Passing Grade, Least Effort
If you’ve decided you want a passing grade with the least effort – for whatever reason – you’ve come to the right place. (If you’re taking a course that sets your mind on fire, you’ll do the things I’m suggesting intuitively.) Your guiding principle? Take charge.
True or False? A classroom is where everything isn’t.
Game Plan for Boring Lectures
Here’s how you can almost guarantee yourself a C or better—even if you do nothing else outside of class:
- Pay attention – playfully.
- Attend every class — playfully.
- Be sure to take every quiz and test — playfully.
- Playfully.
These tactics work when you have teachers who see themselves, even in 2013, as transmitters of information and feel guilty if they don’t “cover” everything in class. For a lot of them, the text is back-up material.
A guide to wakefulness
[In my November 11 post,there’s a streamlined way to dispatch textbooks quickly and efficiently: “INTELLIGENT READING — A 20-Minute Complete Course.” So you can have some fun with your textbooks, too. When you put yourself in charge, things brighten up considerably.]
You can be pretty sure the tests these teachers think up will focus on what they talk about – what they emphasize.
How to take tests
[ In my post of May 6, 2013, “Turning Tests into Crossword Puzzles,” there are some tips and reminders on how to enjoy –yes, enjoy! – taking tests.]
If you don’t intend to study at all, make sure you select teachers who like to lecture. Then apply smart tactics in class. The bottom line is all the time you’ll free up to go and pursue your education. Above all else, do make a game out of taking classes. The worst thing you can do is to take all the rigmarole seriously. You mind won’t put up with it. Till you wise up and start enjoying yourself, you’ll get headaches, diarrhea, insomnia, and so on,.
What’s nice is that if you love a subject you’re enrolled in and want to master it, these same techniques will focus your mind on all the important information. As you well know, a class that inflames your mind is sheer joy – and easy – “easy” in the sense that being fully engaged feels effortless.
Build new habits, but for heaven’s sake, don’t try to change twelve years of habits overnight. One step at a time. Enjoy the challenge, and don’t take it seriously. It’s pitiful to watch the inevitable collapse of a massive self-improvement program, usually about one week later. The tactics I’m suggesting here are intended to be absorbed gradually at your own pace.
Use what you can now and add on as you go. Your own temperament is your best guide; build on that.
Teach yourself to pay attention while you are sitting there and you will be able to complete most of your work right in class. Occasional review could be enough to get by.
Realms of Gold 