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

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.

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

Sit near the front for more Success at School

Why sit near the front? Why will I do better and improve my grades if I sit near the front? In some classroom situations this may be hard to do. Some students may harass those who sit near the front. They may be teased as nerdy or trying to be the teacher's pet. It can be a fine and risky balance. Is it worth the risk? Sit as close to the front as possible; even if you move one row forward or one seat closer to the centre of the classroom. If your class is already underway, maybe you have to wait until the start of the next semester to claim your seat. The move will be worth it.
Why move? Next time you go into your classroom, if you do not sit at the back or far away from the teacher's desk, imagine yourself in one of those seats. Note some of the barriers to a smooth learning curve. The things to look out for? Anything that would distract a clear focus on the learning situation. Picture you from the back and the impact of mini events like:

• The person on your right throws some paper over their shoulder
• Diagonally to the left is a conversation going on as soon as the teacher turns away
• Right in front of you is someone signalling another across the room
• Further to the front is someone drawing on their desk
• I'm sure you can add loads more

All these just slightly distract clear thought patterns. So at, or near, the front? Well, you are closer to the action and tend to get a bit more involved both in the real purpose of the lesson and with what you do to record the academic truth of the lesson. The teacher often sees students close to them as their support group and may rely on them that way for input to the discussion and for feedback on the lesson.

If you become a friendly face, even by the default that being involved gives, you are more likely to get favours determined by the de facto relationship due to seating. This may take the face of sympathy for awarding those marginal marks, more generous extension to due dates, even the chance of the reference that teachers are reluctant to give.

That aside, the main advantage is the academic advantage you gain. You may hear more tips than those further back in the buzz zone of the class where there is often more distracting activity going on. Teacher infill comment may help you with your notes, you do not miss the spoken information, especially that inferred by work going up on the board with short anecdotes revealed as the content is delivered. You steer clear of the distractions while maintaining your valued connections with all class members. A teacher who is roaming to see if students need some help or guidance, will stop first with those closest. This is good because you do not have to stand out from the crowd by signalling that you need help. All good. All advantageous. All promote Success at School.

Good luck with your studies.
Have a great day

Someone is stealing your future

While you sit in class and daydream or chat to the student near you; as you wander through the mall looking at potential partners, new electronics; as you watch a movie for the zillionth time, saying the words as the actors do; think. Someone is stealing your future. It may be the good looking shop assistant you fancied, or the most valued player in the game you watch, or the surfer at the beach. You will never know. Not just one, but many people will be stealing your future in your idle time. The future you have laid out as a result of planning and commitment to do well is being eroded by people your age all over the country; probably the world these days.

OMG

Who are these people and what can you do about it? These people are students just like you. They listen to the same music, wear the same clothes and sit on the same beach. You cannot pick them out. In the future, you will be able to find them easily. Go to the top of a company; find leading entrepreneurs; look for champions of just causes; watch the news and hear inspirational politicians and researchers announcing cures for endemic diseases. You will find their names attached to fabulous artworks, literature and architecture. Didn't you want your name in there somewhere? Can't happen. Can't happen unless you act now to stop it.

While you goof off, there are students everywhere reading, listening, analysing, drawing, organising notes. They have their gameplan and are sticking to it. You are losing the race if you do not do the same. While we are young, even when older but less so, we are in a series of queues. Queues for jobs, training, University or College entrance, fast food. For most young people your position in each queue is determined by your Success at School. You are not competing with just the others you see in your classes at school. Every student across the State/Country in similar classrooms, gazing out from similar windows, is competing for the same things.

This is where you now have the advantage. For every one person you get ahead of in your classes, there may be thousands you get ahead of in the life queues; those really important queues you plan to be near the front of after you leave school and enter your future as a successful applicant to all you set your mind to. So listen to what is going on. Apply yourself at every opportunity. Relax and enjoy your youth, but beware of the challenge. Everyone you pass in the results of your classes is equivalent to hundreds, even thousands, of places in those important post-school queues.

