Little tykes, kids, young adults, adults, and grad students are all heading back to school next week. Learning – and being able to thrive in educational environments – is perhaps the greatest reflection of human achievement. Our team at The Potentiality is thrilled to share with you our best advice for realizing your potential at school no matter how old you might be. Here are Mike, Kurt and my back to school tips for all ages and every education level.
Daycare and preschool
I love picking my son up from daycare because he is a giggling and yelling example of how learning happens everywhere and all the time. He is learning independence (often in the sandbox) and is also beginning to understand relationships with teachers and friends (sometimes he is slightly aggressive with his love). For parents and kids alike, daycare is about learning the rules and reasons for things within an organized learning environment. This space for learning is also the first opportunity for experimenting with diversity of thought, which sounds too complicated for a tip about preschool, but it simply means that my son is understanding the world through different perspectives than those of his mom and dad.
John’s tip: have awesome communication with teachers and work hard to build the skills that they’re working on in the classroom at home, too (e.g. holding hands or not throwing food).
Elementary school
Elementary school is an amazing time of discovery for young learners. Drawing, playing, and reading a thousand and one books about the ocean, technology, ponies, trucks and diggers, and every other subject under the sun. Kids should draw pictures, celebrate every bit of learning and parents should be engaged fully in their children’s education. Join the PAC, fundraise, lobby, volunteer as much as you can, and build personal relationships with the teachers.
Mike’s tip: children who learn cooperatively will enjoy improved relationships, higher academic achievement, and higher self-esteem; that collaboration should be with each other, so back off a bit and let your kid learn with their peers, then celebrate their learning and keep it going at home.
Middle school
Middle school kids are amazing. Some of them might even have to read this blog for homework! Developing social and emotional knowledge and competency here is also the first step to building leadership skills and understanding the difference between being in-influence rather than in-control.
Mike’s tip: help your potentially awkward middle-schooler develop their social and emotional skills (and even build your own) by engaging in service projects and volunteerism; expose your young learners to large, complex community challenges and provide leadership opportunities that they can grow into.
High school
The cliques and classes of this particular stop on the education train might strike you as tricky or scary to tackle. They are. It’s why Kurt had such a hard time in high school. With so many cultural niches and communities of people being formed around common interests, high school presents a fantastic opportunity to cultivate a network of allies who will help you to understand all of the life lessons that aren’t taught in classes.
Kurt’s tip: full disclosure, I had a crappy time in high school because I wasn’t engaged in anything beyond marks; build a community of friends and collaborators by getting involved in a few things that you care about.
College and university
You will be distracted by everything in higher education. Course content. Women. Men. Freedom. Alcohol. Grocery shopping. Fighting “The Man”. Cultivating your awesome beard. Balancing three jobs and two scholarships to pay for everything. Focus – like lightsabre focus – is an elusive thing in college and university, especially since we’re distracted by all the noise around us. Build the skill of focus during your time in higher education because your world promises to get even fuller and more complex as you get older.
Kurt’s tip Alexandra Samuel’s tip: use Evernote for all your notes (something you can continue long into your career) and Zotero to keep track of all your sources and citations.
Graduate school
The hard truth is that you, grad student, are nothing special and might’ve made a terrible life choice. Just kidding. In addition to absolutely rocking your coursework, major research paper, thesis, and/or dissertation, it’s important for grad students to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit as well as articulate how your projects have relevance in many different fields. For example, any PhD student who completes a dissertation probably has awesome project management skills and being a TA makes you a good presenter and solid coach.
John’s tip: you absolutely must create two cool and unique things during your graduate experience that are not part of your project; for example, organize a conference or launch a podcast that brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to talk about a specific theme.
Other tips
We didn’t have space for all the great tips and ideas that our readers sent our way. In no particular order, here are some other awesome tips for heading back to school:
- Buy your school supplies “off cycle” and save money!
- Bring snacks!
- Be empathetic; understand that not everyone is like you (e.g. extroverted/introverted) and many folks you will meet are differently abled (e.g. mental health challenges, autism, etc.)!
- Read for fun!
- “Slow down to hurry up” – not everything needs to happen at lightspeed.
- Leave your phone alone!
- Be adaptable and get comfortable with change.
- Cultivate diversity of thought by finding your voice!
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This article was originally published on September 2, 2015.