11 HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS

Attend every class. if you miss any classes, you miss important material.

Do all assignments and give yourself time to do a good job. Start budgeting time for the assignment as soon as it is assigned. Don’t wait until it is due.

Study every day. After class type up your notes. Coordinate them with other class readings. Go over these notes every single day. When test time comes, you will have absorbed the earlier material. You just have new material to memorize.

Be an active reader. Annotate your textbooks. Underline important points and write in the margins. Have some shorthand symbols like “EX” for examples or an * for important material. Pay attention to clues like “Three reasons…” Make sure you get all those reasons. Use a journal to write about what you have read. Reread passages that you don’t at first understand.

Understand the difference between main point and support in textbook readings.

Get copies of textbooks before the class begins. Read and annotate them.

Do more than is expected. If the teacher tells you to do problems 2,4 and 6, also do 1,3 and 5.

Introduce yourself to the instructor and plan on meeting with the instructor as least three times during the semester. These professionals can give you tips on how to get a better grade in their classes.

If you need a tutor, get one.

Form a study group, so you and other students can work together. What one student does not get, another one will. Help each other. Learn some memory techniques like chaining, pegging and mnemonics.

Chaining is telling a silly story and including items you need to memorize. To memorize the names of the U.S. presidents.

You are WASHING a TON of Clothes. See yourself by the WASHING machine with TONs of clothes. The door bell rings. A naked man wearing only a fig leaf is standing there. He must be ADAM, the first man except that there are several other men wearing fig leafs. ADAMS. They want to use the JOHN.

You get the idea. Make the story ridiculous so you are more likely to remember it, and visualize as you go.

Pegging is plugging new material to be learned to a list you already memorized. That might be the days of the week, the months, the alphabet.

To learn the names of the presidents you might use yearly holidays. Picture George Washington as the New Year’s baby. John Adams is Cupid for February and Valentine’s Day. Thomas Jefferson is all in green and wearing Shamrocks.

Mnemonics are memory helpers. To memorize Pi or any long number construct a sentence where each word has the same number of letters and order as the number to memorize.

Pi to the tenth is 3.1415926535. (3) May (1) I (4) have (1) a (5) large (9) container (2) of (6)coffee,(5) cream (3) and (5) sugar. You get the idea.

To remember what happened to Henry VIII’s wives: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

Invent some of your own mnemonics if none are available.

Repetition is important even if using memory helpers.

LEARNING HACK- PRACTICE LOOKING FOR ANSWER CLUES IN TEST QUESTIONS

Students, do you want to practice taking tests and understanding tests strategies? Go to freekibble.com. Try to answer the daily dog trivia question there and then click on Freekibble Kat and answer the daily cat trivia question. Most questions have clues to the answers. If you can work out the answer from the clues, this is great practice for looking for clues in school tests.

And those clicks earn free food for animal shelters.

Then click on Free Kat Litter. No question here, but it only takes a second, and that click earns free litter for animal shelters and rescue groups.

THINGS I WOULDN'T KNOW IF I WAS NOT A READER

Things I wouldn’t Know if I were not a reader.

1. Elfshot, small stones believed by medieval people to be arrowheads shot from fairies. These are believed to protect humans.

2. Tattoos are often used as protective devises.

3. A Crayola will burn for thirty minutes. They make great cheap candles.

4, Tarragon, the spice, is used in magic spells for courage as tarragon means little dragon.

5. The Greeks believed in two kinds of fate. Ananke -just because you are there.Hurricane katrina, ten years ago wiped out whole towns. Everyone was affected. Heimarmene, stuff that happens because of the choices you made. Cynics were a cult who spent their time figure out the two kinds of fate.

6. Dandelions are for courage, also to keep from being evicted. Collect dandelions and place them around the apartment or home.

7. Ben Franklin published “Pamela,” the first novel published in the colonies that would become the U.S. Written by Samuel Richardson, it was originally published in England and reprinted by Franklin in 1744.

