As the school year goes on and the weather gets colder, students spend more and more time indoors. While there are some great things about the fall and wintertime, one thing that’s a lot less fun is cold and flu season. While most of the diseases that get passed around schools are pretty minor, getting …
One of the most difficult attributes required to be an effective student is learning how to learn. As nebulous as that attribute sounds, it’s not strictly theoretical. As part of our Executive Function curriculum here at Staying Ahead of the Game, we walk students through a series of discussions, exercises, and challenges to both discern …
The educational environment is totally different today than it was twenty, ten, or even five years ago. Most parents and teachers didn’t grow up in the same classrooms as their students or children. Smart boards have replaced dry erase boards; Quizlet has replaced flashcards; and social media has (kind of) replaced the old-school agora style …
Starting the new semester on the right foot can set the tone for the rest of the academic year. Some students are amped up to crush their goals, buoyed by the hopeful energy of the new year. However, as many students and non-students know, the vast majority of new year’s resolutions languish by February. Far …
Mental Health during Exams As students prepare to face the academic decathlon called midterms, we wanted to compile our best tips for maintaining one’s mental health during the exam period. First, let’s discuss all the different mental health challenges students face during exams. The average high school student will take five cumulative exams this month, …
It’s December. As everyone else focuses on holiday preparations and end of year meetings, students only have one thing on their minds: midterms. Midterms (or final exams, if you are reading this in May) present a multifaceted challenge. The smartest students, the ones with the highest IQ, don’t always succeed during exam week. No, exams …
Perhaps the following scenario sounds familiar. A hypothetical student, Jessica, has a history of excellence in school and extracurricular activities. She shoots for the moon in her areas of interest and rarely has to be nagged to do their homework. The moment she falls behind, though, everything changes. Projects and papers are turned in late …
The Need to be Perfect: How Perfectionism Can Hurt a Student’s Success Read More »
Helping students become capable and confident beyond the parameters of the classroom is central to our mission. To help with this mission, we often organize student development into ‘macro-skills’, delineated by aspects of our executive function curriculum or other skills core to student success. These macro-skills include organization, time management, study skills, and impression management …
We love organization at SAOTG; that’s been made clear. Our stance on educational technology, on the other hand, is often misunderstood. Yes, we have written numerous blogs on the dangers of technology, on the dangers of technological overuse in modern education. Excessive screen-time and ubiquitous notifications have caused issues with focus, retention, and other executive …
Part of high school (or some more competitive middle school programs) is learning how to read. By this, we don’t mean learning how to sound out words and whatnot, the essentials of phonics. Instead, we mean learning how to read with an eye toward comprehension. We have written extensively in previous posts about annotating a …
