A B Ready Code: Habits 9 and 10
Hello, and welcome back to A B Ready.com. This is the fifth of five short videos about the A B Ready code, a list of ten habits guaranteed to help you succeed in school.
Habit #9: Use your planner, calendar, binder, and backpack to be well-organized
With so many different classes and teachers on you schedule, it’s easy to get totally lost with handouts, assignment, due dates, and on and on. I remember Dean, a student who was working on a major report for an English class. He showed it to me all completed the day before it was due to be turned in, so I know he did it. But, the next day, he couldn’t find it and didn’t turn it in which killed his grade. Two weeks later he found the report…at the bottom of his backpack.
So, the key idea here is to be organized and to have helpful routines. Now, if you have ever played a video game or had to learn new software on a computer, you know what I mean by a routine. Miss one step in the upload routine, and you are nowhere. So, develop helpful and useful routines such as writing down assignments in a planner, mark your calendar with due dates, write a “to do” list that outlines the steps you need to take to complete a major project. Put assignments to be turned in where you can easily find them. Make a list of when and where you will do daily homework assignments. Learning how to manage the complexities of high school work will prepare you to handle the greater freedom and looser schedule of college where the responsibility of your education is more squarely on your shoulders.
Habit #10: Remember Why You are Doing all these Habits of the A B Ready Code
To Be Ready to Do College-Level Work by the Time you Graduate from High School. Remember the first question I asked you when you saw the video introducing A B Ready to students: “Do you want to go to college?” If the answer is still “yes,” then, go to college ready to succeed.
Let me tell you Paul’s story. For almost 20 years, the high school, where I taught French and English, had an exchange program with a school in Normandy, France. One year, I was the group leader who accompanied 15 students during our three-week stay. Each student was to prepare a talk to be given in English classes so that the French students learning English could hear and get used to the American accent. Paul, one of the American students on the trip, told me that his talk was on the comparison between the senior year in an American high school and the final year in a French high school. Now, in France, students spend the final year of high school in intense preparation for the baccalauréat, an exam given over several days in June which determines who will or won’t go to college. Students know that only about 80% of students who take the baccalauréat will be accepted to attend college. The 20%, who don’t make the cut, are happy to repeat their final year of high school because, with one more year of study and maturity, their chances of getting into college are pretty good. So, when French students go to college, they are in top condition to face the rigors of college. (Did I mention that a college education in France is free? That means that students, from no matter what social or economic background have an opportunity to get a college education, if they work hard enough.) On the other hand, high school seniors in the U.S. are afflicted with “senioritis.” Maybe some of them have already been accepted to a college, many of them take easy classes, and there are all those social events that happen during their senior year. Many seniors are not ready to handle the demands of a college education that, unlike high school, now they have to pay for.
By developing the ten habits of the A B Ready Code, you will be ready to make the most of your college career. Do it, not for your parents, or your teachers, or not anyone else. Do it for yourself.
Now, that you have finished the video series on the A B Ready Code, I invite you to start viewing the “Meaning of…” video series which helps you to think about life issues facing adolescents today. These videos will help you to “Keep your eyes on the prize: a college diploma.” See you soon.
