Today I am really excited because I am answering a question from a mum, all the way in Switzerland. She writes in to ask, “How do I help my son, who loves Math, English, and the Sciences, but is struggling with Geography and History, and is not passionate about those two subjects at all. Because of those subjects, his grades are dropping. How do I help him?” Well, the five strategies for today are…
1) Help him to set himself a long-term goal, and to become really passionate and own it. So, he being in grade nine, he would have an idea about the kind of subjects he plans to take, or an idea of what he wants to be, and which university he might want to study in going forward. So if you get him, to look into the long run, to that goal of his, then, getting over History and Geography is just a small hurdle to achieve that long-term vision.
2) Link the subjects he doesn’t like with the subjects he is passionate about and, to draw up how they can help each other. So for example, History and Geography are subjects that lend themselves to math; there are a lot of numbers in History, the date of the events, the number of times the event has occurred, in Geography there is longitude and latitude, so there are a lot of numbers out there. Plus, these two subjects also lend themselves to a lot of subjective-type answers, and that means there is a lot of English involved. Plus, while studying, your son could actually write, to learn History and Geography, in poem format because he is so passionate about English. So you can link the subject he is weak in to the subject he is very strong in.
3) His time. How is he spending his time across all these subjects? Try and see to it that he spends an equal amount of time for each subject. Because he needs to build up the subjects that he is not so passionate about, and not just focus on the subjects that he likes.
4) Tie in the practical angle of the subjects with theory involved. For example, you could take your son to the museum, and make him visit the relics from the past that are kept there, so when he studies his theory, he remember those objects and therefore remembers his lessons. You could also go through YouTube links of the areas in the past, with regard to Geography, something to do with landscapes, or riverbeds. You could look up stuff on YouTube for him, to make it more interesting for him rather than just learning the lessons via the textbook. And, I remember I had a History teacher who would draw up lovely maps, so for example if an army was invading a particular region, the stops the army was invading in the region and the dates spread across that. So that would make it really visual for us, and when we had to answer a question, it was really easy to answer it, because one would remember it so easily.
5) Try and understand whether your child is a visual learner, and auditory learning, because that it what most children are. And you could take him to the movies, and get him to see a movie about that particular event in the past. So again, there is a link between the movie, and what he is learning.
So I hope that helps to answer your question, and helps your son to do better in the subjects he is struggling with. So the five things are:
1) Get him to set his sights on his long-term goal, and that these are two small things his needs to get over to get him to his long-term goal.
2) Link his weak subjects with his strong subjects and to draw parallels and to draw the strengths in his strong subjects that he can use in the weak subjects.
3) Spread his time equally amongst all the subjects.
4) Take him to the museums, and tie the practical with the theory aspect.
5) If your child is a visual/auditory learner, take him to the movies, help him to draw up maps and even mind maps.
So for any further questions, do remember to email me on [email protected] or call me on, Dubai number, (+971) 56 1399033. I look forward to that lovely feedback that a lot of you keep sending me – it is so encouraging for me to send out more valuable content for you. And do remember, I have wonderful coaching programs for teenagers, and adults.