The greatest Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said, “We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” For students who do not have good study habits, what should be done?
Create a ritual
A ritual is something that someone does repeatedly. For a tennis player, before a player serves the ball, he may bounce the ball a few times to help him focus. This allows him to hone his mind for what he is about to do. Good study habits require a ritual as well.
What would be an example of a ritual involving good study habits? Here is a scenario. A student gets home from school at 3 PM. He has an hour to do whatever he wants: watch TV, call his friends, instant message, check email or surf the web. Then he has one hour to exercise; any type of exercise is fine. He is done with his non-academic time by 5 PM. He comes home, takes a shower, and eats dinner. It’s now 6 PM. He has had some fun, blown off some steam, gotten cleaned up and had a good dinner. From 6-9 could be study time. No cell phones. No TV. No IM. No internet, except for research purposes, which is cleared ahead of time with the parent. Absolutely no distractions. If he finishes all his homework before 9, he can read ahead for his hardest classes. If he’s not done with his work by 9 PM, he can use some flex time to work past 9 PM and still get enough sleep. At or soon after 9 PM, he can start getting ready for bed, winding down his activities and giving his brain a rest before going to bed and falling sleep. That leaves 8-10 hours of good sleep time so that he can be alert and awake for his next school day.
Is this the only study ritual that can work? Absolutely not. It’s just an example. Some people do their best work first thing in the morning. For such a student, it may make better sense to get up early at 5AM every day to study. The specifics are not important; what is important is that the student has a study ritual and follows it religiously. This will allow each student to reach his maximum potential.
What if the student does not want to follow a study ritual? Before getting locked into a battle of wills, examine the student’s potential and his actual performance. If the student is performing up to his potential, then there is no need to change his study patterns. Certain individuals may work well using a free-form study method, studying intensely as needed but without following a set study ritual. This is somewhat unusual, but not necessarily indicative of a problem. If you are not sure whether your student is performing up to his or her potential, have the student tested by a clinical psychologist trained in administering IQ tests, and determine a plan of action after the test results come in from the trained expert. Show the clinical psychologist your son or daughter’s grades and ask him whether your student is working up to his or her potential. If the student is not performing up to his potential, then a system of carrots and sticks needs to be implemented. Offer incentives (carrots) for your student to adopt and follow a study plan, and throw in some progressive penalties (sticks) if the student fails to make measurable changes.
Also, calling and emailing your student’s teachers and getting frequent progress reports are essential. Red flags include not turning in homework, turning in incomplete homework, or completing work in a sloppy or careless manner. Such actions are not indicators of a student who is trying to do his best but struggling in the execution, but rather of a student who does not care about whether he or she does his or her part. If the student is not on task, privileges need to be slowly taken away, one a time, until the student gets back on track. When the student finds out that he is going to lose his phone, his weekend privileges with his friends, and/or his internet access, he will begin to care about making a good-faith contribution. Once the student’s performance improves, his privileges should be slowly returned in a measured manner, one a time.
Treating a child-like royalty when he is shirking his academic responsibilities is not only a bad idea, it is irresponsible. As a parent, you become an enabler to your child’s lack of discipline and/or laziness. The longer a parent waits to intercede in a situation where the student is not using effective study habits, the harder it becomes to overcome this situation later. By the time a student fails all of his classes in his first semester in college because he had not previously acquired good study habits, it may be too late to take corrective action. In any event, that black mark on his transcript will not be helpful to his future success, even if he does pull up his grades at a later time. Therefore, it is imperative that a parent take action at the earliest possible time. If the parent follows the recommendations early on, the parent will have a better chance of keeping the student on track before it is too late. Good luck on achieving great study habits from Logos Tutoring!