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Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

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Learn To Write Basic Computer Programs

June 11, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

One of the major problems in high school curricula today is that students are taught to regurgitate so much material, that they rarely ever produce their own knowledge. Learning to program teaches you to problem solve in a way that is hardly analogous to any class except Calculus in high school and gives you opportunities that are able to be pursued even by students who live in apartments without garages or opportunities to do house or automobile repairs themselves.

In order to accomplish this, you may need to learn to use a computer beyond the ease that comes with utilizing a smart phone. I recommend looking us tutorials on Coursera to learn basic computer skills.

From there you can take some of the computer programming courses on the same website. Other resources for programming include:

  1. Khanacademy
  2. Code Academy
  3. Lynda (this one costs money, but the courses are amazing)

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Learn To Have A Morning Routine

June 11, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

Your morning responsibilities immediately become your own when you move out. I recommend that you make them your own in high school or earlier. A good morning routine actually starts the previous night, but more on that later. A morning routine will help you in three key ways:

  1. Save you time
  2. Keep you from having to make choices in the morning when you’re sleepy
  3. Prepare you to hit the pavement bright eyed and bushy tailed

Here are the basic parts of a morning routine. I recommend planning your morning routine and doing a dry run and time each section to help you determine when a wise time to wake up would be.

Hygiene

Before you hit the sack, make sure that your shower is stocked with soap, your sink with toothpaste, and your toilet area with toilet paper. If you need to shave make sure that shaving equipment is available as well. Also, any fragrances which go with your routine should be ready for use. Any other more personal hygiene products for women or for issues specific to you (acne medication, prescription drugs, and so-on) should be out and ready to go.

Exercise

We all should exercise a little bit in the morning. The increased blood flow, slight adrenaline rush, and endorphin release might make the morning a bit less unbearable. If you intend a hard work out, this should obviously come prior to showering. Some people even do very serious weight training early in the morning.

Attire and accessories

Get your clothes out the night before. This means you need to be disciplined and check the weather channel. Just do it. You’ll save yourself so much time if your belt and socks are with your pants and shoes before you get any shut-eye. Searching for things in the sleepy stupor of pre-sunlight consciousness is no fun. Similarly, make sure other important accessories are set out such as your back pack with completed homework inside, wallet/purse, charged cellular phone (more on that in a minute), pocket note book, glasses, and so-on.

Sustenance

Stop eating sugary cereal and pop-tarts. I love them too, but seriously, just stop. Learn to cook and have something more nutritious for breakfast and get the ingredients organized in the refrigerator the night before. I recommend something that has protein and fat. Even oatmeal with butter and cinnamon with some fruit is better than surgar puffs brand super sweetened sugary sugar cereal. If you drink coffee, you could start it before you jump into the shower. Anyway, the point is to plan what you eat, rather than letting the convenience of junk food override your logic and reason just because you’re sleepy.

If you do not buy your lunch, then the morning (or the night before) is a good time to prepare your food. Again, preparing your own is cheaper than buying the school lunch (unless you’re on assisted lunches), and if you make your own food you’ll save time for your parents so that they can have a more relaxing morning.

Spirituality

The solitary moments of the morning are very useful for orienting your day toward God. I highly recommend engaging in spiritual reading and prayer in the morning before the day begins, asking God for opportunities to serve others and strength to avoid evil and do good is a better way to start the day than playing on the internet. Because of that, I recommended keeping your phone charging and with your accessories, so that it is not tempting you to be distracted from getting things done. In order to keep your phone from distracting you in the morning, it may be wise to buy a traditional alarm clock.

Planning

The morning, prior to the stressors which arise throughout the day, is a good time to sit down and write out what you wish to accomplish during the day. The list can include anything from chores, conversations you wish to have, meals you wish to eat, and so-on.

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Learn To Be Alone Without Feeling Lonely

June 11, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

This seems trivial, but it is important. In high school, especially with the advent of social media, the pleasure centers of our brains are so easily stimulated by easy access to people who ‘like,’ ‘favorite,’ respond angrily, or throw flattery our way that we can become addicted to the constant influx of digital love. This same inability to be alone has always existed, but it is not always good. We are a part of the human race, of our family, of our neighborhood, sports teams, classrooms, churches and nation, it is true. But we are also individuals. If we never take time to sit with our thoughts (no music, no people, no media, no book in hand), then it is difficult to recognize our faults, our victories, or even our own soul amidst the noise of the world around us. Learning to sit in silence for a few minutes a day with no agenda but contemplation, prayer, or simply listening to the sounds around you without feeling antsy, lonely, or bored is supremely needed in our era. Learn this in high school, because if you’re media addicted in college and it hurts your grades it will cost you money. And if you’re over social but do not know yourself well enough to make true friends, it will cost you even more.

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Learn to study

June 11, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

The Best Skill: Studying

One of the most important things high school can do for you is teach you to study. Whether you’re a homeschooled, public school, or private school student, high school is the time to learn to study.

There are thousands of techniques for good study, but only a few simple principles:

  1. Personal Study Space
  2. Regularity
  3. Comprehensiveness
  4. Orderliness

Personal Study Space

In order to learn to study effectively in high school you must to build a personal study space. Here are some rough guidelines:

  1. Comfortable enough to sit for extended periods
  2. Uncomfortable enough to keep you awake
  3. You need to have the right amount of noise (some people need silence to study, others need background noise), so the space should shield you/others from noise (headphones/ear plugs are your friends).
  4. It needs to be private enough to protect you from distractions.
  5. It needs to be public enough to help you feel embarrassed if you’re caught wasting your time.

