Make or Break College Preparedness Skills: Subject Mastery

By Amy Barr, Sage Thinkiac at The Lukeion Project

Subject mastery isn’t usually something people think about during middle and high school years. At least for many, a modern high school education is nothing more than a mad dash to complete a list of class hours served before we hurry off to complete the next list of hours to serve. Does everyone need the same semester of time to learn algebra or biology or French? There’s nothing magical about a semester on one subject, or a week of classes, or an hour of lecture. Some students can master the material in a fraction of the time, others need triple with a dollop of review mixed in daily. If a certain subject is poorly presented—for any variety of reasons—all the time in the world won’t help bored students. 

Instead of the time-served approach (exactly like a prison sentence ) what if we return to a subject mastery approach. To do so, students need a few basic learn-how-to-learn skills that have fallen out of favor. Memorization, for example, has been tossed out in favor of “subject tools.” Mainstream educators argue that students simply need to know how and where to access the information they need to complete their work. In the modern world, they argue, it isn’t necessary to memorize the periodic table, the anatomy of a cell, or Latin verb forms when one can just look online. Imagine giving a baby a dictionary rather than expecting him to form new words for himself. Requiring a child to swim laps before she can kick-and-paddle is a cruel recipe for disaster. Telling a student to rely on “subject tools” year after year is equally cruel. 

But, one might argue, if a child isn’t going to become a biologist, Latin teacher, or physicist, does she really need a storehouse of memorized data to make progress in science, language, and math? Children will never one day become any of these things without memorization, and we wouldn’t want them to. Consider the difference between a memorized speech and one read from a teleprompter. An actor reading lines from cue cards can’t compare with one who memorized his lines. Your heart surgeon shouldn’t be searching subject tools while you are under her knife. A concert pianist never performs with sheet music. Your physical therapist should already know how to improve your poor swollen knee without a fast web search. 

Memorization is essential, normal, and not all that difficult once you get the hang of it. There are dozens of techniques for subject mastery that will help anyone do it well at any age. Here are just five methods that will work for anyone mastering anything.      

Write it out 

Qui scribit bis legit, “He who writes learns twice.”

The act of writing helps us remember. You can master a lot of information very quickly just by writing it out a couple of times. Take notes while listening or reading to cut study time down considerably. A student activates all mental muscles when pen is put to paper. Sight, sound, higher reasoning, analysis, and coordination all work together to help the student remember the material. Transcription is still an excellent way to teach spelling to younger students for this reason. Some teens lament they hate taking notes, but I know firsthand how information retention improves just by helping them build this skill.  

When it comes to note-taking, the magic only happens when pen or pencil hits paper. I don’t care if your handwriting is messy. Taking notes is the real secret. No one cares how they look.

Involve all your senses

"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason." –Immanuel Kant

Good note taking habits make mastery easy because multiple senses are put to work. All effective study techniques involve more than one sense. When I ask a young student to “study” for an exam, he’ll likely flip open his book and stare at the words, hoping they will soak in. This is an exercise in futility. Teach  your young ones how to study actively. Tell them to try a variety of approaches including reading it aloud, writing it, drawing it, dancing it, singing it. Flash cards are still a powerful tool simply because they involve more than once sense. If done well, flash cards are portable, cheap, and used by subject masters worldwide. 

Teach it 

Homines, dum docent, discunt, “People learn while they teach.” (Seneca)

When I was in graduate school two of my fellow students had been teaching high school Latin for years. Though they were proficient in Latin when they started their teaching career, they had become excellent at it while teaching it at the high school level. The rest of us trailed behind by comparison. This principal applies to every subject and is one of the best perks of home education, especially at the high school level. We adults get to relearn all sorts of forgotten tidbits as we teach them to our children. When a big sibling instructs a little brother one of his favorite subjects, he has the chance to become exceptional at that subject. The practice of carefully explaining and illustrating anything makes one more proficient at it which is why assigning presentations is a good idea. Parent educators with large families shouldn’t feel bad about employing older siblings to educate younger ones within reason. They will gain as much as they give. If you have an only child, just ask her to teach the material to you or a friend.

Mix it up

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." –Wendell Berry

Even the best study method can grow stale if used in isolation. Try a variety of study techniques so that mastery will come quickly and painlessly. Everyone has a slightly different learning style. Chanting something might work well for one person but utterly fail for others. Try out games, flash cards, study partners, diagrams, silly rhymes, funny songs, chalk drawings on the sidewalk, play acting on videos, and even audio recordings: Be creative. 

