Study Smart

What parents, students, and teachers should know

Queena N. Lee-Chua

• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• eBook ISBN: 9789712729300
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How can parents motivate their children to study hard, without becoming "tiger parents"? How can students prepare well for exams? How can bullying be minimized? Why doesn't multitasking work? What are the ways to manage plagiarism, cheating, and other shortcuts to learning? Bestselling author Queena N. Lee-Chua addresses these questions and other topics chosen from her popular column "Eureka!" in the Learning section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Part of Anvil's Learning series, this volume includes more than thirty learning issues for parents, students, and teachers.

Study Smart

What Parents, Students, and Teachers
Should Know

Queena N. Lee-Chua, Ph.D.

Contents

Preface
Dear Parent
	Brain Rules
	The Best Gift for Our Kids
	The Truth About Tiger Moms
	Parenting Reads
	Motivating Kids to Read
	The Hunger Games
	Lego for Girls
	Lessons From My Father
Dear Student
	Making Resolutions Work
	Hurdling Final Exams
	Bullying
	Much Ado Over Multitasking
	Against All Odds
	No Other Choice
	Deeper into Alice in Wonderland
	Rizal and His Legacy
	Teenager and Saint
	Ateneo Innovations
	Student Heroes
Dear Teacher
	Resolutions for Teachers
	Preparing Teachers for K to 12
	Father of Xaverians
	The Spirit of ICA
	A Culture of Shortcuts
	Books Come Alive
	Toys for the Classroom
	Sandwiches and Volcanoes
	Place Value and Integers
	Economics Game
	Math Tech and Student Scores
	The Best Math Teacher I Ever Had

Preface

Education does not occur in a vacuum. While students may be the main characters, parents and teachers are indispensable supporting players in and out of the classroom. But in this fast-paced world, educational fads seem to appear as quickly as they vanish, each one supposedly a solution to the age-old question: How can we learn as best as we can?

My column “Eureka!” has been in the Learning section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer since 2008. I talk to parents, students, and teachers, using timeless and up-to-date research and, often, real-life stories, to meet their concerns. Some of my columns have been collected into the book Learning, which came out in 2010 and reprinted afterward. You hold in your hands the second collection, titled (what else) Learning: Study Smart.

Parents are unsure about many things. How can they help their children thrive at home and in school? Is there a way to balance between too much and too little parenting? What is the secret to raising passionate readers? How can parents prevent their children from burnout, without becoming “tiger parents” themselves?

Students are anxious about many things. How can they balance tasks during the school year? How can they best prepare for exams? How can they make study resolutions work? How can bullying be minimized? Why doesn’t multitasking work?

Teachers are worried about many things. How can they be the best teachers they can be? What makes students respect and remember them? How can they implement K to 12 well? What are ways to manage plagiarism, cheating, and other shortcuts to learning? What innovative practices can they use to teach math, science, and English?

I would like to thank the Inquirer’s Chelo Banal-Formoso and Linda Bolido, Sandy Prieto and the late Gani Yambot, for giving me a home. DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro and DOST Secretary Mario Montejo, for inviting me to work with K to 12 and Technology Package, respectively. Elvin Uy, for addressing K to 12 concerns. Undersecretary Boy de la Peña, the Science Education Institute, UP NISMED, ASTI, PCIEERD, for a job well done. Senator Ed Angara, Greg Tangonan and Andrea Teran, for keeping me up to date on the Scholarships Bill. Sr. Iluminada Coronel, fmm, for providing me with studies on math teacher proficiency.

Maribel Sison-Dionisio and Nesy Fernandez, for helping out in the Ateneo, Bulacan, and Marikina Best Practices Surveys. Xandra and Miguel Ramos of National Book Store; Meinard Cruz and Enoy Ferriol of Scholastic Philippines, for providing good reads. Patrick Pesengco of Hobbes and Landes; Edward and Monica Sy of Gentle Star Trading, for providing great toys. Mary Rose Fres-Fausto, for giving parenting tips. Dr. Norman Quimpo, for being a great teacher and a brave nationalist. Jay Jaboneta, Eric Perez and Thess Ladrido, for educating me on the Yellow Boat Project and Dress Me Literary. Matthew Cua, Paul Cabacungan, Byron Raymundo, and Abigail Chen, for discussing Ateneo innovations.

My students Melchor Victor David, Victoria Clare Espino, Samantha Hillary Co, Estela Angela Bagos, and Jameela Joy Reyes, for sharing their thoughts on teachers. My students En Magtanong, Mark Garcia, Shela Bacuño, and Kit Lampa, for sharing their lesson plans. Maricor Dayrit, for asking me to contribute to the Ateneo Sesquicentennial book. Fr. Ismael Zuloaga, SJ, and Sr. Teresita Canivel, mic for shaping two schools and multiple generations.

My gratitude once more goes to Karina Bolasco of Anvil, who prodded me to compile these pieces; Ani Habúlan, Gwenn Galvez, and Joyce Bersales for ensuring the book reaches as many people as possible. A huge thank you to Fr. Ben Nebres and Dr. Honey Carandang, mentors and friends, for their invaluable advice and support through the years. Thank you to my students for sharing their thoughts and experiences; and my readers for sending comments and suggestions.

