GOOD Education: Best Practices

The final event in GOOD's education series was a screening of the documentary Waiting for "Superman" with the Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim. See footage from the screening and a roundup of lessons learned from our entire event series on fixing education in America.

How to Get a Good Education

1. Study hard. Memorization can greatly assist.
   • Try making study acronyms and/or songs. For example: a song for the colors of the rainbow is Richard (Red) Of (Orange) York (Yellow) Gave (Green) Battle (Blue) In (Indigo) Vain (Violet).
   • Study the easiest topic first.
   • Ask your parents as they could help you.
2. Listen in class, or to the teacher that is homeschooling you.
   • Take notes. Notes will help you comprehend and recall information that you have learned.
   • Ask questions. The Socratic method is a great method for teaching, so assist your teacher with the Socratic method by asking questions. In addition, questions can help you understand key concepts and ideas about a certain topic.
3. Do homework. Homework exists for a reason; it is meant to show what you are able to do at home without the class environment, and it is meant to assist the learning process. Some teachers even give homework quizzes. Still, other teachers require students to read certain pages in a textbook and answer questions. The class the following day will most likely involve subjects discussed in the homework.
   • Skim whatever it is that you have to read, before you read it. It has been shown that skimming a section before reading it improves reading comprehension. ^[1]
   • Reread notes. Reading notes may improve reading comprehension dramatically; it can drastically improve your understanding of what you are reading. Furthermore, it will be easier for you to answer questions that follow; if you don't remember the answer to a question, all you would have to generally do is to quickly check your notes.
4. Ask your parents and/or siblings for help.
   • Often your siblings, especially older sibling, may know things which you did not and can help you with your school work.
   • Ask your family members to review your work before handing in assignments. Often, they can pick up on small spelling or grammar issues.
5. Talk to your friends at your school. Often they will be able to give you advice on studying and help you with work.

Lisa Belkin

Senior Columnist on Life/Work/Family, Huffington Post

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Why So Many Studies About Parents And Happiness Are Wrong

Posted: 05/07/2012 3:40 pm

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Happiness Research , Non-Parents And Happiness , Parenting And Happiness , Parenting And Unhappiness , Parenting Research , Parenting Studies , Parentry , Parents News

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Does having children make you happy?
The question is an emblem of this particular parenting age.
Earlier generations didn't think to ask it. One "happy" result was more parents who just were rather than thinking and analyzing so much. The sad flipside, of course, was too many couples who became parents for the wrong reasons, or were surprised when reality didn't live up to expectations they didn't even realize they had.
This latest generation, on the other hand, asks it constantly. Jennifer Senior caused a stir two years ago when she did so in a New York Magazine cover story titled "Why Parents Hate Parenting." Dozens of economists, psychologists, Harvard professors and Nobel prize winners have spent the past decade asking versions of it, too, quantifying how parents were less happy/more depressed/less satisfied with their marriages than non-parents, particularly when their children were infants and teens. And every time one of these stories or studies came out, the result was a lot of people -- parents and non alike -- loudly proclaiming how HAPPY they were.
Let the shouting begin again.
This time, though, the newly released data appears to find the opposite of what has become conventional wisdom. At the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in San Francisco this past weekend, research was presented questioning the analysis of prior studies. One study in particular, which looks at 130,000 adults, 52,000 of whom are parents, agrees that while happiness levels DO drop when people have children, it is not as sharp a drop as previously thought. And, most importantly, those dips are not, over time, lower than they were in those same individuals before children.
I have not read the study myself, since it has not yet been officially published. What I know is from coverage of the presentation at the conference by co-author Mikko Myrskylä of the Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. Perhaps I am seeing what I'd like, but that glimpse gives me hope that this latest round might answer some of what has rankled when I have covered previous iterations of the "are parents miserable?" argument.
First, most of the studies up to now conclude that parental happiness is a U-shape curve: there's a peak at "married without children", then a drop at "parents of infants", a slight rise when the child reaches the less time consuming elementary school years, followed by a plummet as the teen years begin. Yes, happiness climbs again -- when the kids leave the house.
What this latest seems to account for, though, is the fact that comparing the happiness of new parents to that of their last year as non-parents is a false measure. "Well-being is elevated when people are planning and waiting for the child," Myrskylä told USA Today. So of course it drops when measured against the reality of sleepless nights. If you place the best of something next to the worst of that same thing, you are going to be unhappy.
And second, one hopes, by adjusting for that sharp drop, this data also reflects real life by simultaneously flattening the curve. Yes, it is still a U-shape -- any parent can tell you that infancy is hard, and the teen years are harder. But the assumption I always found misguided was that dismay at certain moments is the same as dismay with the whole shebang.
In parenting, as in any marathon, there are the patches of euphoria, and others where you question your sanity and wish you could quit. But that is not the same as wishing you'd never begun. And oh the satisfaction of the finish line.
In marathons as in parenting, it is BECAUSE of the hard parts, rather than in spite of them, that the entire messy, maddening race is worth running.
Does being a parent make you less happy? Some days. And on others it makes you delirious with joy.