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Do/did you teach your kids how to be very good academically?

Do/did you teach your kids how to be very good academically?


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Xelor

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I was chatting with someone about schooling and I mentioned that I was a poor (Ds, Cs, a B here and there, and no As) student in the beginning of my academic school career. I had a teacher, Miss Hall, who could tell that I wasn't stupid and who cared that I wasn't doing well. I don't know how she could tell, but I'm glad she could.

Miss Hall kept me after school one day and literally went through doing the homework with me for every subject. She showed me how to take notes from my reading for social studies and science class. She told me how to study for math and showed me how doing so differed from and was similar to studying for what she called "reading classes." She told me if I got to a problem I didn't know how to do, it was okay if I had to flip back through the chapter to see how the authors did the same thing and then keep flipping back and forth, incrementally working through the problem until I figured it out.

She told me that when I read stories for English, if something crossed my mind -- maybe I didn't understand why a character did something or said something -- I should write it down in my notebook and ask about it in class the next day. She told me also that every time I saw a word I didn't know that I should look it up in the dictionary and then write down the word at the back of my notebook along with the definition and a sentence of my own using the word. I was a "flippin' fool" every time I had to do word problems, but eventually I figured out how to do the damn things.

Miss Hall also taught me how to do speed math. I really liked that because she told me it was "our secret." That was really cool. Of course, she'd told other kids too, but it was still cool because using her "tricks," I occasionally could do simple math faster than my parents. I loved that.

Anyway, we sat there doing homework for three hours. That was in primary school! She drove me home and had dinner with my family and told my parents what we'd done and asked them to do the same thing with me until I was doing it on my own and they could tell I knew what I was doing. It took a while, but as time went on, it took less and less time to do all my homework and I started getting good grades.

I know all that sounds obvious to you and me now. But when I was ten it was obvious and until I got good at studying, it seemed like a lot of work, especially when I Love Lucy, Batman, Star Trek, and playing with my friends were a lot more interesting to me. The thing is that how to learn wasn't obvious to me at all.

Mom and Dad would tell me I had to study and I did what they told me. Or at least I called myself doing what I was supposed to be doing. I'd look at the books and not try to make sense of what I read, and I'd content myself with just not knowing how to do the math homework problems, and hope that whatever I did would be enough. Truth is it was rarely enough. I no more knew what I was doing or what I should have been doing or how to do it than I knew how to fly to the Moon.

In the quarter that Miss Hall showed me how to study I didn't get great grades, but I got B-minuses and Cs, which was a damn sight better than the Cs and Ds, I earned before. The next quarter, I got straight As. You could have knocked me and my parents over with a feather. I still wasn't a well behaved student, but I always got good grades and I actually learned stuff.

Thread question:
So I'm wondering do you teach your kids how to study? Did someone teach you? Did you figure it out on your own?​
 
Yes, to an extent. I don’t put as much pressure and emphasis on academics with them as I put on me at their age. I want them to learn for learning’s sake. I maintained a perfect GPA through school and in the end it didn’t contribute a single extra cent to my lifelong income. So when they ask me how important good grades are I am honest and say, “it depends on what you want to do for a living.”

But while I am not a stickler for grades, I AM a stickler for learning and self improvement.
 
Nope don't have any kids. :lamo
 
Unfortunately, doing "very good" in a government indoctrination center isn't necessarily a "very good" thing.
 
Yes, to an extent. I don’t put as much pressure and emphasis on academics with them as I put on me at their age. I want them to learn for learning’s sake. I maintained a perfect GPA through school and in the end it didn’t contribute a single extra cent to my lifelong income. So when they ask me how important good grades are I am honest and say, “it depends on what you want to do for a living.”

But while I am not a stickler for grades, I AM a stickler for learning and self improvement.

Blue:
I wouldn't say that of myself. At the start of my career, my grades made a difference in the types of jobs for which I was eligible to compete for job offers. Later in my career, the grades themselves were of no matter, but the fact that I'd mastered the content I was taught and was adept and adroit at applying them most certainly mattered.