Good luck with your studies
Have a great day

Prepare yourself for Success at School

So, it's the holiday and school, awful school, tests, and the loudmouths at the back of the class are far from your thoughts. You should take a break. Rightfully so, after a term of hard, often boring and irrelevant work. You deserve it. Enjoy it. Renew your energy, find some new experiences, work part time if you wish. But don't get too far away from your resolve to get as much out of school as you can. You have to go there so why not take away as much as possible.

Yes, I like to think of it as though getting the best you can for yourself actually steals opportunity and future career and lifestyle options from slackers and misfits around you,  and places them squarely in your lap like a gift-wrapped present. Those nuisances who steal your time, who disrupt your learning. They keep your teacher engaged in preventive measures rather that the pursuit of academic excellence. Every day they steal something from you that is irreplaceable. Time. Every minute lost is lost forever. Get your revenge, and make it good. They may be tough, they may be connected. But. Stay cool and their future will be in your hands or their influence will be so small in your sphere of influence that they will appear non-existent. How? Well, it's what we are all about. Success at School.

Plan. Plan. Plan. Do not forget to follow up 'Plan' with 'execute the plan'. Whenever you get a bit of time to yourself, find time in your head, firstly to relax your soul and secondly to think of yourself and how you fit into the future. 'Fit  into the future' seems a bit odd? Not so, here the challenge is to design the world around your vision. That way you get locked into your vision better that you would if your single statement was 'I want to be a ...' Add description about location, lifestyle, learning required, expected house, the people you will call friends and subordinates at work, how long each stage will take. Dream and add targets. Dreams without targets remain dreams only, so not much use. Decide on the crown jewel. ??? What? The crown jewel is one of the ultimate visions for your future that you design. It will change as you reach set goals. Changing crown jewels. How wonderful. Not even the Queen of England can do that. Where does that place you? Feels good hey?

Sometimes this exercise seems a little too large. Sometimes a bit embarassing. You sort of ask 'Should this future really be mine?' Of course it should. Make it what you want. If it's too hard right now, not to worry, we will get round to it more slowly in future episodes. What I want you to find out is that you really can control what happens. Forget that at the moment things may seem bleak. Things may seem far away and impossible. Honestly, you can change the future and make it bright and fulfilling.

Start the plan. Know how to recognise success when it arrives.

Have a great day

Stop procrastinating. Sure, later.

Have you read many posts from this blog? Have you thought about what you read? Do you agree or disagree with it? Maybe a bit of both, hey? Let's say you are feeling down in the dumps about school. It could be for stacks of reasons that we all experience at some time or another. Hmmm. Wasn't sure of where the expression 'down in the dumps' came from so I just spent five minutes googling to find out. It comes from old words meaning melancholy or depression, so that seems to fit how we use it. How easy it is to procrastinate. Back to writing. Think I'll have a drink first. That's better. Now where was I?

Procrastination and this blog. Oh yes now I remember. How easy it is to get off task with things that are more appealing and more enjoyable. Like many, I have the attention span of a crazy puppy.

The school experience can be somewhat insidious, often stressful and always very busy. When it comes to school work, procrastination can slay the outcomes like you wouldn't believe. Or maybe you would, having been there. Many a time did you say? The art of procrastination is so well developed in most that it seems to be almost genetic. You may not put off intense training sessions the way others do because you like the endorphin buzz you get from the physical output but where is the buzz in four hours of English assignment you grumble. No argument here. I think we all have procrastination skills, just depends on the task and how we see it and what we envisage we'll get out of it.

What comes out of a four hour assignment blitz? Boredom? Drudgery? Stiff back? Maybe missed opportunity with that interesting and good looking new neighbour? Grrrr. Sometimes it is really hard to measure a positive anywhere in a task. True, true. Strategy? For those really absolutely awful and pointless pieces of work (let's hope they are few and far between at your school), your joy may be just that you have one less to do when it's done. Make it quality and those around you who fall by the wayside on such tasks will fall behind you in the race to secure the futures generated by Success at School. Just as in the workplace some things just have to be done. Don't put such tasks off. The longer they sit there, the more time you have to think about it and the worse you feel about doing it. Jump right in and get started. You'll have a huge chunk of it done before you know it and be well on the way to finishing when your friends are still bemoaning the fact that they are still to start. Try it, it works.

