Basic Yet Necessary
By Amy Barr at The Lukeion Project
The next level will bring a fresh set of challenges. Peculiar cafeteria food and roommate troubles are as predictable as too little campus parking. Some college troubles are easy to anticipate. Others will be unpleasant surprises unless you help your teen prepare now during high school years. Getting to college is the easy part. Staying there is the challenge. Here are three common-sense skills you must develop during your teen’s high school years to boost smoother sailing later.
Develop Excellent Research Writing Skills in High school.
Homeschoolers excel in a lot of subjects, but research writing is not typically one of them. Out of any 10 of our best students at The Lukeion Project, at least 8 need a lot more practice and exposure to research writing rules. Creative writing takes center stage because it is typically easier to stoke student enthusiasm over a creative writing assignment, so why rock the boat? Alas, unless your student plans to earn a degree in creative writing, she will have few opportunities to use those creative writing skills at college. Research writing is a must-have skill that will be required from the start.
Creative writing and research / academic writing are two vastly different creatures. One’s ability to analyze and synthesize copious amounts of data will be hallmarks of degree programs worth attending while creative writing will have limited applications. In college I was assigned precisely one creative project by a professor who hated creative projects. He was happy when that obligation had ended so we could all get on with the more productive tasks. Research writing is not just creative writing with citation. Whether your child will seek a degree in law, biology, engineering or Classics, he must know how to research well and then write precisely, analytically and persuasively. If your student starts college before trying his hand at research writing several times, there will be struggles and tears ahead.
The human mind is well suited to the development of research writing skills roughly around 8th grade, give or take. Students are ready to research facts and complex ideas then express answers to important questions as they persuade others with clear analytical writing. In practical terms, start your students authoring research papers early in high school so that this skill has time to become college ready. We have specifically designed Skillful Scribbler to facilitate the transition to more mature thinking and writing at The Lukeion Project so they are ready for most writing tasks up until around the mid-point of high school. Most of our classes have been designed to complement the process with shorter than longer academic writing tasks. By 11th or 12th grade consider taking College & Business Composition and then College Research Writing.
Train to manage and balance time while still in high school.
The skills needed to boost college success should be sharpened well before dorm move-in day. Common sense abilities like money management, self-control, and determination will help throughout college, career, marriage and life. Most of us know the things kids need to thrive and mature but we may not insist on them as much as we should, especially when the demands of life weaken our resolve. So, soldier on. You may not win each battle but fight hard to win the war.
Of all of these, the most essential college skill is time-management. Many students who failed at college did so because they weren’t able to balance social activities and part time jobs with their need to study, sleep and go to class all while managing roommates and the need to occasionally exercise. To avoid time management disasters, get your high school student juggling his own schedule now while you can still catch him when he falls or maybe just offer encouraging words as he recovers from inevitable time disasters.
If you are still doing all the scheduling, chore management, and teaching during your teen’s high school years, your first step is to hand the job off to your teen. Have him take over his own schedule. Let him work out his own academic planning each semester. Walk him through the process of evaluating his course load and allot the time needed for each subject. Have him plan ahead for trips, work, music lessons, sports and free time. Making mid-course adjustments to a hectic schedule is part of the learning package, no extra charge.
Planning ahead for busy periods is a skill that needs to be practiced repeatedly before it becomes an extremely expensive necessity in real life. I once heard of a student who didn’t bother to find where her classes would meet prior to her first day of classes. I’m sorry to activate new nightmare material for you, but on her very first day of college, she missed all of her classes because she couldn’t find them in time to attend. She came remarkably close to losing her sports scholarship before she even had her first syllabi in hand.
Unfortunately, the absolute best way to teach time management to students who struggle with it is to have them fail at it from time to time sooner, not later.
Practice healthy failure recovery.
As master of his own schedule, your teen must suffer the consequences for poor planning, even if he earns a low score on a quiz or paper, even if she takes a zero or a poor essay review. The resolve of many well-meaning parents melts when the student’s transcript pays the price of priorities gone awry. If procrastination is your teen’s struggle, it is better to earn a poor grade now than fail in college. Understanding his own limitations means he’s on his way to better time management. He is also on his way to developing the third most practical college skill: failure recovery.
Learning how to recover from a failed task is vital. Mastering this piece of the puzzle will make all the difference, especially for gifted students who need extra practice, and perfectionists who must fight their compulsion to perfection over the necessity of timeliness. College will be an untidy mix of positive and negative experiences that ultimately teach us a lot about ourselves. If your teens are crushed by even minor setbacks now, you’ll need to practice healthy recovery every chance you get before freshman orientation. Failure is a certainty. Managing it well is a huge benefit.
High school is a time of countless mental changes. The process will feel like three steps forward, two steps back. Use these four years of high school wisely to help your student to mature in these three areas primarily by tasking them with these things early. May too few parking spaces, odd roommates, and questionable cafeteria food be the worst disasters he’ll suffer in his college years.
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