Red and Off Topic:
I gave a very different answer. My answer to that question was:​

To ensure that you don't prematurely pare the variety of options and opportunities that may come available to you, they're very important. You have to get to the point where you have committed to what you're going to do with yourself career-wise. I can't tell you when that point will come, but until you get to it, your grades matter. If you never reach that point, life will make you, happen to you, rather than your making a life of your own, making life happen the way you want it to. Trust me, you won't like life happening to you.

You need to earn outstanding grades until you finish school because prior to and when matriculating to adulthood, your grades are how people will determine whether you're capable of doing things they may be willing to pay you to do. The reason people use your grades that way is because until you've made professional accomplishments, the single most important task you've ever been asked to perform was go to school and learn what you're taught there. People, employers, will, to an extent, assume you are able to apply what you learned there. The better your grades, the more of what they know you were taught they think you can apply when working for them.

You don't have to like that in the early part of your adult life people will judge you based on your grades. I'm telling you it's what they do, it's what they'll do when they consider you, and neither I nor you can expect them to or make them do otherwise. So just remember the Serenity Prayer and get good grades.

As for how that plays out financially, well, I didn't detail my financial position to my kids. I didn't have to because by the time I delivered the able remarks, they had enough sense of things to tell that we had no money worries or shortages and that the lifestyle to which I'd made them accustomed wasn't cheap.

 
I was chatting with someone about schooling and I mentioned that I was a poor (Ds, Cs, a B here and there, and no As) student in the beginning of my academic school career. I had a teacher, Miss Hall, who could tell that I wasn't stupid and who cared that I wasn't doing well. I don't know how she could tell, but I'm glad she could.

Miss Hall kept me after school one day and literally went through doing the homework with me for every subject. She showed me how to take notes from my reading for social studies and science class. She told me how to study for math and showed me how doing so differed from and was similar to studying for what she called "reading classes." She told me if I got to a problem I didn't know how to do, it was okay if I had to flip back through the chapter to see how the authors did the same thing and then keep flipping back and forth, incrementally working through the problem until I figured it out.

She told me that when I read stories for English, if something crossed my mind -- maybe I didn't understand why a character did something or said something -- I should write it down in my notebook and ask about it in class the next day. She told me also that every time I saw a word I didn't know that I should look it up in the dictionary and then write down the word at the back of my notebook along with the definition and a sentence of my own using the word. I was a "flippin' fool" every time I had to do word problems, but eventually I figured out how to do the damn things.

Miss Hall also taught me how to do speed math. I really liked that because she told me it was "our secret." That was really cool. Of course, she'd told other kids too, but it was still cool because using her "tricks," I occasionally could do simple math faster than my parents. I loved that.

Anyway, we sat there doing homework for three hours. That was in primary school! She drove me home and had dinner with my family and told my parents what we'd done and asked them to do the same thing with me until I was doing it on my own and they could tell I knew what I was doing. It took a while, but as time went on, it took less and less time to do all my homework and I started getting good grades.

I know all that sounds obvious to you and me now. But when I was ten it was obvious and until I got good at studying, it seemed like a lot of work, especially when I Love Lucy, Batman, Star Trek, and playing with my friends were a lot more interesting to me. The thing is that how to learn wasn't obvious to me at all.

Mom and Dad would tell me I had to study and I did what they told me. Or at least I called myself doing what I was supposed to be doing. I'd look at the books and not try to make sense of what I read, and I'd content myself with just not knowing how to do the math homework problems, and hope that whatever I did would be enough. Truth is it was rarely enough. I no more knew what I was doing or what I should have been doing or how to do it than I knew how to fly to the Moon.

In the quarter that Miss Hall showed me how to study I didn't get great grades, but I got B-minuses and Cs, which was a damn sight better than the Cs and Ds, I earned before. The next quarter, I got straight As. You could have knocked me and my parents over with a feather. I still wasn't a well behaved student, but I always got good grades and I actually learned stuff.

Thread question:
So I'm wondering do you teach your kids how to study? Did someone teach you? Did you figure it out on your own?​

I dont know what im going to do when I have kids. I never had to study or take notes even through college, so if my kids arent smart enough to do that then I dont know how to teach them the skills they will need.
 