Important Items include:

  1. A desk (I recommend Origami’s Folding Desk)
  2. An office chair (unless you opt for a standing desk, in which case you want a recliner/rocker for times when you’re reading and wish to sit down)
  3. A small filing cabinet for paper work, completed assignments, useful hand outs, and extra supplies
  4. A small white board for working out math problems w/out using paper
  5. A small book shelf
  6. Encouraging artwork or sayings to motivate you.

Brief, but interesting side note: research suggests that some people thrive with a messy desk and others thrive with an organized desk. Experiment with both, but no matter what, if your parents say, “Have a clean desk,” go with that option. It is doubtful they will say, “Have a messy desk.”

Regularity

You must study regularly in two ways:

  1. You have to repeat things in order to remember them in the short term.
  2. You have to remember to repeat things so that you do not lose them in the long term.

As a high school student, the most important thing to do is experiment with a few study techniques until you find a useful one and then use it regularly until you become efficient at it before trying anything else that is new.

To study regularly, I recommend writing your school schedule every Sunday evening so that you will know what time you mean to study for which subjects on which days. Get your parents’ permission for doing this sort of thing (how could they object?) because their permission also means that you have their understanding. This is important because you should never deviate from your study schedule except for emergencies. One of the most awkward binds to be in is when a chore you could do at any time comes up when you planned on studying and because your parents were not alerted in advance and because of this, they feel like you’re avoiding work.

So, study regularly in both ways in order to help your brain build a learning habit and in order to keep the information in your head where it belongs.

Comprehensiveness

This principle has its limits. But it is the principle that learning is best accomplished when it is done thoroughly. So when you sit down to study your history materials, do not just learn the dates, learn the names, look up words you do not know, and write down any questions related to the material you wish to ask the teacher or research on your own when you’re finished reading.

Comprehensiveness works similarly with mathematics and science. If you are stuck on a problem you do not understand, look up the solution reread the text book section on the portion of the solution you do not understand. Then try to make up your own problem and solve it before moving on.

The idea here is to build several maps in your mind of the material and to fill in that geography with information. As you study the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, for instance, be comprehensive. Look for Jesus’ references to the Old Testament and go read them. Look elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel for similar themes and read those. Then look in the rest of the New Testament to see if Paul, John, James or Peter bring up the same ideas. This level of comprehensiveness takes more time (though you become faster), but being so thorough helps things to stick in your mind.

Orderliness

One of the most interesting lines from the first Sherlock Holmes novel is Watson’s observation that Holmes’ knowledge of human anatomy is “accurate but unsystematic.” In other words, he knows it, but not necessarily in its connections with other aspects of human health.

The solution to this is similar to being comprehensive in your study, but taking it one step further. In order to have a systematic or orderly method of studying, I recommend using the “lecture to the wall” method of studying that was popularized in Michael Jones’ book, “The Overnight Student.” Your mission here is to read your material out loud, write down any questions you have and look them up, close your notes, and attempt to teach the material to an imaginary class room (even answering the questions that you came up with). If it is a math problem use this as an opportunity to work examples on your white board (or on a sheet of paper) and explain the steps out loud. Finally, if you must pause to look up material. Reread the section and start the lecture over. It is far better to embarrassingly forget what you want to say in front of nobody than to forget it on the test.

Your parents might think this is crazy (so tell them what you’re doing), but it will create several orderly connections between pieces of material in your mind. You’ll also improve at public speaking. The main thing to remember here is this: never be embarrassed to do what is necessary to make yourself better than you used to be.

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On GrowingThrough Struggle

June 6, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

The Girl with a Dragon Fly Tattoo has a good post about growing in the face of struggle and depression.

Here is a snippet:

I value learning the truth, gaining peace about the events that have happened in my life, and I’m sure people who take longer to heal crave this as well.  But why do they take so long?

It isn’t fair (but then again, life isn’t fair).  But why do some people heal from emotional wounds so easily, while others take so much time… or never do?  Why do some reject truth or solutions to their problems, continue to live in depression or denial, or keep high-walled barriers around their anxiety or loss of purpose?

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The Economist Gets It Right

June 6, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

In recent history there have been several attempts to claim that “introverts make better leaders,” “women make better leaders,*” or “millennials make better leaders.” That last one is a joke. But the fact of the matter is that one cannot be wise about a leadership choice based upon demographics. Even if the statistics were to show that 80% of female leaders are good and only 45% of males are good, it would still be stupid to jump on the bandwagon because the person you choose to become a leader would probably be new to it. In a fist fight, you assume the person is right handed until the fight like a lefty. But in a board meeting to decide who moved upward, one cannot simply say, “I like this person’s self-identification.”  Anyway, an article titled ‘Sex in the Boardroom‘ gets things right when it concludes:

Those arguing that women leaders are different, and better, may have the best of intentions. But they are piling flimsy evidence on dubious argument to produce politically correct hokum. In some societies such claims risk reinforcing stereotypes about the sort of job that women are “good for”. The only enlightened policy for selecting leaders is to judge people purely on their individual merits. Anything else is just prejudice in disguise.

This notion that women are better at leadership (which has never actually been demonstrated) and should be picked to be leaders more often is similar to the idea that “men are better at math and science than women.” It may be true that individual men have achieved more than every woman ever has at math and science. It may (and is) even be true that STEM fields are mostly men at the highest levels. But on an individual basis, one cannot infer, “You sir are a boy, therefore you are better at math than this girl. I will give her lower grades than you without checking her work.” Such behavior is irrational, but when the script is flipped in a different direction nobody seems to notice…except for the Economist.

*It was not long ago that the alleged stats that demonstrated that women automatically made better leaders than men were a major feminist talking point despite their belief that gender/sex are socially constructed and than men who become woman-esque can be considered excellent social leaders.

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