8. The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is at Bronx Community College in New York. Inductees have a bust made by a famous sculptor.Edgar Allan Poe’s sculptor was Daniel Chester French, who also sculpted the Lincoln Memorial This was America’s first Hall of Fame. The only non American appears to be General Lafayette,who was granted honorary U.S. citizenship. 9. When Teddy Roosevelt was police commissioner in New York, he took steps to preserve Edgar Allan Poe’s home in New York. The house Poe rented is still there on a land called Poe Park.

10. Gerardus Mercator, a cartographer born in 1512 coined the word “Atlas” after a mythical Titan whom he idolized? Mercator used the word “Atlas” for his collection of world maps.

11. Who gets heart and kidney transplants? One prison inmate received a heart transplant which will probably end up costing taxpayers a million dollars. A death row inmate gets dialysis and has been recommended for a kidney transplant.

12. There are 193 nation members of the United Nations.

A question for the research minded. Could General Lafayette who was, of course, born in France, have become president of the U.S.?

ANSWERS TO PRESIDENTS QUIZ

QUESTIONS:

1. In what year were each of the four men with birthdays in February born?

2. Who was the first president born in the 19th century?

3. Who was the first president born in the 20th century?

4. Who was the first president to be born after the American Revolution?

5. What president had the campaign slogan, “I like Ike.”

6. Teddy Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor married a future president while Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House? What was the name of her husband?

7. Who was president when the Berlin Wall was torn down?

8. What president wrote the best selling book, “Profiles In Courage”?

9. How many presidents were assassinated?

10. What president had a popular dog named Fala?

ANSWERS:

1. Washington 1732, William Henry Harrison 1773, Lincoln 1809, Reagan 1911.

2. Milliard Fillmore 1800.

3. John F. Kennedy, born in 1917,

4. James K Polk was born in 1795.

5. Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower.

6. Eleanor Roosevelt marrie her fifth cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

7. George Herbert Walker Bush

8. John F. Kennedy.

9. Four

10.Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Pick up a biography of one of our presidents or first ladies and read about his or her life.

When historians are asked to rank the presidents, the three top ranked are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Look these men up in an encyclopedia. Why do you think they rank at the top?

UNSCHOOLING - HOW ONE STUDENT - ME - MADE IT WORK.

Has unschooling ever worked for any student? It did for me.

I fell in love with American history at a young age. I read books about the American Revolution, westward movement and the presidents. Every week I went to the library and selected two of three books to devour. I read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s and Zane Gray’s books. I loved John Dickson Carr, whose mystery stories included locked room puzzles. They were great lessons in critical thinking, not that I knew that then.

Despite my passion for reading, I was not doing well in school. I was a strange kid with stringy brown hair that would not hold the bouffant hair styles so popular then. I wore thrift shop clothes, had cavities in my teeth and just didn’t make friends very well.

On the bus and on the playground, the bullies tormented me. I was ashamed of not having friends to play with, so I tried to hide in the bathroom with a book. The teachers would make me go outside.

I hated the lunches, so the teachers picked on me about that.

I was bored with the lessons. We studied the same things every year. Apostrophes have to be the most boring thing on earth, not to mention comparative and superlative adjectives.

I did poorly in all my subjects except history and English. I did well in history because it didn’t bore me, though the textbooks were not as good as the books I took from the library.

I did well in English because I was a reader. Maybe I didn’t know the comma rules or the nouns and verbs and other rules, but I had seen enough proper sentences in books that I could recognize the correct version. I was like a musician who plays by ear. I read and wrote by ear.

School did take its toll on me. I stopped even trying to study. I retreated into a world of daydreams. I watched television and read books because the fantasy worlds in both fed my daydreams.

But I did not just learn in books.

I joined a humane society and a writers club. These were adult evening activities, so even though I had no friends my own age, I spent time with intelligent mature people who did not repeat the same boring material over and over.