I was chatting with someone about schooling and I mentioned that I was a poor (Ds, Cs, a B here and there, and no As) student in the beginning of my academic school career. I had a teacher, Miss Hall, who could tell that I wasn't stupid and who cared that I wasn't doing well. I don't know how she could tell, but I'm glad she could.

Miss Hall kept me after school one day and literally went through doing the homework with me for every subject. She showed me how to take notes from my reading for social studies and science class. She told me how to study for math and showed me how doing so differed from and was similar to studying for what she called "reading classes." She told me if I got to a problem I didn't know how to do, it was okay if I had to flip back through the chapter to see how the authors did the same thing and then keep flipping back and forth, incrementally working through the problem until I figured it out.

She told me that when I read stories for English, if something crossed my mind -- maybe I didn't understand why a character did something or said something -- I should write it down in my notebook and ask about it in class the next day. She told me also that every time I saw a word I didn't know that I should look it up in the dictionary and then write down the word at the back of my notebook along with the definition and a sentence of my own using the word. I was a "flippin' fool" every time I had to do word problems, but eventually I figured out how to do the damn things.

Miss Hall also taught me how to do speed math. I really liked that because she told me it was "our secret." That was really cool. Of course, she'd told other kids too, but it was still cool because using her "tricks," I occasionally could do simple math faster than my parents. I loved that.

Anyway, we sat there doing homework for three hours. That was in primary school! She drove me home and had dinner with my family and told my parents what we'd done and asked them to do the same thing with me until I was doing it on my own and they could tell I knew what I was doing. It took a while, but as time went on, it took less and less time to do all my homework and I started getting good grades.

I know all that sounds obvious to you and me now. But when I was ten it was obvious and until I got good at studying, it seemed like a lot of work, especially when I Love Lucy, Batman, Star Trek, and playing with my friends were a lot more interesting to me. The thing is that how to learn wasn't obvious to me at all.

Mom and Dad would tell me I had to study and I did what they told me. Or at least I called myself doing what I was supposed to be doing. I'd look at the books and not try to make sense of what I read, and I'd content myself with just not knowing how to do the math homework problems, and hope that whatever I did would be enough. Truth is it was rarely enough. I no more knew what I was doing or what I should have been doing or how to do it than I knew how to fly to the Moon.

In the quarter that Miss Hall showed me how to study I didn't get great grades, but I got B-minuses and Cs, which was a damn sight better than the Cs and Ds, I earned before. The next quarter, I got straight As. You could have knocked me and my parents over with a feather. I still wasn't a well behaved student, but I always got good grades and I actually learned stuff.

Thread question:
So I'm wondering do you teach your kids how to study? Did someone teach you? Did you figure it out on your own?​

Some have tried, I was blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with never really needing any time devoted to studying or taking notes. School came naturally to me, I was an +A stupid and typically had the highest grades in the class without ever taking a book home. I was in for a rude awakening however once I got to college and realized that just winging it was not going to get me very far, especially once I got into drinking and partying.
 
I told my children that grades represent whether or not you actually did the work. Bad grades meant they were slacking. Good grades meant they were doing the work.
/
 
Thread question:
So I'm wondering do you teach your kids how to study? Did someone teach you? Did you figure it out on your own?​

Study skills really matter as you get into high school. I know, because I am dad to a rising HS junior. It's really hard to talk meaningfully about study skills with a 3rd grader. But by the time they are old enough to need and understand the advice you can give them, they don't want to listen. The problem I have found is that by high school, you as a parent have very little cache when you tell them directly what to do. They see it as lecturing and they tune out. I can tell him something 10 times over, and he'll just sort of nod and say "Aha, yeah sure dad", and you know it didn't sink in even a little bit. Then, some friend of his or some stranger will tell him the exact same thing, and he'll have this look of stunned epiphany on his face, exclaiming "Oooooooh, now I get it!", as if he had never heard it before in his entire life. I just have to roll my eyes. Point being: there is a sense at that age where there is a "mute" button on what comes out of your mouth as a parent, especially any kind of advice or lecturing. It may have to do with that developmental stage where they are trying to break free of you. Things you say get actively filtered- or maybe it's going in there somewhere but is not being actively acknowledged due to pride or something. I don't know. I am still trying to figure it out.

