By reading this blog, you as a student may learn to:
- Manage your time and resources effectively
- Deal with home work swiftly and accurately
- Maximize chances of academic success
- Dramatically reduce stress from school work
In How Children Fail, John Holt writes about "strategists," students who "will turn to other means, illegitimate means, that wholly defeat whatever purpose the task giver may have had in mind."
Be a strategist.
The first step to your success as a student is understanding the system and recognizing your place in it. If you are looking for school strategies, chances are "whatever purpose the task giver may have had in mind" does not match your desires. You may want to read when you're supposed to be doing math, or do math when you're supposed to be reading, or maybe you just want to relax and play some games when you've got home work to complete.
Since the task giver's purpose does not match your purpose, it matters not what they are trying to do. It matters only, when you have no choice but to complete the task, that you complete the task. And the best way to do that with your interests in mind is to do it with the least effort possible so you have time for other things.
It's all about economizing your time and energy. There's boring stuff and there's fun stuff. There's stuff you don't want to do and stuff you do want to do. Stephen Covey gives brilliant advice in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." So remember, never let due dates get in the way of things you would prefer to do instead. That is the number one rule of school survival. The purpose of approaching school with an array of evasive strategies is to allow you more time to do what you want while still being "schooled." If you prioritize school over yourself just to meet a deadline, you defeat the purpose. And not in a good way! This time, the purpose you are defeating is your own purpose.
If you do not have time for both yourself and your school work, choose yourself. You last a lifetime, school does not. Let school take the fall. Most assignments you are likely able to complete on the due date anyways, maybe even the class period before it's due.
It is important to know what you hope to achieve with these smart strategies for smart students. At its core, the purpose of strategizing in school is for you to do the things you prefer to do while still maintaining whatever minimum academic performance. That is the rationale.
As I delve into specific strategies on this blog, I will for the purpose of demonstration set the minimum academic performance at a GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale consisting of As and Bs in high school. If you do not fit that criteria, worry not; the strategies covered in this blog can be applied to virtually any grade level at any minimum academic performance.