So back to my opening. Have you been reading the bits in this blog? They are written to maybe help you across the line that society draws in the sand; the line that is the 'Success at School' requirement for progress to an interesting and fruitful future. A future less filled with boring and meaningless tasks like those we are discussing here. Start to organise yourself right now. Log off Facebook, turn off your phone for say 1 hour, turn off television for that same hour. Find peace in your head, knowing that starting right now puts you on track for a better future. Pick out a couple of postings to read. Act on them.

Please get started. We need smart young people to graduate into the world and build better futures for all of us. If I can help you, let me know.
Have a go. It can't be worse than progress and situations you are not happy with.
Good luck. Have a great day

Develop a system for taking notes and reviewing II

Let's suppose you read 'Develop a system for taking notes and reviewing I' and now have a notebook for each subject. You have numbered the pages; each day you put a day, date and topic; at the back you have started to diarise important information such as topics covered, location of reference material, clues the teacher may give you as to what is required for exams or assigned tasks; lists of homework due dates; and any other important key bits of information.

What else? You want this book to help you. Why else would you go out and get it? Don't let it get all scruffy, ripped, disorganised. That's how study from it will turn out. Horrible, hard, indigestible. Write the main body of text in blue or black for ease of reading and underline or highlight in another dark color such as dark orange, purple. Don't fill your book with all colors. Again that just sends confusing signals when it comes time to study or review. Make it easier for your brain to follow what was done and find the bits it is not sure of quickly. Once found and highlighted, these fewer topics can become the center of your focus as you begin the exam process. You can easily judge where to spend more time.

If you must doodle on your page, set aside an area at the bottom or side of the page for doing this. Don't let it get all over your work. It may look creative and fun. It has no place in among serious notes. It will interrupt your thoughts as your mind drifts away to interpreting the artwork, rather that the more serious business of the notes on your page.

To let revision of your work flow smoothly put a very brief phrase or two on the top of each page, telling you what is on that page. You may forget in a couple of months' time what you have covered and this can serve as quick triggers to target the revision and study process and make it more efficient. Making better use of your time is one of the most important goals in your ambition for Success at School.

If you remember some time ago I said that we do not want to fill every waking moment with study, study, study. Yukk! If your time is used well, then you will find that you have time for breaks. Those breaks will be enjoyed more because in the back of your mind is not the worry of unfinished, even unknown tasks; you have it all under control. Proper use of time when you are young will transfer to adulthood so you will still have fun knowing that all you need to do is under control. Worry free play. Yeah to that!

Good luck with your studies
Have a great day

Good results? Always? Too easy? Beware!

So you have always found schoolwork easy. Consider yourself blessed. Many don't and struggle even in the early years. The first ten years of school often lacks any challenge and, therefore, interest for many students. They receive sound reports and comments from school, suggesting they are going well. Indeed all that you can see points to them going on to appear in awards lists in the last years of school, going on to College and University after successfully passing through the rigors of the first major part of their academic career. Are you a student like this? Time for caution. When the passage through school is relatively easy, lacking challenge, you can develop the bad habits that result from lack of pushing your brain to its limits. Those habits can become ingrained and cause hurdles in the next few years. They may reduce your chance of success at school.

Beware. Be cautious. Be warned. Those poor habits may reduce your potential for the highest grades and hobble results to the second top tiers as you struggle to overcome structures you find irrelevant. Make sure you push yourself, even if the curriculum doesn't. Be careful that you go beyond the routine required by your brain. The Senior years of school require several elements not evident in the lower years. These include more emphasis on clear, written detail of your problem solving pattern; evidence of individual research; increased volume; improved presentation structures; a larger number of theories joined into the same assigned task; much larger assigned tasks. All these serve to take your skills to a point leading to College and University learning.