To my dad William and my mom Anita, thank you for loving us, I miss you so much. To my husband Smith, our son Scott, and our dog Hershie, thank you for making life worthwhile.

Dear Parent

Brain Rules

How can our children best thrive at work, at home, and in school?

Our son Scott stayed in Guangzhou, China from October to December 2011. One hundred thirty Grade Seven Xavier School students, supervised by a dozen teachers, immersed themselves in Chinese culture, language, and studies. Days and nights were hectic. Aside from tests, assignments, and intramurals, the boys did chores such as doing laundry and bathroom cleaning.

Scott loved it all. With excellent teachers (from Xavier and from South China Normal University), a stimulating environment, and fun-filled activities, Scott was thriving. He stayed strong and alert. His secret? He took a nap during the day.

The boys were up by six and did not sleep till ten at the earliest. So after lunch and before afternoon studies, Scott napped for half an hour, waking up refreshed and ready for more. Some friends followed his lead, with good results.

Sleep Increases Learning Ability

Scott and his friends did the right thing. In mid-afternoon, “it can be nearly impossible to get anything done, and if you attempt to push through, which is what most of us do, you [will be] fighting a gnawing tiredness,” says US molecular biologist John Medina. “The brain really wants to take a nap and doesn’t care what its owner is doing.”

NASA scientist Mark Rosekind found that a twenty-six-minute nap made NASA pilots perform 34 percent better. Other researchers found that a forty-five-minute nap made students sharper, an effect lasting more than six hours.

“What if businesses and schools took [naps] seriously?” Medina says. “No meetings or classes … no high-demand presentations and no critical exams … would be scheduled at these times. Instead, there would be deliberately planned downshifts. Naps would be accorded deference … People hired for their intellectual strength would be allowed to keep that strength in tip-top shape.”

Exercise Improves Cognition

In his remarkable book Brain Rules (www.brainrules.net), Medina culls from his lifelong work on the brain and lists several principles “for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school.” Aside from the importance of sleep, Medina also touts the benefits of physical exercise, especially aerobic activities.

Exercise makes blood flow to our brains, increasing glucose to burn for energy and oxygen to “soak up the toxic electrons” that remain. Twenty to thirty minutes of walking increases protein production which makes brain cells communicate better. Aerobic exercise just twice a week decreases our risk of dementia by 50 percent and Alzheimer’s by 60 percent.

Physician and athlete Dr. Antronette Yancey found that when children exercise aerobically, their minds work better, and when they stop exercising, the cognitive gain disappeared. Kids who are fit grasp ideas and focus on them better than their sedentary classmates.

Yancey says that kids who exercise are less disruptive in class. Since they have higher self-esteem, they are less depressed and less anxious. They are likely to be happier.

To give more time to other subjects, physical-education classes have unfortunately decreased throughout the United States, and in many schools in the Philippines. “Cutting off physical exercise—the very activity most likely to promote cognitive performance—to do better on a test score is like trying to gain weight by starving yourself,” Medina says.

Brains Cannot Multitask

“Multitasking is a myth,” Medina says. “The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time.” Even if students claim that they can multitask, studies show that attention, and therefore performance, suffers.

Medina describes several processes when we try to multitask, from alerting the cortex and firing of appropriate neurons to engaging different parts of the brain and activating various commands. These steps occur every time we switch from one task to another.

“[The whole process] is time-consuming, and sequential,” says Medina. “That’s why we can’t multitask. That’s why people find themselves losing track of previous progress and needing to start over, muttering things like ‘Now where was I?’ each time they switch tasks.”

Studies show that people who are interrupted take 50 percent longer to finish something, and worse, make 50 percent more errors in everything. Students who try to write a term paper while instant messaging, playing games, and rocking to music will not do any of these things as well as if they had done them one at a time.

Multitasking can literally kill. Eating, putting on makeup, talking on the cellphone while driving have been proven to lead to significantly more accidents.

“Cellphone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, slower to return to normal speed afterwards, and more wild in their following distance behind the vehicle in front of them,” he says. “In a half-second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80 percent of crashes happen within three seconds of distraction, increasing your amount of task-switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50 percent of the visual cues are missed by cellphone talkers, [so] they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers.”

Never Stop Exploring

Scott was excited about their science experiment: Testing whether China-made sticky tape is better in quality than those made in the Philippines. His group gathered data from manufacturers and designed tests of adhesive strength.

When he was growing up, Scott turned our house into his own lab. We never knew when the fridge would have mixtures of oil and water, when the bathroom would house real or plastic insects and reptiles, when a solar toy car would suddenly zoom by. Mishaps occur, but all of us have survived so far.

“We do not outgrow the thirst for knowledge,” Medina says. Scientists used to think that “we are born with all the brain cells we were going to get, and that they steadily eroded in a depressing journey to old age.”

Research now shows that even when we are grown, our brain creates new cells for learning, and that our brain responds to new experiences. Let us never lose our sense of wonder.

The Best Gift for Our Kids

How can parents help their kids do their best in school and in life?

When the Ateneo College Entrance Test (ACET) results came out, I was inundated by appeals from friends, family, strangers, requesting help so that their children could be accept...

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• Study Smart