Teach2Think

Exams can be stressful, and as much as our youngsters need help managing, as parents and carers we also need help to support them.

Here are some tips for the adults to help their youngsters during this time.

Words of love, encouragement and support top the list, followed by these.

Students! There's many tips to help you succeed during exam time. The most important being: get enough sleep - 8 hours at least.
Here's another 5 tips to help you during this time.

Have you ever felt that you can't help a little (or sometimes not-so-little) person to understand something in the way you explain it?

It may be because they have a different preferred learning style to you, and your default is to use your learning style to explain - it's what you know.

By knowing what your learning style is, and being able to quickly identify their learning style, you could save a whole lot of frustration and time.

The method is quick, easy and accurate!

DM us or leave a comment and we'll send you a useful, free resource to quickly identify what your preferred learning style is.

Have you ever felt that you can't help a little (or sometimes not-so-little) person to understand something in the way you explain it? It may be because they have a different preferred learning style to you, and your default is to use your learning style to explain - it's what you know. By knowing what your learning style is, and being able to quickly identify their learning style, you could save a whole lot of frustration and time. The method is quick, easy and accurate! DM us or leave a comment and we'll send you a useful, free resource to quickly identify what your preferred learning style is. #ican #learningstyles #vak #success

Auditory learners like to study with sound and usually that sound is their own voice!

Studying in a quiet place with some soft background music also works for some. There are heaps of study/focus/concentration music on Spotify and YouTube to choose from.

Hands up if you're an auditory learner 🙋‍♀️

Knowing your learning style can help you save time because you can use the techniques that suit you best.

You may have tried a study technique that your mate uses, but doesn't work for you.

Leave a comment or DM us to get your FREE resource so you can know how you learn best.

Knowing your learning style can help you save time because you can use the techniques that suit you best. You may have tried a study technique that your mate uses, but doesn't work for you. Leave a comment or DM us to get your FREE resource so you can know how you learn best. #studytips #examsuccess #studyskills #iwillsucceed

Study tip 1 - choose an environment to study in that is similar to your test environment. That way you train your brain for your test environment. Drinking water helps with memory, so remember to take regular sips while you study.

Follow us for more tips.

The Books on My Shelf #5
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

I read and studied the great man at university a decade ago; my thesis discussed the aesthetic vs social value of his works, i.e., is it really *good* writing or is its value primarily as a social artefact, a satirical and sentimental catalogue of life in London?

As for me, I respect Dickens as an author and a social commentator. His passion leaps off the page and his often convoluted, quintessentially Victorian sentences belie a wise and world-weary man who wished that humans could simply care for each other.

Oliver Twist is a sentimental tale that nevertheless is brutally honest about the London underbelly, which sucks the eponymous orphan below the surface and into the mire again and again. I was shocked by the graphic nature of the murder late in the novel; I can’t remember reading anything else so violent in Dickens. Apparently, it was based on a real murder.

Other notable elements include stock characters that feature in other Dickens novels: the innocent child, the near-perfect young lady, the gracious and kindly old benefactor.

Dickens depicted London in all its grit and glory, so in love with his city yet desperate for its redemption.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭13‬:‭34‬ ‭ESV‬‬

His faith is hard to pin down, but it is clear he believed in a loving God and the fruits of righteous living, often holding up a true Christian to the light to demonstrate the impact that may be had by a humble servant of Jesus.

The Books on My Shelf
#4 Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation - James K. A. Smith

I bought this a long time ago (it was published 2009) and made a few attempts at reading it. I sometimes wondered why I couldn’t see it through. Tonight it dawned on me that now is the right time, the most relevant time of my life to read it. Smith asks the question, “What is at stake in a distinctly Christian education?”

At present, I am involved in writing a 2-year cycle of curriculum for a special assistance school, run by Christians but not delivered as Christian except in that we love children who are all to some degree “the least of these”. Students enrolled in our school all require extensive adjustments in order to access the curriculum. “Mainstream” education didn’t work out. There is something distinctly redemptive in the work we do.

Having said that, ours is not an evangelistic endeavour. At times, we do share our faith, if only to explain how God has rescued us, or blessed us abundantly, or taught us humility and grace.

So, back to the book. Smith asks, what makes education “Christian”? It is not enough to impart a worldview or perspective that is largely information-based. There are secular liturgies, he argues, that form us in ways far more powerful than a primarily didactic education can; they operate at a sensual level, awakening our bodies and imaginations to a vision of the good life that animates and motivates us. It may not matter that the Bible and its teachings are true if they are not desirable.

Imagination and desire are formed in a whole host of ways and contexts that, in the end, constitute rituals more familiar to us than prayer or communion.

If Christian education seeks to form “lovers of God” rather than “successful people with a Christian perspective”, we need to be awake to the power and potential of secular *and* sacred liturgies, rather than relying on the rightness of our information.

The Books on My Shelf
#3 A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

I don’t know why but I’ve read few Hemingway novels. The Old Man and the Sea is great. I think I began A Farewell to Arms once. This one is light and anecdotal, as Hemingway recounts his mid-twenties in Paris with first wife Hadley and their young son. The author moved in literary circles and many a well-known name pops up as he moves through the seasons, gambling obsessions, and his days as a poor and hungry writer yet to enjoy real success.

The most fascinating chapters come late, as he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. Of Scott he paints a sympathetic portrait: a man troubled by his vulnerability to drink and the demands of his jealous spouse, but a brilliant writer.

Hemingway closes his reminiscences with regret; his marriage broke down after falling for his wife’s friend. The reader is perhaps supposed to wistfully sigh and wonder what might have been, as though fate and an unscrupulous female were to blame, rather than Ernest himself.

He does have a singular style and its characteristics are well-documented, by critics, scholars, and the writer himself. It is certainly very unlike the others I started this project with - Smith and Malouf - though every now and again the insight of Hemingway, wise and wry, will catch you off-guard and make you laugh or gasp.