Training your student in good orderly habits for studying is the BEST preparation you can give him or her for college. <\/p>\n
Training your student to sit still, to be still, to focus is absolutely essential for higher education.
\nMany do not have it. Many do not finish college \u2013 ever because they cannot get out of bed, they cannot get themselves to class, they cannot stay awake or focused in class, they cannot focus enough to study to do the homework and pass the tests.<\/p>\n
Note this:<\/p>\n
59 percent of full-time, first-time students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at a 4-year institution in fall 2005 completed the degree at that institution within 6 years. ~ National Center for Education Statistics. http:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/fastfacts\/display.asp?id=40
\nThat is the SIX YEAR graduation rate for a bachelor\u2019s degree. The four year graduation rate nationally in the United States is about 44%!<\/p>\n
One of the biggest obstacles to learning that I see in my college students is the inability to focus for more than five minutes without having to check a cellphone or a tablet. Basically, students struggle to sit still and focus on a difficult topic. I do not permit electronics in my lectures, and yet, in the back, I see students \u2018sneak\u2019 a peek at a phone when they think I am not looking. <\/p>\n
OK, let\u2019s be honest. There is something pathetic about me when I am so absorbed in my smartphone that it cannot be put away for even fifty minutes while I attend to something else. There is something rude about me being in the physical company of one person, while more so attending to my phone, be that in line at the grocery store, in my car when I should be driving, or when I am having coffee with a dear friend. <\/p>\n
I take my own adult children to task with this phone problem occasion with the admonition that \u201cyou are here with me in my car right now, please be present.\u201d Not that any of us mind a quick message or quick peek, but no persistent phone checking and messaging. It is the sort of thing we do when we are alone.<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t say that in a judgmental or angry tone. I am more so saddened that our advances in technology (while it is marvelous that we can Skype with a person who is half way around the world) are destroying our abilities to be present in the moment and give the flesh and blood humans who are in the same room as us our attention.<\/p>\n
Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating that we abandon electricity, phones, and zippers and return to the 1600s. I know distractions have always been an issue for humanity. Before computers, dads hid behind the newspaper when they came home from work. We all need down time, and we all need to be excused from exerting ourselves, so we can recharge after a long day. But we don\u2019t need to be excused all day simply because the distracted life is the easier life. I know that focusing on anything for any length of time takes effort and concentration. It is easier to let your mind wander, or to attend to less demanding things like laughing at the class clown or paying attention to the little skirmish that is taking place in the hall outside the classroom. It takes effort to understand and memorize the abstract concepts presented in a high school or college classroom. These classes can be difficult, and on first encounter, the all-important nuances of a technically difficult subject may seem irrelevant to the distracted soul.
\nOK, now that I have admitted that humans have always been distracted, I want to add that I still believe that the current generation of young people attending college are, perhaps, the most distracted generation we have ever dealt with in higher education. The entertainment at their fingertips in terms of music, videos, texts from friends, that constant shifting of their attentions from one thing to another in a desperate search for something that will capture their scattered minds is extremely damaging to the functioning of their minds.<\/p>\n
No, I am not preaching doom and gloom here, but I am recommending that your young homeschool students be removed from their devices during school time. I am recommending that they focus on their handwriting or spelling lessons without distracting noises in the background, and without a phone sitting on their desks. I am recommending that not every subject be taught online or at a computer, and that when a subject is taught on a computer that you safeguard the computer such that only the software needed for the task at hand is available to the student at that time.
\nThis need not be done in a paranoid, angry or suspicious manner. You can freely admit to your students that you too would struggle with distractions with every two seconds your email beeped or your phone sent you a text. We are always curious when we are alerted that we have a message, and the easiest way to not divert our attention to that fact, is to turn off audible alerts, and to not open the software with the messages until we have time to attend to it. <\/p>\n
You could, for example, have the student work for 50 minutes and then he or she is allowed to check messages.
\nSo\u2026 back to my topic\u2026 writing. Students who cannot focus for long periods of time on a subject will never be good writers, will never string long complex arguments together, will never go into depth with any subject because they never dwell on any one subject long enough to go deep at all.
\nFocus \u2013 How do you and your students focus? And how do you pull yourselves back from a distraction when one happens?<\/p>\n
1.\tHave an uncluttered environment for your students to study in. Leave electronics in another room.
\n2.\tNo music or background noise. It is time to be quiet, to focus on the task at hand (be that lecture time, writing time, math problem solving time)
\n3.\tEnsure that everyone has had a bathroom break before getting started.
\n4.\tHelp your students get in a routine of gathering all the materials you need before you start, so they do not have the excuse of having to get up and get stuff before they can continue their task. For math that would include pencil, paper, eraser, ruler, calculator (perhaps?), math book, etc.
\n5.\tMake each study session 45-50 minutes (depending on the age, for 1st graders start with 20 minutes), and let the students have a 10 minute break to go outside, or check electronics, and then call them back to their work.
\n6.\tI say OMIT snacks during study time. Set a separate time for food and drinks. Surely anyone can go 45 minutes without needing to snack on something.<\/p>\n
If you have a student who cannot function through these 5 points, patiently and persistently \u2018train\u2019 him or her. Start with as little as 5 minutes. Increase the time, and provide tangible rewards (that otherwise would not be available) to bring him or her to the point where studying undistractedly for the requisite 45 minutes is possible. This will take some time, perhaps the better part of a whole school year. Training may involve your sitting with the person at first, for accountability, but eventually, unless there are other issues looming, you should be able to leave your student to work on his or her own for 45 minutes. Certainly that is the minimum requirement for success in college.<\/p>\n
The younger your kids are, the easier this is to do. Simply set new guidelines for how we function around our electronic devices. Model healthy use of electronics yourself. Show your kids that you are able to put them away, that you can sit and play a game of Sorry without having to check your phone— and that if the phone rings (cell or otherwise) you are able to let it to your voicemail, because YOUR KIDS and your time with them are more important than whoever is at the other end of that tyrannical little $300 smartphone. Model judicious cell and computer use, and your kids (with your guidelines firmly in place to help them when they are tempted) are likely to imitate you.
\nLet me close with this analogy: Good electronic use is like good eating. It is a matter of discipline. There is candy and chocolate, and cake, all high carbohydrate, high fat, low fiber quick fix energy sources that we gravitate towards. And then there is the high fiber, vegetables and fruits, and the lean meats and whole grains, which take longer to digest and which do not give you an immediate sugar high. We need to gravitate towards long term good health in our eating in order to serve our bodies best. We need to gravitate towards judicious electronics use for the sake of our minds and souls. (And the soul component will be for another day, another blog).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Training your student in good orderly habits for studying is the BEST preparation you can give him or her for college. Training your student to sit still, to be still, to focus is absolutely essential for higher education. Many do … Continue reading