But anyway, so what is a parent of a high schooler to do? Are they powerless? Well, I have found not quite. You can create environments for them where you know they will be surrounded by tons of other people giving them good advice. Sign them up for AP classes, SAT courses, good teachers and coaches, etc... where there are lots of motivated kids exchanging ideas for the best way to study, where there is a sense of competition among the kids to do well, where there are enthusiastic instructors and adult figures who can coach them. That seems to work most of the time for me these days. He comes home and tells me how amazingly accomplished some of these kids are, and how he may even be feeling a little intimidated- which is good, because that competitive spirit starts getting stirred up in him. He excitedly tells me about all the exciting things these kids are doing. And then he runs off to do the same kinds of things to try to catch up.

And I didn't have to give any lectures.
 
Last edited:
I dont know what im going to do when I have kids. I never had to study or take notes even through college, so if my kids arent smart enough to do that then I dont know how to teach them the skills they will need.

I would be in the same situation if I were to have kids. I wouldn't know where to even begin teaching them how to study or take notes. I would hope they would be like me so I could just do as my mother did and simply not take anything less than excellence. I hated it growing up but looking back she was doing what was best for me and I'm glad that I had that style of upbringing.
 
That little part you touched on about word definitions is perhaps the core.
In studying, the moment one encounters an unfamiliar word, everything after that begins to make less and less sense.
One simply MUST get that unknown word defined before proceeding any further.

I don't know if you ever saw the Texas GOP platform on public education, but we lived through that with school age children, and it impacted them. My wife and I both were blessed with excellent public schools in our childhoods, and we had to undo some of the damage.

The fringe right of the GOP has spent years falling in love with the conspiracy theory that public schools are thinly veiled communist re-education camps. You see an elementary school campus; they see Mao-Tse Tung's re-education camp.

I guarantee you this was the fever pitch in public school systems throughout Texas for well over a decade but in 2012 they finally got it inserted into the official language of the 2012 Texas GOP platform:



"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

It did NOT START IN 2012.

The public school education my kids received in Texas consisted of "teaching to the test" for the most part.
We had to teach our kids how to think critically. We had to teach them how to study. We had to teach them U.S. and World History.

The ONLY history they got in public school was Texas State History.
 
Yes, I try to teach my daughter because I want her to succeed at life and I think a good education is the right path to take.

My daughter was struggling bad in reading and was in ESL classes to help but she was way behind since she started school. She is now starting 5th grade and a little above her level. It just didn't attract her attention and it was frustrating her but I pushed and pushed her to keep reading and find books that hold her interest and now she loves to read. I am blessed because I think she is smart and has a lot of potential and since I didn't get much motivation from home to succeed, I am even more motivated to make sure she does.
 
Part I of II

Study skills really matter as you get into high school. I know, because I am dad to a rising HS junior. ... The problem I have found is that by high school, you as a parent have very little cache when you tell them directly what to do. ...

But anyway, so what is a parent of a high schooler to do? Are they powerless? Well, I have found not quite. You can create environments for them where you know they will be surrounded by tons of other people giving them good advice. Sign them up for AP classes, SAT courses, good teachers and coaches, etc... where there are lots of motivated kids exchanging ideas for the best way to study, where there is a sense of competition among the kids to do well, where there are enthusiastic instructors and adult figures who can coach them. That seems to work most of the time for me these days. He comes home and tells me how amazingly accomplished some of these kids are, and how he may even be feeling a little intimidated- which is good, because that competitive spirit starts getting stirred up in him. He excitedly tells me about all the exciting things these kids are doing. And then he runs off to do the same kinds of things to try to catch up.

And I didn't have to give any lectures.

Red:
I can offer what another pair of parents I know did and say that it worked for them and their son: lead by force and example.

