I’ve been a tutor for 40 years, and I’ve never encountered a lazy student.

Scratch the surface of laziness and underneath you’ll find fear, confusion, frustration, lack of knowledge, lack of skills, anger, sadness…

And, often, just plain exhaustion.

Willpower is a limited resource, and the demands of the school day can drain a student of her ability to attend and persevere.

I’m going to try devoting my Thursday blog posts to the topic of All Things Academic: reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and the other school subjects.

A home school mom of four writes:

The learning material that I struggle with is just that: motivation verses memorization. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around alternative methods to memorizing times tables and science facts and history dates. It just seems like there should be better ways to learn/teach.

Kids (and all people) learn best when information is relevant and interesting. Random facts that don’t connect with anything the student finds familiar or meaningful are tedious to memorize and soon forgotten.

I love my work, but sometimes, especially during final exam season, it can be exhausting!

I loved rediscovering this little parable the other day; it really kept me going as I sat with student after student, plowing through the same chemistry review packet over and over and over…

Three brick layers were busy at work, and a passerby stopped and asked each what he was doing.

I’m laying bricks, said the first.

I’m making my living, said the second.

I’m building a cathedral, said the third.

So Jake’s observation stuck in my mind for almost two decades, tumbling around in my psyche along with so many and various other unanswered questions and vague longings and frustrations and angers and despairs.

Jake’s observation was that when people say I love you, what they most often mean is:

I love the way you make me feel about myself.

How does that strike you? Dreadful? Cynical? Immature? Selfish?

Many students and parents face this decision now, at the beginning of the second semester:

• The student signed up for too many classes first semester
• or the classes were harder than expected
• or extra-curricular activities or jobs or personal issues entered in.

And so:

• Grades were lower than desired
• and/or the workload was stressful and felt overwhelming.

I recognize that every situation is different, but here’s my general advice:

I wrote about what kids really mean when they complain Why do I have to learn this stuff?

J Morgan replied:

For me at school, it meant, “I really can’t stand this topic and I can’t see a bit enough benefit to justify suffering through it,” as well as finding it difficult.

I mostly agree with J Morgan, but I hasten to add that, unfortunately, lots of extremely important subject matter is very, very hard and not much fun.

That’s my favorite quote out of Between Parent and Teenager, by Haim Ginott (which really ought to be called “Between Person and Person” because its timeless wisdom is perfectly applicable to ALL human relationships).

It’s been a tense week in my little world, because senior synthesis papers (term papers) are due tomorrow. Synthesis papers are huge and complex and daunting, and they’re required for graduation. Predictably, some kids procrastinated and are now doing frantic, last-minute jobs. And I, as a tutor, have been helping them as best I can.

The tension is high in many households at the moment. Parents are disappointed, frustrated, irate with their kids….and some are saying so, openly and loudly.

It is back-to-school time which means I have a bunch of new tutoring students. I’m spending lots of time explaining to parents what I do, how I work, what I believe about learning and child development, and what I strive to accomplish with my students.

I’m usually hired because a student is struggling with some school subject (most often, math), and so the surface goal is to help them improve in that area. But my overarching goal is to guide and support each student toward becoming a more confident, effective, autonomous learner, to understand and deal with his or her own learning strengths and quirks. I want my students to grow up to be good thinkers,  confident and successful adults, active and sensible members of society.

Why do they have these timed tests, like 25 problems in 3 minutes?

This is an excellent question.

I currently work and have worked with quite a few students who receive extra time on standardized tests, and I know for a fact that colleges do not factor this into their decision.

Meaning, if we have two absolutely identical students A and B, and A scores a 2100 out of 2400 with regular constraints while B scores a 2200 with double the time, B gets in and A doesn’t.

So, first, does time really matter? And second, if it does, why does time matter?

My sister has argued that students should not freely be given extra time. I think my hypothetical identical students identified this problem. Her basic point is that in the real world (or a college environment), speed and time are factors. Take two engineers applying for a job: it’s obvious that the guy who’s faster at math has a practical advantage.

Yet, I’ve worked with students who just need more time, and for each of them, I’m so glad that they get the opportunity to let their true intellectual power show.

Here’s a great question from Wanda:

When I was in grade school, I could not do well on timed math tests, even the basic add/subtract/multiply/divide tests. If I could do it on my own time, I did well.

Now my grandson has the same problem. When we do the flashcards, he can do them very fast but we make it fun also.

Why do they have these timed tests, like 25 problems in 3 minutes?

How can I help him do better?

There’s a wide variation in how people learn math, and in what math-related skills they are stronger or weaker in.