Do a little every day 

Assiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et artem saepe vincit, “Constant practice devoted to one subject often outdoes both intelligence and skill.” (Cicero)

The battle for mastery over a subject is not won in a single night. How many of us can recount times when we pulled all-nighters in college? If only I could get back all that sleep I lost on geology and Hittites, about which (I should point out) I recall very little. To every cram-session success story you’ll hear a dozen sad tales of poorly written essays, flagging health, and plummeting grades. Help your student learn how to study a little every day. 30 or 40 minutes of clearheaded memorization over a week’s time is far better than 4 fog-brained hours the night before the quiz. Sleep is as essential to organizing and storing data as are short effective study sessions. Alternating periods of both are key.

Students will argue they are preparing for an exam while their brains fight for concentration between notifications from social media, the urge to change songs on a playlist, and a hilarious video complete with ads. They think this works because they haven’t ever tried it any other way. Study sessions should be conducted in a distraction-free zone. Phones, internet, television, social media, friends, and siblings will always win the competition for brain time. Even little distractions like music will conspire to rob a student of subject mastery. 20 minutes with no distractions will be far more effective than 2 hours with them. Short effective study sessions with small rewards for success and a nice break in-between sessions.

So, even if you are educated now (as most are) under the time-served style, you can turn time into mastery with just these few special skills that will give your brain super-powers. 

Make or Break College Preparedness Skills: Academic Writing

 

Start Early

By Amy Barr, Lively Classical Guide at The Lukeion Project

There will always be room for creative writing in life. If you have a calling to compose poetry or to craft the next great novel, please continue. If your day moves more smoothly after a good journaling session, carry on. Nothing that I say here should change this about you and how you are wired. Likewise, may all our different types of creatives flourish even in these hard times.

That said, most of us will never return to composing free verse, limericks, or sweeping fiction again after we start our high school years, and that’s also ok. Your writing years are far from over. Many prefer academic writing. During these important years, projects—even for our creatives—must transition to a range of styles that can be just as meaningful as a poignant ecphrasis or just as heart-melting as a sonnet yet differently creative. Let’s talk about academic writing.

If you have ever had to slog your way through a dry textbook, an intractable scholarly article, or a poorly composed instruction manual, you have experienced firsthand how much the world needs good academic writers. Yet academic writing often gets too little love and scarce attention during the high school years. Skills gained in deeply introspective journaling exercises or elegiac couplets are great, but they will not easily translate to precise, concise, persuasive writing with clear analysis. Too often high school educators—including home school parents—expect academic writing skills to be offered in college while college professors insist that all those basics to be taught years earlier. The winners in the debate tend to be the tutors at the college writing labs where many poorly prepared students go to make up missed skills in their free time. Students need preparation.

Well prepared academic writers will start working on their skills no later than 8^th or 9^th grade. Students who practice academic writing acumen at every level will waltz through analytical essays in AP classes, they’ll flit through exam essays, dance through research papers, and do a smashing job at lab reports, scientific analyses, book reports, logic, rhetoric, philosophy, and the list goes on. Yet many assume creative writing skills translate effortlessly into the foreign language of style sheets, formal outlines, and proper citation. Nothing can be further from the truth. These are all things that need time and attention to detail (instruction and practice).

Parents: does your 8^th or 9^th grader need more focus on academic writing? Here's a short list of skills that students could use from early in high school through the rest of their education:

• Proper citation and style sheets (MLA, APA, etc.)
• Formal outlining
• Thesis statements, argument development, conclusions
• Evidence and analysis
• Precise/concise stylistic conventions
• Evaluation and appropriate use of good academic sources
• Persuasive and elegant use of language in a tone suitable to academic projects

Once a student can practice these skills in a variety of writing assignments, he or she should be asked to expand them to longer research projects, reports, and essays. With a bit more instruction, the first set of skills will translate well to the tools used in more interesting college assignments.

Thus our writing raison d'être at the Lukeion Project is to start academic writing skills early, practice them often, and challenge them again just before the college level. Starting out well-versed at what college classes expect in writing assignments means that at least a few of the worst stresses of the college experience will never manifest. 