They literally studied with their kid. They purchased copies of some of the boy's textbooks and a few nights each week, did what they were trying to get their son do.
  • When the boy had a reading assignment, he'd read it and they'd read it and then they'd review his notes and then ask him about the stuff that was in his notes and the stuff that wasn't in his notes and that was in theirs.
Their son didn't have trouble studying for math, but he struggled with remembering what he'd read and selecting what was important and how the parts of a narrative fit together. They literally forced him to study they way the boy's father and I did (the father and I were classmates in high school and the mother went to a so-called "regular" school but she used the same basic studying tactic for "reading classes") and made him do it for a whole quarter so he could see the difference it made in his grades and see that even doing "all that studying" he still had time to have fun. Thus focus and time management was also part of what they had to teach him, or more accurately, shove down his throat, as it were.
  • The boy's father and my style: "The Two Notebooks Method"
    • One notebook for taking notes in class and one for taking one's own notes
    • Take notes in class and transcribe them to one's non-class notebook
    • Do the reading assignments one or two classes before the lecture on the material read. Highlight important parts.
      • This is key and to do it, one must put in some extra time at the start of a course to get one session ahead of the teacher.

        Basically, the first weekend (the first night is ideal, but if one just can't do it at that point, the first weekend will do) of a course, one does 2 assignments -- the one for that night and the one pertaining to the next class session -- instead of just the next assignment. From that point on, one is always doing the assignment the teacher will introduce in the next class session. This is what enables one to know what questions to ask the teacher when s/he is explaining the subject matter. One knows because one knows what from the material one couldn't figure out or understand on one's own. If you spent an hour trying to figure it out "last night" and couldn't, you know damn well what you're stuck on, confused by, thought was weird, etc.
    • Take one's own notes on the reading assignment while reading it. This is what sinks things into one's memory.
    • Listen to the lecture and keep an ear open for discussion about any parts that gave one pause/wonder one when reading the night before
    • Raise your hand and ask questions in/after class about whatever crossed one's mind and that the teacher didn't address.
  • What is the "secret sauce" of this approach? It puts the material in front of the student at least four times:
    1. Reading it on his own
    2. Taking notes about it on his own and doing any written homework associated with the assignment
    3. The teacher's lecture
    4. Review -- When reviewing for tests and quizzes.


(continued due to character limit)
 
Part II of II

Will that approach work for every kid? I don't know. I have four children (all grown now) with whom my wife and I started early -- easier for all, IMO, because the assignments were easier and took less time and because it preempts the learning curve associated with not "getting it" until high school -- mainly because Miss Hall started early with me and it worked. It took my friends one quarter of religiously -- as in even the kid's phone was taken from him when study time began and he didn't get it back until it was done as he was expected to do it -- enforcing "at home study hall" for it to start returning positive results.

As the quarter progressed the boy figured out for himself how to take better notes, when he needed to spend less time on something and when to spend more time on it, when he was going to have to start doing something well in advance and when less in advance, and so on. Eventually he discovered that its far easier, more productive, less stressful and takes less work overall to stay ahead of the teacher than it does to try keeping up with the teacher. That said, their kid isn't stupid; he was just insane, which is what all kids are. That is to say, he didn't know what he was doing and needed to be shown that there is another way besides the unfruitful one he was using, that that other way works, and that once he'd gotten good at using the new way, he could tailor it to fit his needs and schedule. His boosted self-confidence is another major benefit.

My friends had to drag their son -- kicking and screaming, so to speak -- to get him to that point. Once he got there, they were all happier for it. His whole attitude about school, life and learning shifted to one whereof he came to see school, homework, studying and doing well as just something he could do and that it was more something to do than something that was a PITA to do. He now likes school and has begun to form ideas about what is interesting to him and what is less so. That is perhaps one of the most useful things that's happened.


Obviously the above approach works best when teachers provide detailed syllabi and stick to the schedule. I and my kids from the eighth grade on had detailed syllabi for every class. Our schools know their value so all teachers are required to provide them. (Our schools never had snow days.) Syllabi are a very useful tool for teaching time management and prioritization skills -- surprisingly, two of the hardest skills to learn -- at an early age. After all, how the hell can one know what one is going to have to do, what one may have to forgo doing, and how to choose between the two if one doesn't know what's coming?