If you have had a school career that has offered little challenge so far and you are about to enter the final couple of years, do yourself a favor. Listen to all the advice you hear from your teachers and act on it. Get your brain strong ASAP. Most good teachers are fully aware that students with above average intelligence often resist the work requirements of the Senior years when they find the very comfortable, and somewhat lazy, effort needed so far is disturbed as greater pressure is placed on them to achieve the same excellence in their grades.

Complacency with your wonderful ability can lead to a slow and insidious rotting of clear communication channels within the brain, particularly those used to meet with challenge and problem analysis and solving. Your brain will work like cold mush. Keep it strong, keep it flexible. Keep it creative. There are many ways to do this. Prepare well for the future.

Have a great day

Develop a system for taking notes and reviewing I

One of the easiest ways to head into higher marks territory is to organise your notetaking really well. Make it efficient. Make it suit you. Make it make it easier for you to learn the material from each class. Make it make it easier for you to keep up to date and to study for exams.

Make sure your notes are suited to your needs. Who does not want to have some success at school? If you are going to do exams and reports you will want to know what is on the exam and what to focus on in a report. Duh! Of course. So why is it that so many students have the rattiest looking notebooks with bits and pieces of several subjects jumbled together? Easier study, more efficient study, less exam stress and ultimately better grades are targets of better notetaking. Making your life more blissful; ahhh! Your notes are key.

You should never be in doubt about what to study and where to go for useful material. Write each subject in a different notebook. Doesn't matter if you can get one with eight, ten, twenty divisions so all subjects fit. Do not get a notebook like this. It will mess up your mind with what's in it. Separate books for separate subjects. If some subjects require less notes, get a thinner book with fewer pages.

In the back of your notebook goes a sort of diary. You write homework tasks; report information such as due date(s) topics, size, references, special data sources and so on; exam topics if they are mentioned; and page numbers and topics in relevant texts. Each entry needs a date. Use this in case any conflicting information comes along so you can go to your teacher ask them to clear up the confusion. Your classmates will thank you for keeping on top of things.

In the front of the book write down the date, heading and topics, and references. Number the pages in your notebook. Use the page numbers to link up with the summary information you are putting in the back of the book. It keeps everything very tight. No question about what is on the exam or what is due when.

Do not just copy off the board or image. Listen to what is being said and add notes to help your understanding.

Sometimes what the teacher says is more important to your understanding than what they write or show. Use this information to fill in gaps or answer questions you may have. Write as neatly as possible. Use very few colors. Blue, black, red, orange (only if dark) if you like. Colors must be dark so they are easily read and do not strain your eyes when exam time comes around. Work hard to get as much down as possible. Class time is is the best time to learn. Use the time wisely. It will mean you spend less of your free time trying to figure stuff out. So, good notetaking means you will have more free time. Yeeha to that!

As soon as you can, re-read your class notes to see if you understand all, yes all, that was written. Find out what you do not understand; look it up, ask your pals, ask your teacher, google it but quickly fill in the gaps in your required knowledge for each section. At least you will have the comfort of knowing you know all you need to know; :) Then once a week quickly go back over all you did for that week and the weeks prior. You will never have to read too much as exams are sort of doorways between components of knowledge. As you go through the material you may find the amount of reading becomes quite big. Now's the time to read English on Monday, Math on Tuesday, History on Wedesday and so on. The smaller subjects can be grouped into one evening.

As well as reading, do a few practise problems. This would be important for Math especially but also for Science and other subjects that need you to do problem solving. Do adequate often until you can solve most problems quite freely and do not leave your fate to Fate. Keep your brain muscle flexed and it will be ready to use at peak performance. It is vital you keep your learning up to date, day by day, week by week. Yes, people do pass exams by cramming, they do pass with little study. Is it worth the risk? Definitely no, no it is not. What if you get sick, find your family or friend needs help, you get stuck with too much work and get tired out, get too weary to study because your coach insists on extra training? Why risk your future when you can ensure it quite easily? Success at School is the key for your future success and future choice.