Unschooling will not work for all students. Most students don’t skip school to go to the library like I did. They have little or no interest in history, animal welfare or writing, but there has to be alternatives to public school for those of us who do not thrive there and cannot learn there.

Homeschooling is a great option, but most parents don’t have the resources for homeschooling. It takes time, effort and money.

What other options are there?

The granny cloud works in India, and I will have more about that and other options in future columns.

This article is a must read for all parents. Schools don't just fail our boys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/02/19/why-schools-are-failing-our-boys/?tid=sm_fb

A QUIZ ON U.S. PRESIDENTS

This is a month of presidential birthdays. George Washington, February 22; William Henry Harrison, February 9; Abraham Lincoln, February 12 and Ronald Reagan, February 6.

Just for the fun of it, lets learn something about presidents.

Here is a short quiz. Look up the answer if you don’t know it.

1. In what year were each of the four men with birthdays in February born?

2. Who was the first president born in the 19th century?

3. Who was the first president born in the 20th century?

4. Who was the first president to be born after the American Revolution?

5. What president had the campaign slogan, “I like Ike.”?

6. Teddy Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor married a future president while Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House? What was the name of her husband?

7. Who was president when the Berlin Wall was torn down?

8. What president wrote the best selling book, “Profiles In Courage”?

9. How many presidents were assassinated?

10. What president had a popular dog named Fala?

Find the answers in tomorrow’s blog.

QUALITIES NOT MEASURED BY TESTS

Personal qualities not measured by tests. from Maria Montessori:

1. creativity

2. critical thinking

3. Resilience

4. motivation

5.persistence

6. curiosity

7. question asking

8. humor

9. endurance

10. reliability

11. enthusiasm

12. civic mindedness

13. self awareness

14. self discipline

15. empathy

16. leadership

17 compassion

18. courage

19. sense of beauty

20. sense of wonder

21. resourcefulness

22. spontaneity

23. humility

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MIX AND MATCH QUIZ, FAMOUS COUPLES

For Valentine’s Day here are two lists. The first eleven names are famous wives. The second group of names lettered a -k are famous husbands. See if you can match the husband with the wife. If you don’t know who someone on the list is or was, please look him or her up. This is an educational blog.

For each of the ladies mentioned in the first list, you will find her famous husband in the second list.

It has been said there is a woman behind every successful man. Let me add there is a man behind every successful woman.

I will have the answers tomorrow which is a play day. But if you choose to skip tomorrow, please come back the day after that.

You may also email elfaygo@icloud.com for answers.

wives

1. Elizabeth Barrett

2. Anne Boleyn

3. Julia Dent

4. Amelia Earhart

5. Linda Eastman

6. Farrah Fawcett

7. Alice Hathaway lee

8. Bonnie Parker

9. Alice Roosevelt

10.. Eleonore Roosevelt

11. Joanne Woodward

husbands

a. Clyde Barrow

b. Robert Browning

c. Ulysses S. Grant

d. Henry VIII of England

e. Nicholas Longworth

f. Lee Majors

g. Paul McCartney

h. Paul Newman

i. George Putnam

j. Franklin Delano Roosevelt <

k. Teddy Roosevelt

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LIFE-LONG LEARNING, BY PATRICK MATHIESON

In this post guest blogger, Patrick Mathieson, answers the question: What is the best way to structure self-education after graduating form college and working full time? This post originally appeared in Quora.

Welcome my first guest blogger.

If you try to set up a comprehensive self-education program all at once, you run the risk of stumbling, missing your ambitious learning goals, and becoming discouraged.

IMO, the better tactic is to develop the habit of learning new things every day. The best way I know to do that is to read constantly. And the best way to read constantly is to always have a book (or books) right next to your bed.

