Productivity

Why Some Students Always Seem To Get Straight ‘A’s

It’s not all genetic.

I’m back in the thick of it — that is my college experience. Having recently returned to campus for the spring semester, I began to notice distinct differences in personality between the students populating my honors classes and those bumping around in all of my other classes. So as not to subject you, the reader, to a lengthy synopsis of every class I find myself tied-up in, I'm going to focus on students in my honors philosophy class compared to those in my general physics class.

The differences in character between these two brands of students shocked me. I felt like I could see each student’s future laid out before them based on the way they were behaving in class. You might think, it’s genetics, some kids are just born smarter than others. Yes, some kids are born smarter than others, but, just like Robert T. Kiyosaki indicated in Rich Dad Poor Dad, what you decide to do with your mental toolbox has a potentially greater impact on your future than the toolbox itself.

We have the science to back this up. A study done at the University of Maribor on Slovenian students found a wealth of data supporting the idea that your habits in school determine how well you perform when test day rolls around.

Their findings concluded that students with a serious learning approach and who take into account basic time management skills achieve on average, a better grade than those who do not. On the other hand, a significant negative correlation was observed between the average grade of students and cramming just a few days before exams.

Seems simple right? But what does this actually look like in the classroom? Let me describe it to you. I will call my general physics professor Dr. Blue and my honors philosophy professor Dr. Black.

I walk into my general physics class on the first day of class. The classroom was close to filled, with a handful of students making an appearance over Zoom. Dr. Blue is excited; I’m excited; everyone else looks like they would rather be swing dancing over a pile of scorching hot coals.

As the class progressed, some of the students started taking notes with confused expressions on their faces. No-one asked any questions. Rather, Dr. Blue posed questions to the class as he lectured. He is met with glazed-over eyes and a resoundingly awkward silence. I answered some of the questions, others answered the rest. But throughout it all, I got the feeling that Dr. Blue was like a hungry vulture, trying to scavenge one last tiny scrap of flesh from some poor dead animal.

The second physics class of the semester arrives. I am in class again. This time, hardly a third of the class’s students are in person. The rest are “Zooming in” over the internet. This session is even worse than the first; Dr. Blue had already scavenged all of the classes’ meat and thus, he resorted to picking at the animal’s cold, dead bones. That is to say, he resorted to calling out students individually and directly asking them questions. The boredom of the other students passed over the class like a dark and heavy cloud. It was impossible not to notice.

Let’s switch to my honors philosophy class. I sit down in the middle of the classroom. Other students make their way to their seats. One woman sits down in the seat in front of me and starts talking to a man beside her. In the typical American fashion, the man asked the woman how she was doing. She looked up confidently and replied, “I’m alive, to say the least.”

This response blew me away. For starters, I’ve been searching for a more creative way to answer such a roadblock of a question. But most importantly, it was a thoughtful answer. It was infinitely more interesting and reflective than the typical answers to that question: “I’m good” or more simply “good”.

That was just the beginning, as the other students around me talked to each other, I noticed that these students’ topics of conversation were generally more brainy than the average student and that they possessed a were talking about generally more brainy topics of conversation considerably higher levels of vocabulary.

As Dr. Black walked into the classroom, the room went silent; everyone was waiting to learn. Our philosophy professor spoke and class began and this is when I really started to notice the differences of habits between an honors student and your average Joe pupil. Here’s what I noticed about the honors students.

They Know How to Communicate

More specifically, they know how to communicate well. Foreshadowed by their thoughtful conversation before class, the honors students used effective language and forward vocabulary to communicate what they were thinking.

Whenever Dr. Black asked a question, scores of hands instantly shot up. It looked like the scene from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when Miles Morales was sitting in a class at his new school and every student raised their hand to answer the teacher’s question.

Hearing them speak, I reminded myself of hearing Carolyn Myss say that “every word is its own universe.” Every word is descriptive of a distinct notion, feeling, or mental image. Good speakers can formulate the individual universes of words in ways that interest and captivate listeners.

The student’s in my philosophy class were eager to answer, and when they got called on, they expressed their ideas effectively and concisely. They imparted their ideas in thoughtful ways and I never once heard the overused and unholy descriptors “like,” “really,” and perhaps the most infamous “um”.

They Listen

According to the Center of Development and Learning, Active attention is voluntary and is guided by alertness, concentration, interest, and needs such as curiosity and hunger. “It is a complex process that includes feeling alert and aroused, selecting what we should be attending to, ignoring what we don’t want to attend to, and maintaining our focus for the right amount of time.”

Passive attention differs in that “it refers to involuntary processes directed by external events that stand out from the environment, such as a bright flash, a strong odor, or a sudden loud noise.” Passive attention requires no concentrated effort.

The honors students were undoubtedly actively attentive. Their hunger was for knowledge and so, they were apparently able to maintain their focus on thoughts and ideas related to the class for a significantly longer period of time than the average student.

They Ask Questions

Because the honors students listened, they were able to competently answer Mr. Black’s questions. What is more, the honors students repaid Mr. Black’s favor by shooting questions right back at him. These were questions with real-world applications, questions that simplified complex concepts into easy communicable, everyday language. These were questions that foreshadowed things we have not yet learned but would later study in the class.

I could see their minds working furiously as he discussed the theory of mind and the ideas of René Descartes. When Mr. Black paused to see if there were any questions, there almost always were. This is significant because their asking questions is indicative of deliberate attention. If the class wasn't listening, they would be incapable of sending questions back to Mr. Black.

Grasping complicated concepts is certainly a trait that depends on genetics but it is also a trait that desperately depends on the previously mentioned habits of active attention and good study habits, both of which are key characteristics of a good student. In other words, grasping a complicated concept is a product of active attention and deliberate learning.

They Aren’t Addicted To Social Media

This one is huge. Instead of seeing a horde of heads hunched down over their phones, passively scrolling on social media, and not really wanting to be sitting in the classroom, like in my general physics class, I saw heads upright and alert in honors philosophy. I saw students who appreciated being where they were and prepared to learn.

When philosophy class began, all phones were out of sight and every head was upright and attentive. Indeed, one of the biggest dangers of participating in class through the Zoom universe is that you have nothing stopping you from turning your camera off and spending the class scrolling through Instagram. In my honors philosophy class, everyone came to class in person and no-one prioritized social media over learning.

High levels of distractibility and low durations of attention are that will almost certainly earn a student poor grades and stall learning. I am reminded of a conversation with a college friend of mine who is on TikTok. Let’s call her Amber. Amber said jokingly but perhaps not untruthfully, that she had a problem, that she spent too much time on the app, and that it grabbed her attention whenever she tried to study. Trying to help, I suggested that she use the time limit option on her phone to remind her when she had spent a predetermined amount of time on TikTok. She laughed and told me that she had already done that whenever she was notified she had reached her time limit, she would ignore the notification and go right back into the app.