Work well. Do not think you have to half kill yourself with study to get anywhere. Consistency is the way to go. Do some often, not a lot in great big scary chunks that expose you to shallow learning and less chance of success.

Have a great day

Control the volume

Being a Success at School is not about killing yourself with work, it is about controlling the volume. Those who are not successful let the volume take over. We have all heard sayings like the longest journey begins with a single step. At school, life is so busy that the volume of work to be done gradually adds to a small number of tasks, bit by bit. It sneaks up on you; English essay, history reading, science report, maths problems, art assignment, sport schedule and on it goes. Sneaky, very sneaky until the pile is so big you are swamped and don't know where to begin. Have you seen the pile of work build from something easy to take care of to a vast and complex pile of pain? You are not alone.

We agree that Success at School is important if we are to keep future options open and make sure we have a strong start to our career. Right? Right. So, how do we keep from overload. Time Management is one way. Time management is a skill we are already working on as we go. Another way is to track what is required of us as we get it.

Track what is required of us as we get it? That's right. How? Where? By now you should have a decent notebook you are using for Time Management. Notice I did not say use a diary for time management. Wrong purpose. In your Success at School notebook. Yes that's right. Get it out and write somewhere on it 'Success at School' so your brain will know the purpose of the book and the purpose of putting stuff in it. This book is where you can get creative if you wish. Remember we simplified all stationery in getting ourselves organised? Here you can let your hair down a bit. But keep it simple.

Go to the back of the notebook and start using it to record everything you are given that will take your time and require some effort. Get a list going now. Have a small column on the left for priority, next column to describe the task, next for any due date. That's all you need. When a job is done tick the first column. Record detail carefully each time something new is given to you. When I get to the bottom of a page, I like to take everything not done onto the next page, so that nothing is lost. The idea is to get rid of stuff on each page as quickly as possible. Your list stays fresh. Rewriting has the reinforcing effect of another reminder that something may have been on the list too long. Time to do it. Go on. Feel good about your successes, reward yourself each time something is taken off the list of 'to do' and becomes a 'done'. Sweet knowledge that is. Small reward, don't get too carried away.

 Keep a close eye on the volume of work you have been given. Stay aware of it by writing it down. Keep the record of it for future reference. You never know when it may prove useful. Keep the notebook with you, so it will not be huge, but will be of good quality. A quality book makes you feel that what you are putting in it is important. Locks your planning skills onto getting it done. Just buy a nice notebook but well within budget. Read and update your book every day. Without fail. I'll know if you don't.

Good luck. All success to you. Have a great day

De-clutter your school setup

While you get all the information together to get some time management going, let us have a look at some other things that go a long way to gettng yourself organised in such a way that success is more likely to happen, giving your grades every chance of improving. A good next thing in that direction is to de-clutter your school setup. What? School setup. Let's go. Do you use a pen with blue ink or black ? Maybe it's green or purple or orange. Maybe it's a mix of all of these or maybe even a pencil.

What about your notes where do they finish up? A stack of loose leaf pages all over your room, locker and scrunched up in your bag? Various size notebooks. Various quality notebooks. Subjects all mixed with each other in a confusing mix of vital information that is often hard to retrieve when we are under stress such as when we are studying for exams or trying to go over a particularly hard topic. If your parents buy your stationery, how do they know what to get?

It is better to get everything you use  at school as standard as possible. Use a notebook that suits your style. Pick maybe two or three colors of pen and a pencil and use them for all occasions. Do not use light colors as they get hard to read if you are working off your notes on a regular basis. As long as the colors are dark, it will be OK. Do not write in the same color your teacher uses to mark or comment on your work. They will find it annoying. It will be hard for you to distinguish positive comment and marks from your normal work. Annoyed people can't help but choose wrong if a decision is close.

What you need to do is standardise as much as possible. Funnily enough, you gain headspace by doing this. You don't have to think what color pen/pencil, what sort of notebook, what equipment should come to class, what bag I will carry it in???? It is just all right there ready to go. When it comes time to study, History notes will be in the History notebook, Math in the Math notebook ... Easy. It just puts a bit more relax in your life. When you read, the colors of ink you read will be the same for all subjects, easier because the brain does not think something different is incoming with each color change. Ink (your choice of color but dark, remember) means something important is being looked at, so let's think about it.

