time and increase your chance of success at school.

Go over each subject often in small doses, rather than wait until just before exams when stress and other demands on your brain and body start to snowball, and finding you need to do massive hours. You should be better prepared if you do small sections at a time over a long period rather that try to get it all done in one block. Your brain will be a bit scrambled from so many and so untidy pieces of work. Retrieval will be difficult in such unordered material.

OK, so you now have some repetitive structure happening to your learning. This will help you learn the information so it can be retained for longer and retrieved more easily. Make sure to go over all the work covered to date that will go on exams another two or three times. Constant brushing through each subject will truly enhance your learning as will some of the other ideas you can see in other posts to follow.

Help others and help yourself

High school is no different from life. In fact, it is an intimate part of it. You are in it up to your notebook and pen. Just as there are needy people in the community we live in, so there are needy students at school. They are not bold enough to ask for help. You see them struggle. They may always be lacking even the most basic equipment. Their pen is often broken, they are forced to use one scruffy notebook for every subject. What do you do about it? Nothing? Do you comfort yourself with sad feelings of regret for someone who is really in need of a helping hand, rather than your lame guilt-ridden sympathy? Get off your butt. Get a few friends together and see if maybe you could come up with one or two ideas to give a supporting hand. Only needs one or two. It sure does not need a whole book filled with ideas to give someone the lift they need that turns failure into success.

It is those few caring, helping and supporting gestures that really make the difference, not the grandiose waffle of those who talk a lot about how it is a shame that some people are not so fortunate and who have the means to do massive good but content themselves with the ephemeral. Champions of the world and its ills, blown in the dust.

But you can do something. You can easily help with very little cost in either time or other resources. If you do it will strengthen you as a person, it will create a positive ripple around you. There are so many benefits that come with helping someone out. A good feeling accompanies your effort, knowing you can actually improve the life of a fellow student. If you support them with your knowledge by going over material they are unsure of, your capacity to learn will advance in leaps and bounds as your brain explores alternatives within the same content and stretches to boundaries it never knew. Sometimes even a friendly gesture is enough to get people through to the end of the day feeling more positive about their life. Positivity can snowball out from you. It does  not have to change you in any way but if you let it, you will find that increased opportunity and strengthening knowledge are just two of some wonderful benefits.

It doen't have to be much; share a few tips, show them your study planner or time management planner. Could you spare a notebook, pen? Could you help them out after school in the library? Maybe you could give up a burger and buy a notebook you could take along and allow this person to use it. That would be awesome, giving up a small pleasure to help someone out. They will be grateful. The help will always be remembered in a world where too many are too focused on self.

Those who do give back a little in this way will tell you they get back tenfold what they selflessly give out. Give it a go and improve the life of someone who is within your sphere; enjoy the consequences.

Good luck with your studies and enjoy a successful future
Have a great day

Don't try to jump too high

How well did you score on your last piece of assessed work? Did you like the score? Do you really want a better future, secured by exam results that more truly tell everyone what your ability actually is? OK, say you do, then how much better does your result have to get? How much better can it get? Sometimes we get too enthusiastic and try to jump up our marks too quickly and are disappointed when it does not happen. If you have been getting D's or E's or F's or whatever your school uses to show grades lower down the scale, then you are working from a relatively weak foundation. The first bit of the challenge is to get things going. Aim for a couple of small successes and do not be too hard on yourself about progress, for reasons I will show you below. Celebrate small improvement, even if just means you have turned the corner and you feel you are setting yourself up for success. You know you are worth it, you know you can give it a go, so just go with it and try.

Why should you not worry too much about improving your mark too quickly from not passing to passing with flying colors, especially if you have a history of low achievement in a subject? Just think of the following for a moment. To jump from an E to a D is a very big jump so don't be too disappointed if that does not happen on the first one or two attempts. Say you go from mid E around 12% to a low D around 30%. You need to get two and a half times your results to make this massive jump (a 150% improvement in your marks). And, you must do this from a fairly weak position. So you need to make up an awful lot of ground to do this. When you make it, you can be hugely proud.

So now it becomes easier.
From mid D around 36% to low C around 55%, the jump is only about one and a half times (a 50% increase in your marks). You will also be working from a much more sturdy platform of results. Even easier is the jump from mid C around 60% to low B around 72%. This is a mere one fifth bigger score (a 20% increase in your marks) from a position where you were already passing and so had a fair idea of the subject material. The higher grades are more about perfection of presentation of argument, structure and small changes. We will get to work on this too but not right now.

Now you can see why your early efforts may not result in the grades you wanted. However the improvement will be going on and gradually building up as you put in the effort, get organised, sort out the correct equipment and so on. They all add, little by little, until they become invincible; your grades start to creep up, your confidence starts to grow and you feel better about the whole high school experience. Once you get it all happening, slow though this may be, you will find that your own frame of mind plus your better background knowledge will help you climb even further but with lowered barriers as things start to fall into place. It may take time. Please do not give up before you give yourself a chance. You deserve the result. Be a bit patient.The first few strides take time. The momentum will build. You will feel great pride in your growth as you lock in a future with an enviable track to follow.