I mention this because if my kids teachers (9[SUP]th[/SUP] grade and higher) weren't passing out syllabi, I'd be all over them, the PTA, the principal, the school board, the rectors...whomever I needed to be until they did. It's one thing if a parent doesn't avail himself of the tools given; it's wholly another for schools to not provide the tools and thereby reduce a parent's ability to be maximally effective in supplementing teachers' efforts. I mean really, if your teacher doesn't distribute a syllabus, how the hell is a parent to know what their child is doing and will do in class? If you don't know the topics being taught, how can you know how to help your kid? You can't unless the kid comes to you. Knowing what's going on, you can go to your kid and find out. The syllabus is also the parent's tool for knowing or determining when to be proactive in helping their kid.

To wit, if, as a parent, you see on the syllabus that your kid is about to study the Renaissance period, you'll remember your time studying that. Maybe keeping all those James and Henrys and Richards and Marys straight gave you fits. Well, if it gave you fits, there's a fair chance it'll do the same to your kid, so that's something you'll want to proactively work on with your kid. Maybe you recall having struggled with Shakespeare or some other literature. Read it again when your kid is and discuss the tale/poem it with him. Odds are it'll make more sense to you now than it did some 30 years ago. You don't have to tell the kid what it means; you just have to help him read it. (For my kids, doing that allowed me to realize they were reading the plays like they were poems. I told them to ignore the fact that the line stops in the middle of the page. Just read it like it's any other sentence. I wish you could have heard my daughter scream, "Oh! OMG that's so much easier." I don't recall too many "light switch" moments, but that was one of them.)


What needs to be in a syllabus?
  • Date of each class session
  • Relevant textbook pages being covered for each class session
  • Homework assignment pertaining to each class session
  • Dates of exams
  • Dates of major assignments (papers/projects)

End of reply
 
I guarantee you this was the fever pitch in public school systems throughout Texas for well over a decade but in 2012 they finally got it inserted into the official language of the 2012 Texas GOP platform:

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills

It did NOT START IN 2012.


Red:
What!!! No wonder the Texans I know sent their kids to St. Stephens or back east to go to school.....
 
I told my children that grades represent whether or not you actually did the work. Bad grades meant they were slacking. Good grades meant they were doing the work.
/

Those are indeed two of the things grades indicate.
 
Red:
What!!! No wonder the Texans I know sent their kids to St. Stephens or back east to go to school.....

My son's freshman and sophomore year science classes in TX offered exactly ZERO lab experiments...zero.
They SAT in brand new classrooms with fully equipped science labs but they never even so much as lit a Bunsen burner.

In his junior year in L.A. he was doing experiments the very first day of class. He remembers studying catalysts and reagents, and splitting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
True, it's stuff that I was doing in freshman and sophomore years back in the 60's and 70's but at least he finally got to do something.
 
I was chatting with someone about schooling and I mentioned that I was a poor (Ds, Cs, a B here and there, and no As) student in the beginning of my academic school career. I had a teacher, Miss Hall, who could tell that I wasn't stupid and who cared that I wasn't doing well. I don't know how she could tell, but I'm glad she could.

Miss Hall kept me after school one day and literally went through doing the homework with me for every subject. She showed me how to take notes from my reading for social studies and science class. She told me how to study for math and showed me how doing so differed from and was similar to studying for what she called "reading classes." She told me if I got to a problem I didn't know how to do, it was okay if I had to flip back through the chapter to see how the authors did the same thing and then keep flipping back and forth, incrementally working through the problem until I figured it out.

She told me that when I read stories for English, if something crossed my mind -- maybe I didn't understand why a character did something or said something -- I should write it down in my notebook and ask about it in class the next day. She told me also that every time I saw a word I didn't know that I should look it up in the dictionary and then write down the word at the back of my notebook along with the definition and a sentence of my own using the word. I was a "flippin' fool" every time I had to do word problems, but eventually I figured out how to do the damn things.

Miss Hall also taught me how to do speed math. I really liked that because she told me it was "our secret." That was really cool. Of course, she'd told other kids too, but it was still cool because using her "tricks," I occasionally could do simple math faster than my parents. I loved that.

Anyway, we sat there doing homework for three hours. That was in primary school! She drove me home and had dinner with my family and told my parents what we'd done and asked them to do the same thing with me until I was doing it on my own and they could tell I knew what I was doing. It took a while, but as time went on, it took less and less time to do all my homework and I started getting good grades.