Does all this seem too simple? Well, it's not. Standardise what you can. Stop worrying about a stack of fancy colors or being lazy by putting four or five subjects into one notebook. Get a notebook for each subject, use only two or three dark colored pens, one highlighter, 2B pencil for easy erasure and easy reading. Get the minimum of necessary equipment. Do not clutter up your bag and desk with myriad trinkets. You need to be a Success At School. Take the line of least resistance.

Don't forget to keep collecting information about everything that uses up your time. Keep a notebook for this too. School, work, sport, leisure, time out, sleep, practise, community service; everything you can think of that takes time, write down.

Good luck with your studies. Have a great day

Time management I

Time management systems, workshops and advice earns millions of dollars for consultants. Time management applies to all activity associated with your endeavours to find Success At School. There are possibly hundreds of books printed every year on ways to manage your time. That means that it is an important topic for all of us to consider. There is an expert on every corner. We all need guidance as we go through life, especially when we have a myriad of tasks to be worked on simultaneously with due dates stacked one on top of the other as they are in school. The day to day requirements of school forms some of the most complex demands we will ever face. School life is very busy. We really do need help to cope.

How do you begin to model all that needs to be done so it is done in time, on time and represents your best quality of production? Math, English, History, Art, part time work, family commitments, sport, occasional entertainment and breaks, friends, sleep ... arrrrgggh. How will it all fit? Does fitting it all in just seem like a dream, something that has always been in the 'too hard box'? What if you heard that only a few hours of planning and preparation is all you needed to put everything into place so you knew from the outset that it all pieced neatly together? Well, it's true.

The first thing you must do is begin to record all you do outside school; include anything that uses up time, including recovery time for things like sport and late night entertainment. Try to find the key things that are repeated regularly and those that come up frequently. These can be catalogued a long time before they occur and will form a skeleton for your time management exercise. Leave out nothing. If you insist on watching television, put it down, especially if there are set times.

As you record the outside of school time eaters, start to outline the demands that school places on your time. Gradually a detailed picture of your life's time demands will emerge. Now you have some really valuable information that will help you with study, work and play. Think about its significance. It will actually help you find more time in your life because time management is not about filling your time up, it is about freeing up time. The time is freed up as you get used to prioritising what devours and wastes time. Can you give up some TV time? Do you have other flexitime which can be moved to another time slot or even used for something more pressing? Do not forget our aim. Success At School that leads to success in life; to give ourselves more opportunity to get a firm foundation for a better future. That's what we want.

If you can, keep all this information in a notebook. You can then track time wasters and time savers over a long period and make this notebook a great tool. Take it seriously, it has grand repercussions. We will explore the next part, once you have some data to work with. Go on, get going.

Good luck. Have a great day

Success at School also means better comments

As you grow into this period of self reliance and perpetual improvement, it will seem that marks become only part of the picture. They are still one of the most important parts as it is these that will get your foot in the door. Also important to people taking you on as a trainee, a student for further studies or as an employee are the comments written about you. Many places of learning have an interview process to see if the potential student is both academically able to do the course and also fits into their vision of what the student body and future supporters of the alumni should be like.

Get yourself a few positive written comments. Get them from more than one source. Ask for them whenever you think someone will write you one. Try to add them slowly. There is no rush to do it all at once. People are suspicious of super rapid change. Maybe you could volunteer for something outside of school, something close to your heart. Help out in the community in an area you can see yourself working at for a while. Do not do it just for the sake of doing it. Have a serious think and do something useful; something that has some meaning for you. Selfish purpose always shows up. Written comments from the community are powerful allies in your step into the future.

