• Teachers have higher expectations placed on them but fewer days in which to teach all students to higher levels.
• Students also have higher expectations placed on them as they try to deal with heavier academic loads, accelerated classes, and insanely heavy backpacks.
• Even parents are feeling the strain as they feel caught somewhere between wanting their child or children to excel on the one hand and wanting them to just be children on the other. It seems as if there is never enough time for it all.

Interestingly enough, there may be happy medium between high expectations and having a somewhat normal paced existence. This phenomenon is what I call “Slow Motion Accelerated Movement.” The idea or premise behind it is that you can actually achieve more in less time and have fun doing it. For people who are more tech orientated like myself, this principle is similar to the “Warp Drive” engine in the Star Trek series. As you may or may not know, the “Warp Drive” is based not on the idea of going faster (as in faster than the speed of light) but on the idea of warping or bending space and time so that you move your intended destination closer and thus don’t have to travel as far. The result of this bending of space and time is accelerated movement.

In terms of education and homework this is the idea behind “Slow Motion Accelerated Achievement:” the idea that students can actually accelerate their learning by slowing down and taking inventory of a few, but powerful set of principles. When these principles are applied, they have the effect of “bending” or shortening the “space” between the concept that is to be taught and the students’ own intellectual and personal interests. In a similar fashion, when these principles are applied “time” seems to be warped in that students are able to gain cognitive and applied understanding of a principle almost instantaneously.  The following are steps that I have found essential in engaging in “Slow Motion Accelerated Movement.”

Step 1: Slow down and ask yourself what do you really enjoy in life?

What are you really passionate about and what subjects do you really love? For me, I love history, education and everything tech. This may seem like a ridiculous exercise that seems to have nothing to do with getting homework done, but trust me, it is fundamental.

In one of the great classics on organizational development “Good to Great,” Collins (2001) identifies a series of companies that were able to make the leap from being simply “good” companies to ones that were “great.” One of the central reasons these companies were able to make the “leap” was because that they were able to identify what he calls the hedgehog concept: 1) They were are able to identify what they as a company were passionate about 2) They were able to identify what they could be the best in the world at and 3) They were able to indentify how they could turn their passion and their expertise into a profit.

Although Collins (2001) was talking about business, the same principles apply in terms of achieving in education. In order to accelerate your achievement you really have to know what you really love and are passionate about.  This is the “engine” of accelerated movement. This is what allows for faster than normal achievement rates. When you tap into what you really love,  it creates a force or an organic “Drive” that allows one to move and understand concepts very quickly because they are naturally aligned with one’s personal interests. For example, if a student really loves baseball and one slows down enough to understand her love for the sport, this can be a huge leveraging force. Instead of forcing her to focus on something else, instead of trying to get her to leave those foolish ideas concerning baseball alone, recognize it for what it is; a dynamic force for accelerated achievement.

Step Two: Find a way of relating what you really love to the task at hand.

Even math and science homework can be related to something that you find exciting. If you love to shop, try and find a way of looking at your math homework in a way that it can actually help you to have more money to shop.  If you like video games, try to use your science homework to figure out a better way of defeating your friends in Halo and World of War Craft.

I know this sounds hokey, but some of the best gamers are great at what they do because they intuitively use analytical math skills in their strategies without knowing it.  Researchers at The University of Wisconsin-Madison have an entire lab set up to study how video games can help improve educational achievement. There are also lecture courses, scheduled for the fall of 2009 (some of the biggest on campus) connected to  gaming and education. In addition, every summer the UW Campus is host to the Games Learning and Society Conference (GLS 5.0) that attracts researchers from around the country.

In short, relating homework and achievement to what you really love is more reality than it is fiction. When you relate what you love to the homework at hand, you are able to get your stuff done faster because you don’t have the emotional block (or drag) of not wanting to do it. You come to really understand math or science from another perspective, a perspective that you love and makes sense to you. You begin to better understand the theory behind the work, because you understand what it looks like and how it operates in “your world”.  In addition, the quality of your work (via grades) will likely also improve as you are genuinely engaged in the work and assignments. The result is a “bending” or shortening of “space” between what you love and what you are being taught.

