The Poor study habit

March 4, 2010



To learn doesn’t have a space to be occupied. Wow, I was so poetic this time to come up with this quotation.

One thing that drives me to this unconscious organization of thoughts is when I get worried of the poor study habits among students. Nowadays, students misinterpret the essence of learning. They had this thinking that the school is the place for studying, home for family and the community for socialization and economic purposes.

This means that the students only develop his or her learning when he or she is present at school. When he went home, it is all about with his family. And when he went out, it is about playing with his friends. No time for studying anymore.

We all know that teachers give an assignment to further develop or enhance the students learning and also to expand the limitation of the classroom as learning resources.

As a teacher, we can directly notice the students study habit based on the assignment we gave in the previous lesson. You will be shocked when only few had prepared or did their assignments. In the private school, only those students who have tutors and supportive parents perform best in school. It is because there is someone who teaches them. Next, their performance inside the class and the results of the assessment can help us determine their study habit.

In public school, you will not be expecting that each of the students have their tutors or even parents who dare to guide them. When they went home, their parents are bothered by financial problems like what food to eat for the next day and where to get money to pay for the tuition fees of the children. Because of poverty, parents would just make each day a burden. They don’t have time to spend with their kids.

When I had my first shifting, when I give an assignment to my pupils, I always tell them to tell their parents, older sister or brother, “sabihan mo si mama o si tugang mo na ‘sabi raw ni Sir James turuan mo daw po ako sa assignment ko.”

I was surprised when the number of students who always made their assignments rises up. I always appreciate their work. One thing that made me smile when I had just arrived at school, they would approach me and told me that they made their assignments. When I was just teaching Values Education, they would show me their assignments in Math, English or Science. So I will tell them, ‘keep muna, we will use in our Math subject.’

That was how motivated my Grade II pupils are. It was an amazing performance for them because these are the things I never noticed during my observation; but now, they changed. Perhaps, my motivating words had greatly influence them.

When I had my second shifting, it was the contrary. No matter how I told them or reminded them of their assignments, they poorly did it. Only those honor students did their assignments or sometimes they would make a fast drop of ink just to answer them at school.

They couldn’t accomplish even a simple enrichment activity. One time when I gave them an assignment on using dictionary to find the meaning of the unfamiliar words which will be used for the next lesson, the results appeared to be embarrassing.

We can not blame ourselves since we did our part and they should also be responsible for their own learning. We don’t just feed them; we should teach them how to get their own food.