Mixing work at school with that in the community reflects someone with maturity and can do attitude. It will gradually change you in a positive way. As always, make it small and grow the commitment to suit your timeframe and ambition. You will find that people come to rely on you, will ask for advice; you will become an expert. As your skills and knowledge grow, so will your position of authority. 'Good for you', 'Thank you for helping', 'I don't know what I could have done without your being here' are phrases you will be hearing. Hmmm. Don't they sound good. Very well worth it.

You will find it quite hard at first to juggle school with this new direction but stick with it and the world around you will change. Positive things will be attracted to you. The feeling of joy within will transfer to the sometimes mundane school classroom because you know there is more to it than those four walls. Success At School within those four walls will seem to flow more readily as planning and management skills grow. You will feel well rewarded.

So you may say your teachers don't like you, especially when you want to start improving your marks and make use of school while you are there. You may not fit the image of your teacher's ideal student at the moment but that will change. Good thing is, you don't have to change much to be successful and change your future to a full and prosperous one. Community work will lead to many crossroads and will definitely give you the positive comments you need written about who you really are to supplement improving grades and comments from the school.

Good luck. Have a great day.

Make some sacrifices

So you don't have all the right class tools, including the proper mindset. We find times in our lives when things stack up against us and we find it difficult to set ourselves up for best performance and results. Some school equipment is expensive, some is not. How will you get the things you need to work effectively in school? Make sure you have the best chance of success at school. Do not lose focus on the goal. It may prove hard but just, step by step, tread the path that secures an improved future. Sometimes a little sacrifice goes a long way.

A small sacrifice can go a long way. For the cost of a burger? Well a burger may be good for your physical and mental, even social health if you eat with friends. Forgoing that burger gives you a few dollars that will buy a good notebook, couple of biros, some pencils, a cheap desk lamp could easily be bought if you are careful with the burger money over a couple of weeks. This little inconvenience (?) could well help form the backbone of your career. You will find other ways to buy the necessary materials and pay other costs to aid your learning. Is it worth it? You bet it is.

You can go to school with all the gear you need. It will feel neat to have what helps the whole learning process. Others around you may be ill-prepared and without focus but you are making small sacrifices (but travelling the right path) to change that and give you motivation to guide your steps towards a grand future. Just do it.

Empty your brain for exams??

In the last post the advice was to empty your brain in preparation for exams. It is the working part of your brain you want to empty to leave it free to do what it does best; solve puzzles, find solutions, suggest pathways. At first you may think it's a stupid idea to empty your brain just when you need it the most. So what are we talking about here?

What comes after 3? 4. After 121? 122. After p? q. What does c a t spell? At some stage in our education we came to know this automatically, often after a lot of perseverance on your part and encouragement from teachers and parents. Still, if you are reading this, you can recognise a lot of words and without having to think, know what they mean. Some years ago you would puzzle over the answer to 5+6=? You probably know this with little thinking required. You can write sentences. It is easy to put a label on trees, dogs, the urban landscape and thousands of things you are familiar with. All this was hard at some stage but now uses little brain power. Solutions come quickly. 'Without thinking' we often say. This is what we mean when we say empty your brain. It's all there, catalogued for future use, hardwired in and ready for retrieval.

In your brain you have gradually built a huge store of information. So read the information you need well before the exam. Learn the formulae off by heart, just like you did years ago with alphabets and counting and spelling. Practise each type of problem until the stucture is familiar at least. It is the familiarity which is important. What are the correct steps for a math problem, order for an essay, style for a history report? Let yourself know these and you will be able to empty your brain ready for exams. Let your mind do its best. Don't clutter it by cramming information in at the last minute. If you do this, there are few connections that have been built between the bits of information needed, and you have to work extra hard on each problem solution to get the right pieces together.

What this means is reviewing, asking questions and consolidating your knowlege in smaller chunks, basically as you come across them in class. As soon as you can re-read the material, see if you can complete work without the use of notes or friends. If you can't do this ask questions and fill in the gaps. Let your mind do its best work at exam time. Start 'emptying your brain' from your very next class.

We'll gradually go through notetaking and study skills later. That will help with exam preparation too.

Good luck with your studies. Have a great day. If you want a hand, feel free to email.