Turn your can’ts into cans and say HELLO to happiness
TALKING to students in school as well as those who completed their lower and upper secondary education you read a consistent and well-constructed fear of certain subjects. Apparently this fear affects their career and life choices. The same causes people to label and stereotype themselves. They create a box in which they calibrate their options in terms of “can do” and “can’t do”. Ultimately people who are gripped with the fear of subjects such as Mathematics and Science end up in serious career and life crisis. Personally I am unsurprised by this attendant fear in schoolchildren and their parents. I was “baptised” in it as early as primary school in 1980 when my primary school teacher used to “preach” to us about the difficulty of Exercise 11g in J B Channon’s General Mathematics book. My teacher cardinally explained to his charges in a manner that resulted in some of my classmates dropping out of the free education classes! A shoot to miss approach Nowadays this fear causes children as influencers to parents to persuade them to invest a lot of money, time and effort following teachers they understand. Such “teachers” have established unregistered learning centres around the city. Consequently each time the learner writes an exam she/he almost “passed” hence re-engages with this teacher with the false hope that “this time you will pass”. Interestingly the only “. . . make it” becomes another “I almost passed.” In the final analysis such leaners (students) register for June and November exam sessions every year ad infinitum. Our experience has shown that the parents of such children characteristically register them for lessons at more than one learning centre for the same subject. Honestly this is an unnecessarily expensive approach. Sadly with such an approach the learner becomes successful at failing! All due to fear! The Government through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has established registered learning centres BUT some learners and their parents object to this arrangement. Instead they prefer “popular” teachers who are examiners who operate clandestinely in and around town. This is surprising!
— not grow to learn! The inferred approach replicates the proverbial what comes first the chicken and the egg! Appreciated educationists as well as sociologists have given quantum consideration on the question of why people go to school. Education is appropriately defined as an organised part of the process through which people accumulate knowledge. Such knowledge acquisition and the methods of acquiring it enables people to fit into an existing pattern of life and associate with others in predictable, efficient and humane ways. Education converts children into useful, responsible adults with appropriate and relevant knowledge that prepares them for occupation and scholarship. This can effectively happen within an organised and formal system. The secluded approach where a student is separated from others in order to receive special attention in squashed rooms may not result in such a throughput becoming a team player later in industry and commerce.
Instead to benefit from learning and education the student must have a motivation. The foundation of motivation is what you (or a person) want to be in life. It should be based on a long term aspiration or goal. To define your destination in life you need to look at factors such as your personal interests and preferences, what excites and energises you, what your vision in life is inter alia. Education and learning becomes an essential part of your preparation. This preparation should not be left to chance. Instead it dictates that one gets proper guidance and help in different subjects one is studying. It is therefore important that you make sure that your child’s (or even your own as an adult) learning approach allows you to acquire appropriate subject knowledge and skills as well as techniques of answering questions in an examination situation. Make the most of your memory To learn properly a student needs to acquire specific study skills and learning techniques. In addition the student needs to develop comprehensive understanding of the subject they are learning. Good learning means the student must develop his/her own “good habit.” This involves knowing the following: 1 Know what is best for you 2 Know what fits your circumstances best 3 Know what makes you feel most confident as a learner
4 Know what makes you feel “independent” and in control of your learning
Honestly learning would be useless if you could not remember the learned content. Learning must enable you to reason and make judgements with remembered facts. It is important to bear in mind that as people we are forgetful. We forget things we would like to remember — this may even happen while you are in an examination. How frustrated we all feel when we forget what we learned for an examination. Panic strikes if you do not know where and how to start when faced with an exam question. You may feel like you are drowning in paper! This is avoidable. Trust us for that! Our learning and study approach As Trust Academy we believe that students need to take responsibility for their own studies. Understanding and liking a teacher is one thing. The most important part is to engage with the teacher with an aim to fully understand the subject and appropriately decide how much effort to put in studying it. The teaching approach of our teachers enables students to become fully aware of their selves as memorisers. Through that they individually learn on what needs to be done to improve their memory potential.
The memory process involves the following critical related activities:
(a) Planning — this involves considering the goal you want to achieve and set out procedures necessary to achieve. Your goal is to pass every subject with a good grade. As Trust Academy High School we will give you appropriate materials and develop your abilities to remember learnt materials. We put more effort in helping you develop appropriate memory strategies such as organisation or association to help you remember.
(b) Assessment and evaluation — at Trust Academy this is an on-going process used in order to establish what progress you have made towards achieving your goals. To us this a very good way to evaluate your progress.
no one remembers everything! As a way of helping students to control their learning we regularly engage them in thinking and problem-solving activities. This motivates students to remember what they read or did in class. In addition it allows student to do self-evaluation. At Trust Academy we help you all the way — Trust us for that! Herbert Taruwona Mbindi is a passionate career guidance and counselling advisor. His key motivation is to help people make a difference in their lives. Feedback to: email mbindi@ trustacademy.co.zw, WhatsApp 0773616665 or call 0712212179.