I know all that sounds obvious to you and me now. But when I was ten it was obvious and until I got good at studying, it seemed like a lot of work, especially when I Love Lucy, Batman, Star Trek, and playing with my friends were a lot more interesting to me. The thing is that how to learn wasn't obvious to me at all.

Mom and Dad would tell me I had to study and I did what they told me. Or at least I called myself doing what I was supposed to be doing. I'd look at the books and not try to make sense of what I read, and I'd content myself with just not knowing how to do the math homework problems, and hope that whatever I did would be enough. Truth is it was rarely enough. I no more knew what I was doing or what I should have been doing or how to do it than I knew how to fly to the Moon.

In the quarter that Miss Hall showed me how to study I didn't get great grades, but I got B-minuses and Cs, which was a damn sight better than the Cs and Ds, I earned before. The next quarter, I got straight As. You could have knocked me and my parents over with a feather. I still wasn't a well behaved student, but I always got good grades and I actually learned stuff.

Thread question:
So I'm wondering do you teach your kids how to study? Did someone teach you? Did you figure it out on your own?​

I was blessed with a number of great teachers like your Ms. Hall. Teachers who taught us how to learn, how to think critically, how to analyze, make sense of, and draw conclusions from what we learned and to see what it all meant. We weren't taught just to memorize facts and dates so we could pass the next test, but what implications those facts and dates have for us and for the world.

My kids attended public school but they were not as blessed with teachers who educated instead of indoctrinatated. Thus they were homeschooled almost as much as they were public schooled. They were taught to think critically, to always ask the why or what does this mean, to see the broader implications in our our history and sociopolitical experience.

God willing, we will get back to that sort of education. It is really hard to come by these days.
 
I dont know what im going to do when I have kids. I never had to study or take notes even through college, so if my kids arent smart enough to do that then I dont know how to teach them the skills they will need.

Well, either you'll discover what to do or, if they aren't "blessed" with your scholastic facility, they'll suffer for your not doing so.
 
Well, either you'll discover what to do or, if they aren't "blessed" with your scholastic facility, they'll suffer for your not doing so.

yes those are the two options
 
Yes, I try to teach my daughter because I want her to succeed at life and I think a good education is the right path to take.

My daughter was struggling bad in reading and was in ESL classes to help but she was way behind since she started school. She is now starting 5th grade and a little above her level. It just didn't attract her attention and it was frustrating her but I pushed and pushed her to keep reading and find books that hold her interest and now she loves to read. I am blessed because I think she is smart and has a lot of potential and since I didn't get much motivation from home to succeed, I am even more motivated to make sure she does.

Starting early makes for, IMO, a much easier way to go in the long run, for her and you.

The reading early and copiously will be a huge help, surprisingly, with math. The stronger a kid's reading and grammar skills are, the easier time they have with math. Why? Because (1) math texts are written with strict adherence to standard English grammar structures and rules, and (2) math is a language, so being strong at comprehending the structure of another language makes it easier to understand a new one.
 
My son's freshman and sophomore year science classes in TX offered exactly ZERO lab experiments...zero.

I would suggest that this is the unfortunate result of a poor teacher and not attributable to the state of Texas as a whole.

I know that the Texas Educational Knowledge Standards for Biology and Chemistry classes (the usual classes for Freshmen and Sophomores) explicitly states:
The student, for at least 40% of instructional time, conducts laboratory and field investigations using safe, environmentally appropriate, and ethical practices.

I also know for a fact that the teachers in the high school I teach adheres to these mandates.
 
I would suggest that this is the unfortunate result of a poor teacher and not attributable to the state of Texas as a whole.

I know that the Texas Educational Knowledge Standards for Biology and Chemistry classes (the usual classes for Freshmen and Sophomores) explicitly states:

The student, for at least 40% of instructional time, conducts laboratory and field investigations using safe, environmentally appropriate, and ethical practices.

I also know for a fact that the teachers in the high school I teach adheres to these mandates.

Red and off-topic:
What is it about folks on this site that they just don't like to post reference links that corroborate their remarks?