This is what my bedside drawer looks like right now:

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is grab a coffee and pick up a book. When I go to bed at night, the last thing I do is floss -- and then pick up a book. You can see from the above photo that there's not much rhyme or reason to the book selections... just stuff I think is interesting. Every few months I blow a hundred bucks on Amazon and add 7 or 8 titles to my stack.

(Interestingly, you mentioned "neuroscience, mathematics, coding, critical thinking, behavioral economics" in your question details... you might actually enjoy a few of the books you see above.)

I'm sympathetic to the idea that reading materials should be coordinated in an effort to make a "structured self-education" program... but I also recognize that the human brain craves diversity and gets bored easily. Personally, I find it more productive to focus less on what I'm reading, and focus more on reading consistently. If you regularly read books for an hour or two every day (which isn't hard... squeezing in 45 minutes of reading over coffee and breakfast is my favorite part of the day), you can burn through 20 or 30 or 40 books in any given calendar year. That's enough to digest all the seminal works in whichever field you think will help most in your career and still have time for Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey.

That said... Quora is a pretty awesome place to learn new things, too. If you can sneak in 30 minutes of Quora-ing in addition to everything I wrote above --- you'll be in good shape. Good luck.

LEARN LIKE A LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln was an un-schooler. He did not sit in a classroom all day watching a teacher write on a blackboard. He was not surrounded by bullies and class clowns.

In doing manual labor and farm chores, he stayed healthy and fit. In the evenings he read books. Just obtaining a book was difficult for him, but he did find books to read and he engaged his mind with writers and thinkers. As an adult he was a self-taught attorney. Lincoln was in charge of his own schooling, and he received a great education because learning was important to him.

He did not have a teacher or classmates to make fun of his size or belittle his love of learning. We all know bullying is wrong, but schools have not been able to stop it.

Lincoln was fortunate, but today’s students can be fortunate too. Learn more about un—schooling for your children and for yourself. un-schooling could be is a path to life long learning.

Happy birthday, President Lincoln. He was born 206 years ago.

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Learning Hack of the Day: Review Resolutions

So many people make New Year's resolutions on January 1. They forget them by the end of the month. Did you make New Year's Resolutions? What were they? Review them,. If you didn't make New Year's resolutions, make some February resolutions. Review them throughout the month. Reconnect with your goals. Tweak those goals that need to be tweaked. Resolutions are like grades. They need to be worked on everyday. Shop Amazon - Contract Cell Phones & Service Plans

Learning Hack of the Day: Have A Purpose

Have a purpose for your learning. Are you studying to get a better job? Maybe you want to be a physician or n astronaut. Some students, usually older adults, learn for the sake of learning and for self fulfillment. Learning is a way to grow both the intelligence and the spirit. Younger students are sometimes bored by the process, so they shut themselves down. They learn as little as they can. Learning is a decision; it helps to know why we are in the classroom, and what we intend to do with the learning once we have earned it. The best reason to learn is for self enrichment; future employment is, of course, important too. Shop Amazon Pantry - Game Day Essentials Delivered to You Shop Amazon Tools - 20% Off Select Gladiator Products Shop Amazon Home & Kitchen - New Year, New You - Make Healthy Snacks

Learning Hack of the Day: Initiate Your Own Learning Plan

Our public and private school systems are not set up to recognize genius. Thomas Edison was sent home from school because the teachers said he could not learn. Most budding Edisons in our educational system are just flunked. Too often these children accept the false diagnoses that they could not learn. Unless you have a medically diagnosed learning disorder, you can learn. Know that the failure is often the school system. Stern unfriendly teachers, boring textbooks and regimented activities do not promote learning. If the school system is not working for you, explore homeschooling and unschooling. Find alternatives. Find the system that works for you. Abraham Lincoln had little formal schooling. He was self taught. The best learning for you is the learning you initiate.

