Author: Jared Wells

Lesson 5: I have a bad grade in math, therefore I’m bad at math.

Substitute any other class in for math. I speak with students every day who believe a story of “I am bad at [subject]” They perhaps have a history of poor performance in the subject and feel discouraged despite doing what they believe to be the right things. It lowers their engagement in the material, it lessens their attention in class, and it becomes painful to even work through the homework (though, dutifully, they do it).

The Truth: There are any number of reasons why a student might have poor grades in a subject. Boredom, poor planning, not studying enough or the right way, And these are just reasons the student has control over! But far too often I meet with students who have bought into the story of “I’m bad at history” and when we dig into it we find other reasons for the struggle beside a lack of natural ability or intelligence.

One of my favorite counter examples is a former student of ours who came in for chemistry support in high school. She hated chem, hated biology, because she was “bad at science”. Several years later, we had the good fortune to have her join our team as a science instructor between getting her bachelors in biochemistry and going to dental school. Her secret: she changed her story after getting the help she needed and realized that she could succeed.

Certainly, people have different skillsets and aptitudes, but there is often much more to a student’s struggles than “I’m bad at math”.

Lesson 6: If you have a “bad” teacher, you can’t succeed.

I put “bad” in quotes because, like with any profession, there certainly are bad teachers, but a “bad” teacher might, for example, just have a communication style that doesn’t mesh with a particular student.

It’s easy to look at a class many students are failing and say, “Well, clearly the teacher is the problem. There is no way to succeed in this situation!” And as more and more students mentally check out of the class, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The truth: People overcome more difficult challenges than a bad teacher every day. I certainly don’t want to minimize the challenge of succeeding in a class with a teacher that isn’t ideal for your son or daughter. Life is going to be full of challenges. The key is this: don’t dwell on the aspect of the problem you can’t control. When we work with students who say they have a bad teacher, we acknowledge that they have a difficult situation, and move past that to solutions. Focus your effort and attention on the aspects you do have direct control over. Getting a tutor can be one solution, but forming study groups, watching videos online, practicing more than just the assigned homework, etc, can all be part of the solution. Few things feel better than rising above a challenging situation!

Finals are here at La Jolla High and Muirlands Middle…is your son or daughter ready? Call or email to schedule some time for class support or organizational/planning support today!

 

With finals coming up for La Jolla High School and Muirlands Middle School, ask your kids these questions to make sure they are on track to be ready for finals.

1) Do they know which classes have extra credit and/or opportunities to turn in overdue homework? Do they have tests that need to be made up? Now is the time to ask about these things, not after teachers have already published grades. Plus, getting these things done this week is a great way to study for finals.

2) Do they know the format of their tests, and what material/chapters will be covered? And, in particular, what content they feel weakest on? Do they have their final review packets printed for each class? Do they know which classes allow notecards/sheets, and are those prepared?

3) Do they know what they are going to do if/when they get stuck on a problem or concept? Are their tutoring sessions already scheduled? Can they meet with teachers before or after school, or during lunch? Do they have a study group they will be meeting with? The night before the final is a tough time to come across a concept that makes no sense! What is the plan for when (not if!) they come across a rough patch in their studying?

Have your son or daughter explain the plan for each class…if they can’t clearly articulate it, help them create on (or call us to get them in for a session!)

Finals are coming up soon for La Jolla High and Muirlands Middle…is your son or daughter ready? Call or email to schedule some time for class support or organizational/planning support today!

So you’ve got your agreement with your child. What do you do from here?

First, remember that it is not your job to determine HOW the expectations are met. That means, no micromanaging, no “nagging”. If our goal is to help our kids become self-directed workers and problem solvers, we need to give them the space to figure out how to succeed. That doesn’t mean you can’t provide advice and support when asked for it (and during the contract creation process, you should indeed make clear that you are available to provide support when asked!) But it needs to come from the student. Part of your contract could include a daily discussion about what is going on in each class, and the plan for succeed, if that close oversight is needed.

It also means that consequences must be consistently enforced. Schedule a time every Friday afternoon or Saturday morning to check how your child did that week. If your son or daughter did not meet your expectations, help them problem solve what went wrong during the week and, most importantly, what your child could have done differently to succeed. You can also move to more frequent check in’s (2 or 3 times per week) if that is the level of oversight that is needed!