A great foundation is Witty Wordsmith/Barbarian Diagrammarian in 7^th or 8^th grade. Next, 8^th or 9^th graders take the Skillful Scribbler course (and our new second-semester independent writing complement, Scribble On) to set students up for successful writing for the first few years of high school. By 11^th or 12^th grade, students should take College Composition in the autumn followed by College Research Writing in spring. Grade appropriate courses like Muse is perfect for our early high school, Classical Bard for 10^th or 11^th, and then mythology, history, or AP classes for our older students in 11^th or 12^th grade as those more difficult tasks correspond to skills mastered.

Students: when you get to college and sleep well the night before your first big research paper or lab report is due, let your instructors know they did a good job. We love to hear success stories.

Demokratia

Voting in Ancient Athens

By Dr. Sue Fisher, Luminous Classical Lit. Doyen at The LukeionProject

The first Tuesday after the first Monday of November is Election Day in the United States. Many people, if they have not already voted, will be heading to the polls to vote for important leaders and issues in our republic. In The United States, this right is afforded to all citizens age eighteen or older, which means that some of our Lukeion Project students will be voting for the first time. Given our current situation, this will be an election to tell the grandkids about someday. But have you ever thought about what voting might look like if you lived in ancient Athens? Let’s have a look.

It’s a beautiful morning. The sun is rising, a gentle breeze is rustling the silver-green leaves of the olive tree outside your window. A rooster is crowing to signal the start of the day. Today is the day of a big vote to finance the navy for the war with Sparta. The tax will be a burden felt by all Athenians, but Pericles has made it clear that the Oracle at Delphi confirmed that Athens’ hope is in its “wooden walls” (ships), and so a majority on this issue is clearly needed. Too bad for you though, Mirope! You’re female and will not get to vote. Neither will your household slaves, nor Sargon the Persian spice seller currently living in Athens as a metoikos (resident alien), nor any of your children under the age of eighteen. You sigh and go draw some water from the well and get ready to prod your husband into waking up.

It’s morning, apparently. You know this by the fact that Mirope is poking you in the stomach and telling you that it’s time to get up. You can’t blame her, honestly. The last time you were late you got red dye all over your best chiton from the ochre-dyed rope those Scythian slaves use to herd people from the Agora to the Pynx, where votes are held. It took her a long time of washing to get that stain out. Even if it weren’t mandatory for you, a citizen, to vote, you would still go. You enjoy the forty or more elections held every year on all matters from taxes, public buildings, laws, and military commanders to the annual exile (ostracisms) of persons deemed dangerous to the democracy. You give a mental shout-out to those who fought the Persians and kept you from being subject to a monarch and to Clesithenes too, whose reforms gave you, a non-wealthy citizen, a voice in the ekklesia (assembly).

Once dressed, you eat some bread and goat cheese and answer Mirope’s questions about the day. Will you vote today by hand as you usually do, or will you use the voting pebbles? It is not an ostracism so no potsherds for voting this time. How many votes will be taken? Ten, twenty? There are so many issues to decide each week. You know that Mirope is genuinely interested, but that she is also trying to figure out how much food to pack for you. She knows that with the debates, the session could be a few hours or more, and all of that on the unshaded hill of the Pnyx. You are hoping you can find your uncle Spyro in the throng of 6,000 or more citizens. He owes you 2 obols.

Climbing the hill of the Pnyx, you recognize your fellow citizens, and this fills you with pride. You love how you vote directly on every issue that faces your city, with no representatives, cumbersome bureaucracy, government departments, or civil service to distort your wishes. With war on the horizon, you know that today’s vote is important, and you are glad you backed Pericles as strategos (military leader) previously. You also have faith in the boule (council) and the jurors, all men elected by lot rather than by vote, and therefore shielded from the possibility of corruption. Speaking of the boule, your ears perk up and the crowd’s murmurings die down as the boule’s agenda for this meeting of the ekklesia is read. It will be a long morning, but an important one. The debates have begun, and you see the best speaker of your deme (tribe) rise to discuss his position. There was little debate on this first point and nearly all hands were raised in support. One vote down, fourteen more to go.

Speakers from other demes come forth, more debate ensues, and more votes are taken. After six hours you are done and returning home for a big meal and an afternoon nap. As you are nodding off to sleep you once again think about the isonomia of the Athenian constitution – being equal under the law. You think too about the kratos (power) of the demes…demos kratos…demokratia…something new to the world thanks to you and your fellow Athenians. You wonder if it will catch on.