Learning Hack of the Day: Facts and Opinions

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Learn the difference between a fact and an opinion. This used to be easy. I would have students bring in a newspaper. We would compare the front page with the opinion page. Today's newspapers have opinion on every page, and many readers have difficulty telling the difference. Learning the difference will serve you in voting, in jury duty, on a job and in life. It is a valuable skill. Don't be afraid to double check facts or to differ in an opinion. Writers are asked to verify their facts with more than one source and to evaluate the source. Know that you are entitled to your opinion, but sometimes you must defend it. You defend an opinion with verifiable facts.

Play Day

Play day. You will need some time to practice chaining, journaling and your other learning hacks. The 15 and the 30th of each month will be play days. Victoria Moran used these dates as play days in her book “Younger by the Day.” I promised you 365 learning hacks, so at the end of the year, you will get 24 bonus hacks. Shop Amazon - TurboTax - Get 10% more on Top of Your Federal Refund

Check out one of last year's blogs on Chaining. Chaining is an ancient memory technique. It is telling a silly story with new items to be memorized in the story. This technique will strengthen your creativity, make all learning easier and more fun. Keep practicing. Memorize the names of the presidents of the United States, ten words in a foreign language or the states in the order they ratified the constitution.

Learning Hack of the Day: 52 Cups of Coffee

Here is an idea from Dale Stephens in his book, “Hacking Your Education, Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will.” Stephens is a leader in the Unschooling movement, which shows people how to learn without going to traditional classrooms. Stephens suggests “52 cups of coffee.” Invite someone you don't know, to coffee. Talk with that person for an hour. Learn from him or her. Then ask this person to recommend someone else for next week's coffee. For the price of a cup of coffee you might get a free French lesson, or better yet, a n interesting life story. The world becomes your school. Read his book for more ideas on learning hacks.

Learning Hack of the Day: Bird by Bird

Learning chores might seem overwhelming. If you are a high school or college student you may have to learn a foreign language, advanced math, computer programing and French literature. All in the next twelve months. In her book “Bird by Bird,” Anne Lamott wrote about the time her brother Buddy had to write a school paper on birds. He consulted dozens of books and read about robins, eagles, sparrows and cardinals. When it came time to write his paper, he sat at the table surrounded by all the books. He didn't known where to start. His dad patted him on the back and said, “One bird at a time, Buddy. One bird at a time.” This is the way we learn. One lesson at a time. One fact at a time, one bird at a time.

Learning Hack of the Day: Wise Time Management

One reason students don't do well in school is that they fail to manage their time. They have vague ideas about when to study and how much time to devote to study. Study time must be scheduled and honored. Get a time management worksheet, available on line. Just google “time management worksheet,” and print up a copy. There are several of these sheets offered free; pick one that you think will work best for you. Fill it out. Several print books have time sheets included. I love the one in "Becoming A Master Student" by Dave Ellis. The book is worth buying, reading and studying. Back to time management sheets. Where do you spend your time? Put aside time for cleaning house, sleeping, shopping, and work. Don't forget class time. Be aware of hidden time pockets. Often things on your list take longer than expected. People writing out these charts will factor in cooking and eating time, but forget clean-up time. They might factor in time spent at work, but forget the time it takes to get to and from work. What about unexpected phone calls? It also takes time to get to and from an on-ground class. Factor in, at least an hour a day to study for each class. You might need more than just a tine management sheet. I have a day planner to pencil in appointments. I also keep to do lists. The to do list might be daily or weekly. Everyone's schedule is different, so all of our time planners will look different. Some people like to keep everything in electronic planners and others like the paper planners best. Find out what works for you. If you miss an appointment or have a day with too may projects, adjust your schedule. How often do you fill out these time sheets? As often as necessary. Before signing up for new classes is a good time. You might want to redo your time management sheet right after school begins. How is it working? Do you need extra time for an algebra class. Often history and English classes are heavy on reading. Did you plan enough time for all that reading. I often renew my time sheet at the beginning of each new season. I check my daily planner every week to make sure I don't miss any appointments. Recommended reading: "Time Management From the Inside Out," by Julie Morganstern.