Nothing Comes From Nothing

Are you humming the song Maria and the Captain sing to each other in the gazebo?  Okay, we can be friends.  Read on.

I'm actually in a situation I haven't been in since starting this blog.  I don't know what to write.  I have a few topic ideas saved in a draft folder, but none of them are striking my fancy this week, and I don't have any ideas specific to this week.  As someone who is rarely at a loss for words or opinions, I have to ask myself how this can be.  It's lack of mental stimulation.

I've been on break for over a week now.  The first five days, I was sick.  It was just a cold, but I felt lousy enough to do nothing but sit in a recliner and watch TV all day.  Then, it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, eating and watching movies (By the way, if you want to take a person who isn't into sci-fi to a sort of sci-fi movie this season, Passengers was quite good.   It was kind of Castaway meets Gravity plus a relationship story.)   Anyway, back to the issue.  I have not had a lot of mental stimulation that would inspire depth of thought.

Apparently, that realization was just enough to fire a few brain cells because I just had this thought.  If we don't provide our students with mental stimulation, they might not experience much depth of thought either.  We need to intentionally fill our lesson plans with interaction, whether that is asking students questions during a lecture or assigning complex projects.  If we want them to think beyond "the right answer," it is up to us to create an environment that goes beyond that as well.

See you in the new year.

What You Deserve

Have you ever spent a significant amount of time watching daytime television?  I obviously don't during school time, but during summer and Christmas break, I "get" to see court shows, talk shows, and 90's comedy re-runs.

What I find interesting is less about the shows than the commercials.  Whether you are watching Judge Alex or Dr. Phil or Grace Under Fire, the ads are the same.  I assume they are aimed at people who are home during the day, and it seems that (in the advertisers' minds at least) these people must believe they are owed something.  Commercials for law firms encourage you to be the victim of something in order to "get the settlement you deserve."  Ads for vision centers tell you to see them in order to "get the contacts you deserve."  I even saw one for Just Tires that said to "get the tires you deserve."  It doesn't explain exactly what I have done to earn the good tires; I guess I'm supposed to know that already.

During one sick day, I would estimate I heard that I inexplicably deserved something three dozen times.  Then, we wonder why our culture suffers from an entitlement problem.

Outsourcing Your Thinking

Whoever came up with the idea that there is no such thing as a stupid question never taught middle school.

Before you decide I am a horrible person for squelching a child's curiosity, those aren't the kinds of questions I'm talking about.  Asking how many times Texas would fit on the moon is not a stupid question (57 times if you are interested) because it is an attempt to relate something you do know to something you do not.  These questions, while sometimes odd, are not stupid.

I'm talking about questions like:
- Can we use a pen on this?
- When I get to number 50, do I go on to number 51?
- Does this problem take place on earth?
- Does it matter what order these are in?
- The calendar says this is due tomorrow.  Is it?
- Can I have a book on my desk to read when the test is finished?
- When you say, "will dissolve," do you mean after you stir it?
- Does my name need to be on this?
- And of course thousands of questions that you just answered when you were giving the instructions.

The reason that these are stupid questions is that the student could have answered it without asking if they had taken about three seconds to think.
- They have taken dozens of scantron tests in their lives.  They know the scantron requires pencil.  Three seconds of thinking avoids this question.
- Where else would I go after number 50?  I really wanted to ask what numbering system was used
  on his home planet.  Three seconds of thinking avoids this question.
- If this problem didn't take place on earth, wouldn't I have told you?  I don't expect them to just
   figure out it was Jupiter.  They had to think for way longer than three seconds to come up with the
   question when three seconds of logic would have kept them from asking it.
- If the order mattered, I would have told them in class, during a review, and in the instructions.
   Three seconds of thinking could have avoided this question.
- I get a lot of e-mail questions about when things are due.  We have an online academic calendar for
   every class, so that should be the answer to due date questions.  Three seconds of thinking would
   tell you that the question has already been answered.
- The book question would be perfectly polite and good if this had not been written on the board:  
  "On your desk, have out pencils and calculator as well as any reading material or studying material
   you plan to use after the test."  Three seconds of looking at the board will answer this question.
- Kids read into test questions so much, I have come up with the line, "Stop writing your own
  questions."  This is just one example.  I get so many, "what did you mean by . . ." questions that I
  have them read the question to me and say, "I mean that."
- If your name isn't on it, how will I know who to give your grade to?  Three seconds of thinking
  would avoid this question as well.

You may get the impression from this that I am super sarcastic, but let me assure you that if you had to field these questions from 120 students a day, you would lean toward sarcastic as well.  Students want to outsource their thinking.  Sometimes, they outsource it to me.  Sometimes, they outsource it to their parents or their e-mail.  My job is more than teaching them facts.  It also involves teaching them to think.  So, if I give what seems like a curt answer, it is only because I want them to experience a little negative consequence for not thinking for themselves while they are in middle school.  The consequences they will experience for it in college or a career will be far worse than my facial expressions or silly replies.  I don't want a world in which adults have never been required to pause for three seconds to think for themselves.

Exam Review

Exams aren't easy, and that is by design.  That little bit of extra stress is neurologically valuable to writing long term memory.  Everyone who has ever crammed for a test (so, you know, everyone) knows that you do not hang on to memories that are learned quickly or only visited once.  Exams are meant for students to revisit, integrate, and deepen the learning that happened over the semester.

What is the best way to review for exams?  Here are a few helpful hints.
1.  Think like your teacher.
     If you are taking an exam in middle or high school, you have known your teacher for several
     months.  If you have have been doing your job as a student, this means you know what they care
     about.  You know how they give hints.  You know their test writing style.  You know if they tend
     to pull questions from the book or not.  You know if there some concept they find incredibly
     important.  My students, for example, should know that I care very much about the First Law of
     Thermodynamics and that the short answer questions will be based on things that are simply too
     complex to be asked about as a multiple choice question.  They know that if I have repeated
     something several times, written it in capital or bold letters, or have said, "This would make an
     excellent test question" that it is something I find important.

