Hailey Morris
Marisa Enos
English 111
14 April 2018
When thinking of studying for a test or exam most think of it as an easy thing to do.
When it may be the most difficult thing in high school and college if a student doesn’t use their
time efficiently or study correctly. As some think studying is just for exams and tests, they may
also think you can just do it for a couple days then you are ready for that big test coming up.
Then there are some whom may not even studying, thinking they know the materials just because
they took that class before. But, the correct way for studying is before, after, and during the
chapters and tests to increase your knowledge on what is to come and to make sure that student is
prepared.
With habits being one of the big reasons why students are lacking the correct studying
etiquette. As they follow us everywhere we go from high school to college and then college to
our future lives, we could bring the good and the bad with us. As stated by Matthew Crawford,
the author of “Attention as a Cultural Problem”, “We can take a critical stance towards our own
activities and aspire to direct ourselves toward objects and projects that we judge to be worthier
than others that may be more immediately gratifying.” (47) Students chose their own ways of
things, for instance like studying and how they chose to do it, instead of being taught another
way that may help them more or may be an easier route of things. But, sometimes their ways of
things may just be hurting them instead of helping and they may not even see it. Studying is a
hard thing to do. Without setting a good form of studying it could affect grades and GPA in the
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future. Listening to other opinions and taking in the help will help create the good form and
create a good habit that could erase the old one that may or may not be helping.
Some students are more picky and harder to get to think of other ways around things and
how there are many different options about doing things. They create excuses of why they
shouldn’t do things other ways and try to ignore the other classmate or teacher that is trying to
help them. Teachers have heard all the excuses in the world for many years and continue to try to
help. But, it is up the that student who decides if they want the help or not. As stated by Roger
Schank in “Story Skeletons, “We see events in so many ways we must decide which story
skeleton is acceptable.” (134) Schank is stating that the student creates the excuses on why they
shouldn’t learn the different ways of studying even if they know it will help them or be easier.
Crawford has stated how the habits of student brings with them from one point to another on to
their lives thinking that this is the only way the will succeed and will want to continue to do
these habits throughout their lives. But, when they are being showed another way about things,
they create excuses, so they don’t have to go about them. With habits and story skeletons being
such a problem, they are always used together when someone is trying to show another person
another way of doing some things. For instance, the student and the teacher. The student will
come up with excuse after excuse on why they can’t do something a different way or they may
try to do it that way and end up coming back to the ways they chose to do. This here is due to a
habit that is created. It is hard to break but, after fighting the excuses they create each time, they
Teachers see those things every single day and deal with multiple students who may or
may not accept the help or want to try other things. When it comes to one of the students whom
are picky and want to do things their ways, they are stuck with that habit they have formed.
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James VanderMey the author of “Remarks on Habit”, had stated “Habits are a simply a form of
intertie, we get stuck in them and become unfree.” (15) The only way of becoming unstuck is to
agree to try something different. A teacher can’t force a student to study the way the teacher
wants them to. The only way is if they agree and study the way they chose to do so. But, the
habit and agreement with the teacher is not the only problems that need to be focused on. Its
what students are studying for. Robert Leamnson, the author of “The Biological Basis of
Learning, seems to believe “Students are learning to think, and are practicing doing it, but most
are simply studying for the exam.” (78) When studying comes to the mind of a student, they may
just think there is an exam coming, they better study. Well that is not fully correct. A student
who studies should be studying for tests and exams but, most importantly the information they
are learning in chapters as well. The problem comes along is when they get behind on a chapter
and aren’t studying the material to bring themselves up to speed on what they should understand.
As VanderMey and Leamnson both focus on the habit is created. As a student is creating
bad studying habits through out there schooling years, they don’t realize it and are stuck with it
until they decide it is time to change their ways. But, with some students are studying the way
that fits them they are creating a habit of doing it the day before. Which will equal out to form a
bad habit in all ways. They both have the same idea in different ways it could be put in. As for
the ways it is being put it. It could be looked upon the studying etiquette.
One of the things is the students may think they don’t need to understand the material
because they think they won’t need it for the career they are going into. For example, taking
math 104 for going into nursing. They don’t think they need to know the material or another
reason is they took the class in high school, so they think since they took it once they don’t need
to study the material because they already know it. Also, students who do study the material have
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a bad habit of doing it either the day before the test or the day of as stated in (Leamnson 79)
They might have done this in high school and thought if it passed them in high school then they
take it with them to college. A habit is a tendency to act, say, or think in a certain way.
(VanderMey 13) Sometimes when that students says they can’t help what they are doing or the
way they are doing is because the habit they created. So, when a student is trying to study and
don’t successfully learn the material is all because of the habit they created. They may have the
correct form of studying to what suits them but, they may not be studying the adequate amount
of time. So, they may not remember the material they are studying for not because they aren’t
studying the way its suits them or they that would be better for them, it may just be due to the
Sometimes it’s not because students aren’t studying, paying attention, or just don’t care.
Leamnson on the other hand thinks it’s due to our brain circuits. He has stated “students find it
easier to run through established brain circuits that have knowledge stored in there but, they find
it harder to previously unused regions of the brain and to work to make those synapses stabilize.”
Just because a student learns material doesn’t mean it is going to stay with them. They need to
store that information into their brain circuits, so it stays there, and they know the information for
the future. The only way for a student to properly store that knowledge into their brains is to
properly study. Doing it the correct amount of time and taking the time to take notes and go over
But, habits and lack of time aren’t always the problem to why students have problems
with studying and passing their test and such. The blame could always be on the environment
they put themselves in or must be around. “When we inhabit a highly engineered environment,
the natural world seems to be bland.” (Crawford 45) Students don’t get to pick and choose how
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their lives are in the outside world. Some may have little brothers and sisters whom bug them, or
others may have other things. The environment could be to loud or to quiet. It depends on the
student and how they can study in such an environment. Some students need music to
concentrate and some may need peace and quiet. But its hard to do that when they don’t get to
choose what environment they are in. So, it would be harder for a student to process the
knowledge they need to store the information in the brain circuits for them to remember the
material they just studied for that up coming test or the end of semester exam.
Studying isn’t the easiest thing to do. There are so many things that connect to studying
to make it a good from and done correctly. The student may have a good from of studying bad
timing on when they give themselves or they just may not be in the environment to give
themselves the proper focus on the material. Its not all the student’s fault, but there are ways they
Works Cited
Crawford, Matthew. Attention as a Cultural Problem, Exploring Connections: Learning The 21st
Leamnson, Robert. The Biological basis of learning, Exploring Connections: Learning The 21st
Schank, Roger. Story Skeletons, Exploring Connections: Learning The 21st Century, (1991) Page
133-134
VanderMey, James. Remarks on Habit, Exploring Connections: Learning The 21st Century.