“There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.”
Alexander Woollcott

How to be a Great Student: Part Four

Let ’em know that you are coming.

This is part of a series, click the tag: Be a Good Student for more.

When I was just a little boy, I asked my Mother what could I be. I was probably wondering about being an astronaut. She said, “You can be whatever you want to be”. That is a very nice thing to hear. However, as I look back, I kind of wish she’d said, “Be a dentist, get married early, have lots of babies” so that I’d have something to measure myself against if I went another direction.

The best students have a goal. They know where they want to be in five, ten, twenty years. Working towards that goal gives life purpose. Instead of attending classes, they…

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
Albert Einstein

How to be a Great Student: Part Three

Just call me Bob.

This is part of a series, click the tag: Be a Good Student for more.

The great student shows respect to his teacher and fellow classmates by using their names. Using one’s name pokes a hole in the force field we build around ourselves and makes an interaction personal.

In the 1960s, the United States was stepping out of the crushing conformity forced on us by McCarthyism. We can thank President Kennedy for attending Spartacus and changing the nation. The people of the US were also outraged at the government for its involvement in the Viet Nam War. This started a wave called Anti-Establishment. To be part of the Establishment was almost a dirty thing.

Teachers, sensitive to this new thing, stopped…

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin

How to be a Great Student: Part Two

Give me five minutes.

This is part of a series, click the tag: Be a Good Student for more.

Showing up five minutes early has so many advantages.

• It shows that you are ready to be taught and in the class.
• It shows that you do want to be there; unlike all those late-bees.
• You can chat with the teacher and find out more about this day’s topic or the teacher.
• You can meet the other students who are intent on getting a good education. They are who you want in that group project, meet them, learn their names.
• You can pick the best seat.
• And so much more.

It is easy to dismiss five minutes and think that it is not important. Five minutes…

“A student of life considers the world a classroom.”
Harvey Mackay

How to be a Great Student: Part One

Get a good seat for the show.

This is part of a series, click the tag: Be a Good Student for more.

In the 1970s, video cameras became available as a tool in the universities. Researchers quickly turned the camera on the classroom.

They found that a teacher teaches the first two rows and the two rows down the middle in a classroom. From the teacher’s point of view, it would look like an inverted T. This is not deliberate, this is human nature when facing a classroom of rows and columns. They naturally give the vast bulk of their attention to these parts of a class.

Teachers know this and try to widen their focus but it is unnatural. It is a hard T to break, I used to pace…