Step Three: Finally, identify the basic elements that need to be understood or accomplished and automate them.

Consider the rest free time. Homework and achievement tend to be hard because so much of the work seems redundant, meticulous and arduous. Automate the parts of your work that you are less excited about and focus on the parts where you find connections that you genuinely enjoy.

Usually, there are only two to three basic parts of any given assignment. When any assignment is understood as being made up of only two to three parts, the assignment has the appearance of being easier. This is what we commonly experience as an “A-ha” moment; the moment when we understand the basic simplicity of something that seemed very complicated at first.

For example, in a research paper, the basic parts are introduction, body and conclusion. The bulk of the work goes into finding the research, but in the final analysis, this research needs to be presented in these three very basic parts. To facilitate assignments like this in an accelerated manner, I am big fan of using templates when working with homework. In MS Word and just about any other software program you can create templates that have the basic elements of your assignment, so that you don’t have to do these elements every time you have to do your homework. In the case of the research paper, you can have the sections of introduction, body and conclusion already framed out so all you really have to do is dive into the parts of the research that you really love and present that information into the three parts. Even simply having your name , course name and the words introduction, body  and conclusion at the appropriate place in the template is very useful.  In fact, when you use templates, you save time, automate the boring stuff and get to the really good stuff. An added bonus of using templates is that it helps your work to look more professional and it tends to be less prone to mistakes.  The result is a “bending” or shortening of time between how long it would normally take you to finish your homework  and  homework that takes only a third of the time.

Conclusion

While these principles may sound complicated and hard to execute, remember is really all about taking your time. Understand what you are really passionate about, relate that passion to the task at hand and execute the basic but fundamental steps for homework and learning execution. It really can be as easy a 1…2…3

This post is © copyright 2009 Byron K. Sharer Robertson.

Bibliography
Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t. New York: Harper Business.

This can help you with science homework (and even some other things like cooking or calculating large numbers).  Just type it in and see what happens.  Here are a few examples…

That last one is useful if you want to see how much the recent government bailout is costing each tax payer, and your calculator doesn’t have enough digits :)

Sure, I understand the reason behind it.  We don’t want kids copying off each other on the test and skipping out on learning!  But is it possible we’ve gone too far?

You see, in the real world (i.e. having a job, running your own business, being president of the U.S., or whatever you end up doing) successful people are masters of surrounding themselves with OTHER PEOPLE who complement their weaknesses.

A successful business owner doesn’t have to understand all the nuances of tax law.  He hires a qualified CPA to do that!  A doctor doesn’t have to understand how to put people to sleep during surgery, he has an anesthesiologist to do that.  And the president doesn’t have to understand the details of how interest rates affect home prices because he has the chairman of the federal reserve to advise him.

Everyone is good at different things, but our school system asks students to be a little bit of everything, and it can make school a very unpleasant place for many children.  Say we take a student who excels at math and science and ask him or her to write a 25 page essay on Hamlet.  They may be frustrated and bored.  Likewise, to ask an aspiring young playwright to take a test on calculus will simply make them feel inadequate and stupid.  

And then there are children who excel in something totally unrelated to school, such as making people laugh (the class clown), bringing groups together (people skills and natural leaders), or artists.  By traditional standards these students have “failed” in our school system.  Yet in reality, they are just very good at something our school system doesn’t reward.

Many great minds and successes have been utter failures in our school system.  Jay Leno, Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, and William Faulkner just to name a few.

In summary, never be afraid to word in groups when doing homework or preparing for a test, unless a teacher expressly forbids it.  When in doubt, don’t ask for permission to do it.  Just do it!  A well meaning teacher may say “no” if you ask when they are really just trying to discourage blatant copying.

Surround yourself with the best students in the class and work on assignments together.  They will compliment areas where you are weaker, and you’ll help them in areas where you are stronger.  You may find that you learn more in your study group than in class, and you will have discovered one of the great keys to success in life: surround yourself with great people.

What has been your experience in working with other students?  Do teachers in your area generally encourage or discourage this?