So you can see the biggest jumps are in the lower grades but they are also the easiest to organise for successful stepping up. You can ramp everything up as you get settled into each step in progress. So try to get going with that. Follow ideas you see here and watch your grades grow.

Try for gradual improvement, not massive. Your grades will be able to stabilise and maintain at each level as you grow at a slow and steady pace.

Good luck with your studies
Have a great day

Homework. How much should I do?

How much homework is enough when you are in high school? This is a tough question and, seriously, it is up to you, not up to a teacher, to judge. How can you tell when enough is enough? Do all your grades have to be A+ to tell you have done enough? Do you have to have a nerdy image? Do you have to sit home all weekend studying while your friends are out enjoying themselves? These are not good ways to judge how much value you are getting out of homework. More, more, more is a poor strategy and a dreadful way to use your time. It is definitely not a wise use of time. Remember that in high school your biggest asset and biggest adversary can be time. We want to use it in the most efficient and balanced way. Balanced is important.

OK, what then should you do to judge the amount of homework necessary for success at high school? How do you know when it's enough before exams and will let you reach better grades and further Success at School?

Do the right amount. What? Yes, the right amount. You may do a bit too much, but only a bit.

Try to judge your own need for homework. You must do what the teacher sets or, if you regularly find the work too targeted at students less able, negotiate with your teacher to leave out some of the easier tasks and replace them with harder ones. Remember that you may do the easy (easy to you) ones much quicker than others in your class. Do not do 10, find them easy and set out to do another 10 at the same level. There is little benefit in this. It is time wasted. You should stop or make better use of the time. You actually get to choose. So this is one area where we have actually made time where we can use it more flexibly. Take less time and use it for other pursuits or use it to work on more difficult subjects or use it to reach higher grades in this subject. That is a pretty cool set of choices. Let your teachers know you are trying to improve your grades, that you are developing a plan to do this. Try teacher by teacher as you feel more confident with your strategy. Get them involved in your plan. They may even join in and begin to set two levels of homework to help out. In high school, teachers tend to be more approachable as you get older so take advantage of it and go see them.

This applies to any subject. You know the level the class is working at because you are in the middle of it. Read on from where your teacher left off. If it is a subject you enjoy, google information to see what you can do to expand your knowledge. Add an edge to set work to enhance your learning. Again, be honest. Do not do it to make yourself look good. It will come undone at some point, maybe disastrously. Do you really have a strong enough foundation to move on up? Do you have the time?

How do you know if you can do more? On your next assigned homework task (some problems for math, a short paragraph for English, a sketch for art, and so on), work unaided by notes, texts, Google, Facebook, friends etc. ... In other words, no reference material. Do the task with just pen/pencil and what you remember. Can you do it? Can you do it well? If you can then for that topic or skill you are ready to move on and add more to your knowledge. Do it. Learn how to judge when you have done enough homework.

Good luck with your studies.
Have a great day

Measuring your success. School report suck? Really?

Can you run 100m in under 10 seconds, swim 100m in less than 50 seconds, jump higher than 2.4 meters? Me neither. Most of the world cannot even achieve one of these, certainly not all three. So why at school do we insist on similar comparisons? We are not all world record holders, we are not all 'A' students in every subject we study. Should we be? Can we be? No. How we reflect on our success at school should be an internal measurement. Measured against our own potential, how well are we doing? If we are really honest with ourselves, how well does our school report really reflect how well we have done? Does it represent me working at or near my potential? This is what you think about to discover your real measure of success.

Some subjects just click, some never do. Some students are devastated if their usual A+ appears as an 'A', others celebrate with all the bells and whistles when they earn a barely passing grade. So reading a 'C' in History next to your name can be an event worth celebrating and making public or one that requires significant disaster control. Being honest with yourself is one of the keys to your Success at School. Don't kid yourself that you have worked hard or studied adequately when, in fact, you have clearly missed your targets. Study needs a structure to support it. It is not something you just pile on right before exams and hope for the best. Some sort of plan becomes more and more necessary the further you are through your education. Establish good habits early in life, the earlier the better.

Be kind to yourself, as well as a little strict. More importantly be determined, backed up by your vision to be a Success at School as part of a better future. Do not excuse your poor work habits by blaming anyone else or your environment, do not accept marks below your potential either; pointing at teachers, the school, facilities, resources and so on. Take your success seriously and tackle it with energy. We do live in tough times and sometimes we have to suffer less than ideal conditions; conditions which influence and, in some way, direct our learning. If you listen, dozens of people, texts and videos will bore (inspire?) you with stories of hardship overcome. Heard a few of those? Hmmm.

You do not have to leap tall buildings or commit to the training regime of a world record-holding athlete. You do have to set up a scheme that both suits you and works for you. One that gradually improves your current grades, one that gradually makes your future a better place to be. Hold those thoughts as your results turn upwards, as comments improve, as study and exams become more doable, as homework is done well within time as your Success at School becomes more certain.

Good luck with your high school studies. Have a great day