I don't know anyone here. Nobody here is intimately aware of my personal and professional reputation. I know too that I'm not going to provide my CV and point people to my published works (well, I'm not going to do so and declare that I'm the author or one of them). I know also that the only people on the planet who will associate my ID with me are my children, and of them, only one is likely to remember my having used it to play video games with him. Accordingly, I have no right to expect anyone to, merely on account of my having written it, take as accurate (factually, literally and contextually) the quantitative and qualitative remarks and analysis I offer.

The Internet is rife with folks who propagate all manners of fanciful, fantastical, farcical, and, frequently, false "facts," information and analysis. I just think that in settings where folks are of a mind to engage in substantive discourse, they'd at least exhibit the tiny bit of rigor shown by sourcing the information that founds their assertions about and assessments of matters other than their own personal beliefs and behaviors. Doing so adds not only credibility but also context and opportunity, namely the opportunity for readers to assess the matter using the same information that a writer used to form/found the ideas s/he expressed. One might even say it levels the playing field that is the diverse range of knowledge bases found in Internet discussion venues and it diminishes the role of confirmation bias based on personal experiences that some people inaptly extrapolate to the population writ large.
 
Red and off-topic:
What is it about folks on this site that they just don't like to post reference links that corroborate their remarks?

I don't know anyone here. Nobody here is intimately aware of my personal and professional reputation. I know too that I'm not going to provide my CV and point people to my published works (well, I'm not going to do so and declare that I'm the author or one of them). I know also that the only people on the planet who will associate my ID with me are my children, and of them, only one is likely to remember my having used it to play video games with him. Accordingly, I have no right to expect anyone to, merely on account of my having written it, take as accurate (factually, literally and contextually) the quantitative and qualitative remarks and analysis I offer.

The Internet is rife with folks who propagate all manners of fanciful, fantastical, farcical, and, frequently, false "facts," information and analysis. I just think that in settings where folks are of a mind to engage in substantive discourse, they'd at least exhibit the tiny bit of rigor shown by sourcing the information that founds their assertions about and assessments of matters other than their own personal beliefs and behaviors. Doing so adds not only credibility but also context and opportunity, namely the opportunity for readers to assess the matter using the same information that a writer used to form/found the ideas s/he expressed. One might even say it levels the playing field that is the diverse range of knowledge bases found in Internet discussion venues and it diminishes the role of confirmation bias based on personal experiences that some people inaptly extrapolate to the population writ large.

I understand your admonishment. My intent was not to obscure the source of what I posted. I clearly declared where my quote came from and I do usually include reference links for sources I feel might be challenged or contentious. I felt that neither applied to my post and didn't go through the extra step of placing a link. My apologies if you felt I was propagating "fanciful, fantastical, farcical, and, frequently, false 'facts,'."
 
I understand your admonishment. My intent was not to obscure the source of what I posted. I clearly declared where my quote came from and I do usually include reference links for sources I feel might be challenged or contentious. I felt that neither applied to my post and didn't go through the extra step of placing a link. My apologies if you felt I was propagating "fanciful, fantastical, farcical, and, frequently, false 'facts,'."

Blue:
I didn't mean for you to interpret my remarks as an admonishment. Apologies for misleading you thus.

I was observing and remarking upon a (generic and common) behavior; it just happened that your post was the most recent manifestation of it that I'd encountered.

I didn't have chiding you in mind. I'm not the shy type, so you can believe me when I say that were I chiding you, as opposed to merely remarking on a phenomenon, I'd have used first person nouns and/or second person personal pronouns, not the third person (nouns/personal pronouns) or impersonal nouns/pronouns.

Red:
You did. That you did is why I didn't have in mind that I was admonishing you, per se.

A link is convenient for the reader, but enough specificity that a reader can handily find the relevant information will do. I highlighted "Texas Educational Knowledge Standards for Biology and Chemistry" and "right clicked" on "search Google for..." and the relevant search result took all of 15 seconds to find. Clicking on the "high school" hyperlink and doing a "Ctrl-F" for "40%" and, voila, I had confirmation of the accuracy of your statement about TX's standards. 60 seconds of "work" from start to finish hardly merits an admonishment. LOL

If there's any chiding, it's re: folks whose narrative references (un-hyperlinked and no "stand alone" link either) aren't nearly so clear as was yours.

Pink:
No apology needed.

Cheers,
Xelor
 
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