In education, as in many other fields, both theory and practice play an important role. As any of you who have read my blog regularly know, I definitely lean more toward the practice side of things, and one of the main goals of my website is to offer practical solutions to educational challenges. One of the reasons I became so passionate about finding practical solutions to students’ struggles is because that is how I coped with my own when I was a student, but another reason only became more and more clear to me the longer I taught: the increased focus on various theories, programs, and teaching methods based on them seemed to leave less and less time, not only for teachers to offer practical solutions to their students’ challenges, but for students to come up with their own. While I certainly believe that theories have their place, and that teachers who are able to use programs, teaching methods, and lessons based on these theories in engaging and productive ways are able to encourage their students’ success with them, I also believe that they are only one part of what students need to succeed. As with so many of the other topics I have written about, with this one, too, the most important thing is to find the right balance. While developing good study skills means doing the best you can with what your teachers ask of you, no matter how much or how little they base their teaching on current theories of education and the programs and teaching methods that go along with them, it also means doing the best you can to find other ways of doing things if what and how you are being taught is not working for you. The very title of my blog and website, Study Skills Your Way, is meant as a reminder that developing good study skills means taking whatever you are taught and making it your own, and no matter any theories that may be a part of it, the only way to truly make your study skills your own is to put them into practice so you can figure out what works best for you and gives you the greatest opportunity to experience success.
One of the most important things to remember about both theory and practice is that neither one can or should exist at the exclusion of the other. In its own way, the whole point of the development of new educational theories is an attempt to figure out what works, and many of them are developed in response to the realization that what has been done before has not worked for every student. Unfortunately, too many educational theorists take their ideas too far, and in doing so, they tend to forget that what may not have worked for every student did work for many, and perhaps even a majority, of them. Instead of focusing the implementation of their theories on the students who need them the most, or allowing them to supplement or be blended with other theories and practices so that the best solution is found for each student, they focus instead on finding everything wrong with what came before and insisting that the only way for students to benefit from their theories is for everything they are taught to be based on them. Teachers and administrators who learn about new theories are often persuaded to do just as the theorists suggest, and insist that their students only do the new lessons, and when they see students making progress who weren’t before, they become convinced that the theory works, even if they have other students who are not doing quite as well as they once did. As someone who attended very traditional schools and did quite well despite my challenges precisely because my strengths matched up well with how I was taught, I realize that I am someone who would not have done as well today with some of the newer methods of teaching because of my challenges. Since many of you have challenges that differ from mine, you may actually do quite well with newer theories, and that’s great. If, however, you ever feel that something that has worked for you in the past has been needlessly taken from you and replaced with something that does not seem to be working as well for you, try to find a way to add what worked back in as you develop your study skills outside of class. If that does not make enough of a difference, consider speaking to your teacher about your concerns. You might be able to more formally supplement the new method with the old one, get individualized assistance to make the new method easier to use, or be allowed to tweak or reduce your use of the new method so you can focus more on what works best for you. As I have said many times before, as long as you make a sincere effort to do what your teacher asks of you and approach him or her respectfully with the concerns you still have, including with a parent or other trusted adult’s support if necessary, you might just be pleasantly surprised by the respect you are given in return. While you may not be able to simply abandon the new lessons, and whatever solution you are offered might not match perfectly with what you were hoping for, any solution that offers you balance between implementing a new theory and relying on previous best practices is one you should gratefully accept and do your best to use.
Just as theory should not exist at the exclusion of practice, so practice should not exist at the exclusion of theory. As much as you might wish to complete assignments and prepare for tests in every subject just as you have always done it, year over year with no exception, that is far from the best way to develop your study skills and become a more efficient and successful learner over time. Just as I believe that traditional methods of doing things should not be abandoned completely, so I also believe that new methods should not be dismissed out of hand. Many of them are tailored to assist students with specific challenges, and programs and lessons based on the theories are developed to provide individualized assistance in overcoming the challenges they are meant to address. Since being offered this type of assistance usually involves doing things differently from classmates and/or having time taken away from other work that needs to be done, many students who are offered this type of assistance will either reject it outright or resist sticking with it until it starts to pay off. If you are ever offered this type of assistance, a much better course of action is to participate as fully as you possibly can and give yourself the best chance to see if it will indeed work for you. This does not mean blindly trusting that you must stick with it indefinitely, but it does mean accepting that evaluating its effectiveness honestly will take time. Think of it the same way as you would think of trying a new sport or activity: Quitting after a single practice or meeting does not make nearly as much sense as quitting after a season or a year, because if you give up on something new too soon, you lose the opportunity to evaluate your experience and see if it is something you might actually enjoy after all. On the other hand, sticking with something season after season or year after year because you think you should keep doing it or are expected to keep doing it, even if you are no longer enjoying it or don’t feel it is the right fit for you, doesn’t make sense, either, because it keeps you from finding something else that might be more enjoyable and fit you better. Specialized assistance does not always need to be enjoyable, but it does need to be the right fit, so if you have given it your best shot and feel it really isn’t helping as much as you were encouraged to believe it would, asking to try something new is not only acceptable: it is advisable.
As someone who leans more toward practice than theory, I find that one of the best ways to determine what works in any given situation is to consider who is presenting it to you and how they are presenting it. While some teachers are very skilled at learning new theories and teaching methods and implementing them in a way that allows students with varying strengths, challenges, and needs to respond to them and succeed with them, others, like myself, are much better at taking the work you have in front of you and offering a variety of suggestions as to how you might approach it until something sticks, then encouraging you to keep applying it until it becomes routine and you are able to do it independently. This does not mean that I have never taught using new theories and methods, or that I haven’t found some that I liked well enough and saw enough students make progress with that I kept using them. What it does mean, however, is that I also found some theories and methods that I felt did not match my style, took too much time away from students’ other work and the more practical help they still needed, or both. Though I never dismissed any theory or program out of hand, and always encouraged my students to learn and use any method that would allow them to make improvements to their work, I did make it clear to students, parents, and colleagues that I would not teach using theories and methods which ran counter to my own learning challenges. I did not feel I could properly teach what I most likely would have struggled to learn, but if I had students who learned these methods from other teachers and entered my classroom ready and willing to use them, I allowed it as long as I could see that they had become accurate and efficient enough to make it worth their while without need of my assistance. I recognized that they had found something that worked for them, and that was good enough for me. Just as having the right coach or director matters when you are on a team or involved in an activity, one who can present what you need to know and do in a way to which you can respond, so, too, with teachers. Whether you are learning new theories, old practices, or something in between, having the right teacher for each type of lesson is the best way to make sure you get the most you can out of whatever you are learning.
Even though some teachers lean more towards theory and others lean more towards practice, both have their place, and both can help you learn and develop your study skills. Finding the right balance between theory and practice, finding what works in each situation you find yourself in, and being willing to give your best effort long enough to honestly evaluate what works for you and what doesn’t is the best way to make sure that the right combination of theory and practice will give you the best possible chance to succeed.