CA aspires to be the school in the Rocky Mountain region best able to develop in our students the ability to think critically and creatively, and to collaborate and solve complex problems. This goal drives the ongoing transformation of our curriculum, pedagogy and, most importantly, student outcomes. While you will read future articles about how we go about teaching, practicing, and assessing these important skill sets, I would like to begin the year by focusing attention on less lofty, but equally essential, skills that students must master to be able to fully demonstrate their learning -- study and organizational skills. 

 

Study skills may not be intriguing, and they don’t by themselves motivate parents to make the commitment to join our community; yet, they are essential if we want young minds to be able to create their best possible work.  Study skills encompass the ability to organize, set priorities, read carefully and interpretively, take notes, write persuasively, speak eloquently, and prepare thoughtfully to share one’s understanding. 

 

As parents and teachers, we know that every student is unique, and that each one must develop strategies that best match his or her learning style and personality.  In this sense, teaching study skills is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, but instead, we offer an assortment of options to help students learn a wide variety of strategies and then adopt those that will be most helpful.  The fact that what works for one learner does NOT work as well for another can be challenging for parents, especially when parents employ different strategies than those of their children.   While frustrating for us, it can be helpful to remember that what we really want isn’t for our children to operate just the way that we do, but for our children to develop the skills that allow them to identify and reach their own goals.

 

I hope that it is reassuring to know that this year, all students will receive instruction, feedback, and support about becoming purposeful and skilled learners.  All of them will absorb what they are ready to learn, so at times, it might not seem that skill mastery is at hand.  This is why at this age, we at CA provide lots and lots of practice.  Our experience has been that slow and steady skill acquisition leads to significant growth over time.  The study skills that are tenuously grasped and only intermittently applied in sixth grade become the default organizational structure for our eighth and ninth graders. 

 

I hope that over the course of the school year, you will see students take small steps toward becoming more organized and toward using increasingly sophisticated study strategies. 

 

Remember that it is often the discovery that their current approach no longer yields the kind of success they are looking for that leads a student to test and adopt a new strategy.  So, while momentarily painful, getting a poor grade may yield long-term benefits if it helps a student rethink learning strategies. 

 

It’s not just learning, but also learning how to learn that will lead to students’ success.