People often ask me why I do so well in school. I’ve never hated school but I wasn’t always particularly fond of it either. Nevertheless I always did well in school. All the way from grade school through my current Ph.D. program. At this point in my life I’ve even become an instructor for various types and sizes of classes. I have never received an “F” in a course but I have given them out. At the beginning of each semester I tell my students a series of “secrets” designed to help them succeed in school. These are applicable to all levels of education and develop into beneficial habits for life.
The most basic thing you can do to improve your success in class is to go to class. This sounds so simple and yet in practice it doesn’t seem to be. Grade school and high school students sometimes skip class. More often, though, they are pulled out by their parents for any number of reasons. My wife frequently sees students miss class because their families are taking extra weeks of vacation even after existing built-in vacations. Parents should really consider the educational impact taking extra-long vacations will have. When a student misses the first week of class they miss some of the most important material in the class. They miss the set-up. They don’t get the explanation of how to pass the class. They miss how the teacher teaches and how the teacher expects the students to learn.
Sure enough I see the results of this in college classes every day. Students don’t show up. I get e-mails that ask if we did “anything important” on the day they missed. Of course we did something important!!! We always do something important. Students learn in so many different ways and it is important to have each of those ways of learning available to them when they need to recall that information for tests. Perhaps the instructor says things in a certain way or scrawls things on the chalkboard interestingly. Perhaps the instructor gives an entertaining digital presentation. Perhaps the instructor will quiz the students over material not in the book but only in the lecture.
Students can ONLY miss out on material and learning by missing class. So, from an instructor and a student: go to class!