2.  Use your old tests as a guide.
     A good teacher is NOT copying and pasting their exam questions from your old tests, but they are
     still your most valuable source of study, especially if your teacher does not provide a study guide.
     For one thing, the teacher thought something was important during the chapter, they will still find
     it important now.  More importantly, if they didn't think it was important enough to ask about it  
     on a test, it is unlikely they will suddenly find it so important that it must be on the exam.  Also, it
     gives you some idea of how the teacher might ask about an objective.  It may not be the exact
     same question, but it will likely be somewhat similar.  If you do have a study guide, take each
     objective on it and look for questions on your old tests that align with that objective.  Then, see if
     you can write a similar question.

3.  ASK QUESTIONS!
     Over the past ten years or so, many students have stopped asking questions.  The number one
     piece of advice I give in parent-teacher conferences is that the student needs to ask questions
     when they are confused by something.  The parent usually tells me that the child is embarrassed
     to ask questions in class.  I tell my classes that kids their age used to go off to war, so they should
     get over being afraid to ask questions in front of their friends.  It boils down to the choice
     between being embarrassed to ask questions and being embarrassed by your grade.  Even if a
     student comes to help class or e-mails the question to me later, nothing replaces the value of
     asking the question AT THE TIME they learning the material for the first time.

4.  Practice healthy habits.
     I hate to make anyone's parents right about something, but there that your parents insist on your
     bedtime.  There is a reason that your grandma used to say that breakfast was the most important
     meal of the day.  There is a reason not to eat a doughnut for lunch.  There is a reason why
     cramming for a test doesn't work.  These reasons are neurological, so they aren't personal to you.
     Eating breakfast provides energy to everyone's brain and gets their metabolism started for the day.      Getting a good night's sleep restores chemical balance to your brain.  There's a lot of waste
     neurotransmitters left in your brain when you go to bed at night after a day of constant stimulation.      Sleep allows those to be disposed of and dealt with without creating more.  This allows your brain      to process more quickly and more accurately.  That's why an all nighter really isn't going to help
     you the way you think it is going to.  Your brain cannot retain what is crammed into it all at once
     because it isn't a trash bag to be filled.  It is an organic machine with needs and processing speed.
     Giving your brain what it needs is the way to ensure that it gives you what you need.  You ask a
     lot of your brain, so you need to take care of it.

5.  Prioritize.
     It may be more fun to study for your favorite class, but let's face it.  The one you need to study for
     is probably your least favorite class.  Even within a course, you can't treat all information equally.      Figure out what topics are likely to be focused on and focus your study there.  Recognize that
     there are classes in which your grade can take a small hit so that you can really try to do well on
     the exam of the class for which you have a lower grade right now.  Scheduling time will help you
     to set those priorities rather than trying to cram.  Have I mentioned yet how bad an idea cramming
     is?

There are other pieces of advice that I could give you, but you need to go study.

Cost Benefit Analysis

In my last post, I discussed why we should stop encouraging students to try to have it all.  It's one thing to say that, but it is very different when comes down to making choices about what they do.

Students need help, from those of us who have a lot of experience (see how I avoided calling us old) in learning to make decisions about what to have, try, or do.  There is no one size fits all experience because every kid is different.  God's plan for each is unique, and He has gifted them uniquely in order to accomplish that plan.  We cannot make decisions for them, but we can give them training in how to make those decisions.

When guiding kids to make decisions, you have to ask what are the benefits but also what are the costs.  Then, decision making becomes an even-handed analysis of the two rather than an idealistic or pessimistic look at only one side.

- If a student plays on a sports team, there are benefits - teamwork, camaraderie, a sense of achievement, and such are wonderful things.  There are also costs - practices and travel take time, potential injuries can cause problems.  

- If a student is in a play, there are benefits - camaraderie, a sense of accomplishment, creative brain training, and the like can be awesome.  There are also costs.  Rehearsals take time, and lines must be memorized at the same time other commitments are being fulfilled.

- If a student leads a mission trip, there are benefits - teamwork, spiritual development, perspective on the world are all important goals.  There are also costs - travel requires money, lost school time means make-up work.

- If a student chooses to take 5 AP Classes, there are benefits - increased learning in a variety of areas, saving tuition money if you pass the AP test, and increasing college options are great things.  There are also costs - every AP class requires more time outside of class working that the time actually spent in class, leading to a lot of late nights.


Time, like money, is a limited quantity, so the choice to spend it on one thing means I cannot spend it on another.  If I choose to spend money on a Corvette, I will not have money to buy food.  If I choose to play on a sports team, I will not have time to hang out with friends.  I know students who have attempted to combine all of the above examples in the same year.  There are only twenty-four hours in a day, so the cost that came from this combination was sleep deprivation.  When I suggested dropping something, the student replied only with the benefits.  She loved the experience of being in the play and wouldn't want to give it up; she got a lot out of leading the mission trip and was glad she did it.  I suggested that perhaps three AP classes would have been enough, and she looked at me like I was telling her to drop out of school.  Looking at only the benefits and making choices without regard to cost wore this poor child out and drained the love of learning out of her.  This is the great irony of trying to "have it all."  It makes you hate it all.

When deciding whether to add something new to your schedule, sit down and really think about it.  Make a list of both the costs and the benefits of everything you want to have in your schedule for that school year.  Decide which activities have benefits that are worth the costs and say yes to those.  It's okay to say no to the other things.