Where There's A Will There's an "A"

When my children were young I ordered an educational program to help them with their grades. The workshop was presented by a parent, Professor Claude Olney, who had done a lot of research about learning in an attempt to help his own children. As a result, he was asked by other parents and students to begin doing training sessions.

Last fall I was thinking about this experience and thought that it would be wonderful if I had the course for my grandchildren. I went on the internet and sure enough, found a website where the original training was offered in DVD format for fewer than fifty dollars. There was a set for high school and one for college.

When I called the 1-800 number I had a wonderful conversation with the gentleman who claimed that he is one of the children of Professor Olney who died before finishing the updated series that was in production. I told him about my experience and, in return he shared with me about the success of his father's work.

Even though the original workshop was filmed in the 1980s, orders are still being shipped all over the world. That week he had sent a set of the DVDs and accompanying workbooks to Saudi Arabia and England as well as to various locations in the United States. Wow! Isn't it amazing how good information stands the test of time?

Granted, when my fifteen year old grandson and I sat down to watch the high school edition, his first question was "When was this made?" The way that the participants were dressed made it a quick give away. But it didn't take long until my grandson was laughing and totally enraptured by the speaker and his techniques.

Well, no matter what the most recent report card says it is not too late to make a difference in the outcome for the school year. Sometimes it isn't the course content that is a problem. It's the fact that the student doesn't know good strategies for learning or for writing exams. Maybe they haven't ever been taught how to prepare an essay or remember important facts.

Now I'm definitely not on commission or gaining anything through promotion of this program. I'm just hoping that perhaps you will be able to find a way to help your child to do better in their studies over the next few weeks.

Metacognition is a term that is associated with learning strategies. It means that you learn how to learn.

According to Wikipedia, J. H. Flavell first used the word "metacognition" and described it in these words: Metacognition refers to one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes or anything related to them".

Maybe you and your child need to focus on metacognition for a while rather than focusing on what the last report card said.

(Oh, and if you really want to get results, watch all the DVDs with the child so that you can talk about the concepts and practice them together).