Remember, the purpose of consequences is not to cause pain. The purpose is to eliminate distractions that are getting in the way of success, and to safely simulate the kinds of consequences the real world is going to mete out if the student doesn’t live up to other people’s expectations. Just as we remove the training wheels from a bike once our child has shown she has the skill necessary to succeed without them, so too do we give our son a smartphone once he has shown he has the focus and discipline to use it responsibly. Taking the training wheels off the bike before your child is ready will necessarily lead to failure and pain.

Periodically, you should re-evaluate your expectations for your child. The goal of course is that your child’s competency will, over time, increase, meaning that your expectations should too. On the other hand, you might find that, in some areas, the expectations were too high, and might need to be adjusted downward for a time so that your child can experience success.

Here is a sample contract.

If this is a process you are interested in, we can offer consulting and mediation to help you create a contract with your son or daughter, and help set the tone for the process as well. It’s about helping your son or daughter gain the skills they’ll need to be independent, successful adults.

Step 1: Explain the purpose of the contract. The key idea is that when your teen is an adult, the world is going to reward or punish them for their ability to keep their agreements and meet the expectations of others. Your job, as a parent, is to help them get ready to face that reality. You’ll know the best way to get this message across. This about taking the emotion out of setting your expectations for your teen. At the end of the week, the question is whether they met your expectations or not, not an argument about why they didn’t or whether the expectations are reasonable or not. If your child doesn’t succeed, the next week is another opportunity to achieve! You want to enjoy your relationship with your son or daughter, not be in constant battle with them!

 

Step 2: Discuss with your son/daughter your minimum expectations for school, home, etc. Make sure to get agreement and buy-in from your son or daughter that your expectations are reasonable and achievable. It might look something like this

-No missing assignments in any classes

-No grades lower than a “C” on any tests or quizzes

-Trash taken out and bed made every day without being asked

-Out the door on the way to school by 7am every day

Make sure these are focused on outcomes, not on HOW those outcomes should be accomplished.

 

Step 3: Talk with your son or daughter about the privileges that will be EARNED if these expectations are met. As an adult, we can’t take ownership of a smartphone, a video game system, or even having a place to live for granted! We need to produce in the world in order to receive. And going forward, some privileges that your son or daughter has enjoyed will no longer be taken for granted. Those privileges might include

-Use of a smartphone

-Video game systems

-Spending time with friends on weekdays

-Use of the car on the weekends

-Allowances

You know best what are the things that 1) your son/daughter values and 2) that are getting in the way of their success. The idea is that when we are failing, we need to shrink our world a little bit so that we can narrow our focus on what is important.

 

Step 4: Set some audacious goals with your son or daughter. These should be things that, while still achievable, are not minimal expectations. Things like

-3.0 GPA at the first progress report

-No more than 2 tardies at the first progress report

-Getting “prepared” ratings on all of your Wells Academics Session Reports for the month

And come up with some great rewards for achieving them.

 

Step 5: Offer to help your son or daughter figure out ways to achieve the goals.

The key is not to force your help on the student. You can offer to help plan, offer to pay for tutoring sessions, offer to speak with teachers. You can even offer to remind your son or daughter to get started on their homework. You probably have some really clear ideas about what they could be doing differently to succeed. And now, instead of being ultimatums or demands, they can be gifts offered to help the student succeed!

Remember, this is not about you versus your son or daughter. This is about you helping your son or daughter become the successful adult they CAN become.

Here I discuss how to use the Parent-Student contract on a week to week basis to support your son or daughter in developing good habits!

In the end, all the tools, tips, and support we give to students to help them improve their organization, planning, and study skills are not going to work if the student is not motivated to improve. And by motivated, I mean willing to put in hard work, even if the work is initially unskilled and misses the mark. And initially, it will be unskilled as is the case when learning any new skill. What is important is the desire to improve goes beyond words into action. So how can we help students find that motivation?

As adults, the real world gives us motivation every day. Get your work done, or you lose your job. Serve your clients well, or go out of business. The real world is a harsh teacher. For students, the consequences of doing poorly in a class can seem pretty artificial. Spend a semester doing fun things rather than studying math…and get an “F” in a class. It can be tough for students to find intrinsic motivation, so as parents we need to help them to experience the real world consequences of failure (and of course, the real world benefits of success.) This is where the Parent-Student contract comes into play.

The Parent-Student contract recognizes that micromanaging your son/daughter is a stressful process (for you and your child) that simply doesn’t work in the long term. It’s about empowering your student to figure out the HOW on his or her own (and with whatever support you can or will provide them) and providing them a WHY: motivation, both positive and negative (just like in the real world!) for meeting your expectations. Give your student a good enough WHY, and they’ll figure the HOW out on their own (or with support that they will much more willingly accept!)

