Learning the Smart Way
If
there is only one theory out there that is understood by all students,
it is the 80/20 theory. You muster some effort to obtain the first
80 marks, but then end up having to double that effort to get the
final 20. So what makes it so hard to earn those top few marks anyway?
The secret to success lies in not only how much, but also how you
store things in the brain.
It
was with this problem in mind that Teacher Wong held a lecture in
early August. Through years of research, he noted how expectations
for teenagers kept rising steadily, increasing the pressure to perform
well under a variety of different situations. There are also less
work opportunities to acquire a good job out there now that technology
is advancing so rapidly.
However,
he noticed that some people consistently had an edge over others
- these were the lifelong learners. The more you learn, the better
you will understand the world and how it works. We are looking through
a unique window of perspective whenever we read works by another
person, and so if we establish a habit of reading a lot of books,
then we will gain a broader understanding of the debated issue.
Always
keep working to improve yourself especially in such a fast-paced
society nowadays. As the saying goes, "if you don't use it, you
lose it" and all too often we do not realize how precious something
is until we have lost it forever. The same thing goes for learning.
If you stop and then try to pick it up again, chances are, unfortunately,
you will be working at a much slower pace.
In order to learn well, one must:
| 1. |
Identify your direction - What is your goal? Why? What is
your purpose? |
| 2. |
Plan your method - How are you going to reach the goal that
you set? In other words, what is your action plan? |
| 3. |
Determine your position - Where are you standing now? Where
do you fit on the path from ignorance to enlightenment? |
Don't
spend time struggling to memorize concepts, formulae or theorems.
Instead, consider trying to find the main points, isolate them and
then try to create links that connect them together so you can establish
the overall broader and bigger picture. Test yourself by teaching
the concept to someone who has never heard about it before - if
he/she can understand it after your explanation, then you have grasped
the concept well.
Apply
everything that you learn. To demonstrate this, Teacher Wong provided
us with one of Venerable Master Hsing Yun's articles and we had
to determine what the main points were in several paragraphs. Extracting
the essence of a paragraph was actually harder than it seemed at
first, but we gradually caught on - after all, practice makes perfect.
Teacher
Wong was not afraid to state the obvious. Everything that he said
made complete sense, forcing us to reflect on the effectiveness
of our current learning methods. We are very thankful for this timely
lecture, which is sure to come in handy when school starts. Amitofo!
Jacqueline Leung
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