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

Don't let a question stop Success at School

Here's the scene. Your teacher is going over new work or may be reviewing past lessons, when you come across a point you do not understand. 'Understand' means you could explain it to a friend clearly enough that they could understand it too. What do you do? Put up your hand to indicate you need a better or fuller explanation? Not a cool thing to do? I wonder if that bit of information is the difference between getting a higher grade and staying where you are; worse still, going down. Do you find that you often have time left in exams; time where you could add a few valuable lines to your paper? Was that the piece of information you could have asked about?

Sometimes it takes courage to put up your hand in a class of students who are too cool to put up their hand. Academic courage is not trained or taught. School systems push us in one end and out the other, over a decade later. Do we learn enough on the way? Some care, others do not. Take heart, you are not alone. There are other ways around this problem.

Be a leader. Someone has to take control. Try to talk to some friends who may be willing, on a signal, to put up their hands, giving strength to others to do the same. Even approach the teacher to see if they will join in your scheme. Most teachers would love to have more students asking questions. Two things happen. Firstly, it makes them feel good and secondly, it's always good to have an ally in the staffroom. That can be useful to you. This 'ally' will feel more inclined to spend a bit of time extra with you to help out.

Take careful notes and hope that between you and your friends you can eventually sort it out. Maybe someone has an older brother or sister who is good at the subject. You can see plan two has a few time constraints that will eat into the time you have slotted into your schedule as 'spare', 'play', 'shopping' and so on.

Even more risky is you could just wait and hope that before next week's test the teacher revisits the topic and you actually understand it. Youtube, Google, Answers and other online sources are other time consuming ways that may give you the answer. The library? Where's that? How about you make an appointment with the teacher to meet with them for help during a break? Lots of ways to get sorted that do not take up too much valuable time.

Read Sun Tzu's Art of War. It's full of strategy that all manner of professions take from the battlefield for which it was written to their own interactions with associates and competition. That may help.

Mostly, get the itch fixed. A small point can make all the difference. At this point, not learning, not finding out is not an option. No one's worry but yours. Get stuck in and do something. Email me if it's a real emergency but do something. Your Success at School is the most important thing to get out of school, right alongside some wonderful lifelong friends.

Get that point clarified as early as you can. These small points are the ones that form really effective stops to further learning in a topic even though, in themselves, they may only need a minor explanation. They create roadblocks to assimilating new knowledge and confuse thought patterns as your brain tries to work its way around what it sees as corrupt information.

Make a plan and carry it through. Tomorrow you'll feel good about it.

Get the most from school. Have a great day.

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