Focusing on the HOW is doing things like

-making sure your son starts his homework as soon as he gets home

-forcing him to go to tutoring sessions he doesn’t want to go to

-fighting with him over what time he needs to wake up in the morning to be on time

Focusing on the WHY is doing things like

-taking a smartphone away and giving him a flip phone instead if he misses any homework assignments

-allowing her to stay out past curfew after a week of being ready to go to school on time.

-monetary reward (why not…that’s a way adults get rewarded for good work, right?) for getting chores done on time without being asked.

Certainly, you can advise over the “how”. You are more experienced, and more knowledgeable about how to get things done than is your son or daughter. But be a coach or a mentor. Necessity is the mother of invention. Be prepared to assist when asked or needed, but give your teenager good enough why’s and you’ll be amazed at their ingenuity!

Continue here to read about how to create the Parent-Student contract.

In my experience, students who struggle at staying organized and getting their schoolwork done aren’t struggling because they don’t care (although it may seem that way, this is often just a defense mechanism…if I fail because I don’t care, I’m not actually a failure, right?)

They are struggling because their minds are searching for something, anything, to distract them from their “failures”. So instead of sitting down to study for a math test they will soon realize they are terribly behind on, they scroll through instagram on their phone. Instead of looking at powerschool to see what their grades are, they play xbox or text friends.

Does this sound like something you experience too?

Sometimes what we need is to limit our options and opportunities for distraction. As adults, this is a skill we’ve already learned (though certainly are still learning). For example, here are a few things I do

1) I use “Stayfocused” to block time-wasting sites on my computer

2) I’ve created long, difficult to remember passwords for social media and other sites, and those passwords are only saved on my iPad apps (and a password manager app on my iPad)

3) I’ve deleted all time-wasting apps on my phone, and use “Zero Willpower” (ha!) app to block websites on Safari

4) I use Focusmate to schedule work sessions with a work partner

5) I schedule the task I dread doing most for first thing in the morning

6) When I come across a task I am feeling resistance to doing, I slowly count down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and then I do it without hesitation (sounds silly, but it works for me!)

These limitations I put on myself have come from a long process of learning what works for me and what doesn’t. So how can we, as adults, help students take advantage of the wisdom that freedom (to fritter time away) is slavery (to whim)?

The most important thing to remember is that these restrictions on my freedom, if they were imposed by someone else, would seem like an unbearable tyranny. Imagine a manager than made you do the things I listed above! How barbaric that would be. Now imagine how a teenager would feel about a parent telling him what apps he can and cannot have on his phone. You’d have instant rebellion!

So how do we help students learn these skills? How can we help students understand the power of restriction without making it feel like a burden imposed by someone else? The key is making the student an important part of the process, which I talk about here.

Please, share with me some ways that you, as adults (or your children) have put limits on yourself in order to keep yourself on task.

Rote memorization (repeating words over and over again until they stick, like trying to remember a phone number by saying the numbers over and over again) may suffice for getting through a Spanish vocabulary quiz this Friday, but if your goal is to learn something for the long haul, you need to dig deeper. Even more so if you need to do more than just memorize a fact. So how can we learn vocabulary for the long term (like, say, building your vocabulary to improve your score on the SAT/ACT)?

One method that works wonders is something we call a “Word Map”.

Here is how a word map works: Get a sheet of paper (cutting a sheet of blank printer paper into quarters should be plenty big).

At the top of the paper, write the definition of the word you are trying to learn. Draw a horizontal line directly underneath.

At the bottom left of the paper, write the word you are trying to learn.

At the bottom right of the paper, you’ll write a “link”. This should be a word or phrase that sounds kind of like the word you are trying to learn. For example, if you are trying to learn the word “gregarious”, your link phrase might be “Greg hairiest”. Or for “”ambiguous”, a good link phrase might be “big goo”. Try to make the link very concrete, as abstract link words might make the next step challenging!

Below the definition, draw a picture that 1) shows the definition of the word and 2) shows the link word or phrase. They key is to draw a picture that, if someone else were to describe it, they would be able to describe your word and link (even if they didn’t say the exact words!) This is the picture that is going to come to your mind when you think of the word you are learning, so you want it to be really obvious what message it is trying to convey!

Draw a line below your picture, and write a sentence describing what is happening in the picture, using both the word and your link.

