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How to Keep Strategies “Student-Friendly,” Even for Lazy Students
Susan Kruger February 15, 2011

Parents and teachers get frustrated when students don’t put forth the extra effort to organize themselves and study.

Are they lazy?

Or, are they human?

Let’s compare a few “student” and “adult” situations:

STUDENT: Anytime a student is at his locker, he’s in a rush; he’s rushed to get to class, he’s rushed to get to lunch, he’s rushed to get out the door and on the bus. Is it any wonder that he’s going to forget a textbook or get his science and math notebooks confused?

ADULT: This morning, my kids and I left for school and work with a HUGE pile of dishes on the counter because I was in a rush. Blending in with that pile is my lunch for today. It’s still sitting there and I’m hungry! While I’m disappointed, I still have an advantage over students because I am usually not rushed several times throughout the day.

STUDENT: When students have to put homework and school papers “away,” the process usually involves rifling through their book bag, digging through a sea of 12-16 different folders and notebooks (not to mention another half-dozen textbooks), find the correct folder, pull it out, set it down, open it up, slide the paper in, and shove the folder back into their bag. That is, if the right folder is even in their bag. It might be camouflaged with their other books in their locker.

ADULT: I have several different email addresses for various work and personal purposes. However, I have all of my accounts funnel to one inbox for the purpose of protecting my sanity. Imagine if I had to keep track of 12-16 different email inboxes every day!?! I would go crazy! That’s not any different than students who have just as many folders and notebooks. They also have the added burden of transporting all of those materials from home, to their locker at school, to individual classes, and then home again.

STUDENT: Students spend most of their days being told what to learn, how to do it, why they should care about it, and when work is due. It does not matter if they are interested in learning this information or if they understand the potential applications of this knowledge. Often, students *perceive* all of it to be a “waste of their time.”

ADULT: The last time I had a job with a boss that routinely told me to do things that I deemed to be a “waste of time” and “irrelevant,” I quit. I was an adult and I had the freedom to do so. Students are just stuck.

Students are disorganized because they are often rushed and they have inefficient systems. They are resistant to studying because they don’t see the point and get tired of being told what to do.

I’m not saying that we should release students of responsibility because of these roadblocks, but I am saying that we shouldn’t be so quick to judge them as lazy. They could probably use a heaping spoonful of empathy. Followed by a cup of “strategy.”

They need strategies to help them recognize the “rushed” state of mind at the locker and handle their locker time more effectively. They need an organizational system to pare down the folders and notebooks into one manageable place.

And, they could use some time-saving learning strategies to help them cut through the red-tape of learning “boring stuff” that they’ll “never have to use again in real life.” (Whether or not they will ever need the actual knowledge for the test, they can sure use the practice of learning faster…and strategically cutting through red-tape.)

Ultimately, they need “student-friendly” strategies. (Which is really code for “human-friendly.”)

Many well-known study skills are not actually time-efficient. For example, “S-Q-Three-R” is a very popular strategy, but I haven’t yet met the student –young or old- who was eager to survey, question, read, recite, and review. This a time-intensive task! Another popular book on student organization recommends a color-coded sticky-note strategy to help students sort their papers. This strategy is filled with barriers! It requires a student to: carry around a full supply of several different colored sticky-notes, take extra time to dig through the book bag or pencil pouch to find them when needed, take extra time to think through the color-matching process while rushed to finish homework, maintain the proper amount of various colors of sticky-notes, figure out a back-up process when they run out, figure out what do when his personal stock has been depleted and he can’t get Mom or Dad to the store to pick up more for a couple more weeks… I’m exhausted from just having to think through that process, let alone having to execute it! Too many barriers!
 * How do you keep things “human-friendly?”**
 * First, seek out strategies that are truly time-saving and have minimal barriers.**

If a student is going to take the time to learn a new system, he needs to get benefits from it right away. Otherwise, he sees no purpose. And, then the strategy violates the time-efficiency clause.
 * The second way to be sure strategies are human-friendly is to be sure that they are effective.**


 * Finally, strategies should apply across most subject-levels so students are not confused over when to use a strategy.**