That’s it! Sometimes you’ll find that words maps can be very challenging to write (try doing one for “aesthetic”!) The great thing though is that the process of thinking about how to create a word map for a challenging word is the process of learning the word! When you are thinking of ideas for the word map, you are rolling the sound of the word around in your mind, as well as exploring every possible aspect of the definition.

Our minds learn best when we are using ideas to create which is why word maps are so effective (and flashcards are so ineffective for long-term learning).

Your best word maps will likely be ones you will remember for a long time. And it’s a much more fun, creative process then flipping through the same vocabulary word dozens of times.

This is a process that I used when I took biology at UCSD, so it works even in college level classes (and can add a little humor to a subject that a student might find dry!)

Check out the word map I made for our workshop yesterday! I bet none of the students who attended will ever forget what “articulate” means! And it illustrates another point: you don’t have to have great (or even good) art skills to create a word map.

 

-Vince

Check out our “Study Skills” workshop starting next week. Call (858.551.2650) or email (help@wellsacademics.com) to register today!

Lesson 3: Careless errors are no big deal.

When your student misses a question on a math test because of a “careless error” chances are that the teacher gives partial credit in recognition that the math concept was learned, even if the execution wasn’t quite there. Homework probably is not graded, merely checked for completeness, so there are no consequences for errors there. The lesson that this teaches is that it isn’t a big deal if execution isn’t at 100%.

The Truth: Learning how to execute at 100% is probably a far more important lesson than whatever math concept the student is learning in pre-calculus. Attention to detail and having a quality of work you can be proud of are going to be vital for any profession from computer programmer to poet. But we need to help our sons and daughters not let let themselves off the hook for making “minor” errors and do the hard work of learning from the mistake and making changes that will avoid the mistake in the future.

Lesson 4: Reading is boring

Of all the books/stories that your child read for school last year, how many did he or she actually enjoy? My guess: zero or one. Since students have so many claims on their time (school, homework, sports, clubs, work, volunteering, family, etc) there isn’t a lot of time for reading for pleasure, so the vast majority of the reading they do is dictated by a teacher, and is understandably not likely to match up with their interests/passions.

The Truth: It isn’t reading that is boring: it’s reading something someone else is telling you to read that is boring! Reading is simply a medium of information transfer. If the information is interesting, the reading will be interesting. Finding time for reading for pleasure is SO important because the experience of reading something enjoyable is qualitatively different. The level of engagement that students have with something they are interested is the level of engagement they need to have in the school reading, and it is vital that they experience that higher level of engagement.

 

Finals are coming up soon for La Jolla High and Muirlands Middle…is your son or daughter ready? Call or email to schedule some time for class support or organizational/planning support today!

 

Lesson 1: “I don’t know” is shameful and bad.

In school, “I don’t know” is a bad grade on a test, it’s being called on and embarrassed in front of the class. In a student’s mind, it means you are irresponsible, lazy, and/or stupid. Now, of course no teacher is explicitly saying these things to students (are they?) but the message is clear: the “good” students are the ones that know the answers, and the “bad” students don’t.

The truth: “I don’t know” is an opportunity for growth. It is the chance to overcome. Finding the answer to “I don’t know” can be as minor as figuring out how to fix your computer yourself, or as world-changing as figuring out how to provide clean water to the third world. It’s an entrepreneur’s million dollar idea. Every adventure story is solving a big “I don’t know”! It wouldn’t be much of a story if the hero was afraid to investigate where the treasure was, would it?

Lesson 2: Learning is memorizing facts that have no bearing on my life.

I don’t think that it’s unreasonable that students look at chemistry and come to the conclusion that it’s unlikely that their future success is going to depend on understanding the structure of an atom. Does yours? So they go into classes, day after day, looking at education and learning as little more than a hoop that needs to be jumped through.

The truth: Being able to learn well has never been more important than it is today. Careers no longer last 40 years, and your son is going to need to be able more move deftly from one field to another. It’s likely that the things your daughter will need to know to succeed 30 years from now are unknown today. Just as we learn to read via the adventures of Dick and Jane (no 5 year old complains that this story has no relevance to our future success), we learn to learn by studying AP European history, we learn to write by writing essays about Sidhartha, and we learn to think by solving math problems in pre-calculus. Certainly, students might be better served by having more options to to take classes more clearly relevant to their intended career path, but in the end, it’s the skill of learning that is going to be tested when they are adults.

 

Finals are coming up soon for La Jolla High and Muirlands Middle…is your son or daughter ready? Call or email to schedule some time for class support or organizational/planning support today!