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May 25, 2004 Dr. Skip Downing was just trying to put his own life back together. Not one to straddle the fence, he returned to graduate school and earned a master’s in applied psychology. The happy results: He got himself together. He is revolutionizing higher education. Dr. Downing wrote On Course, one of the most popular and influential textbooks in the Houghton-Mifflin stable. The best way I know to tell about On Course is to tell my own story. When I graduated high school (and I just barely graduated—a teacher gave me a D out of the goodness of her heart, and, perhaps, to avoid the risk of having me in her class again), the counselor told me that I was not college material, and she was right. I had no interest in going to college. For one reason, I had that math disease and simply could not get it. Some people are just that way. "The great obstacle to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin Eighteen years later, I was college material. Not because I suddenly learned to take good notes. Not because I went to Tibet, climbed a mountain and contemplated the wisdom of the SQ3R textbook reading method. I became college material because of some inner changes. The 8 On Course Principles deal with those inner changes, habits, patterns, outdated scripts, and behaviors that successful students exhibit. There's nothing wrong with learning to take good notes; there's nothing wrong with the SQ3R reading method. Those are good tools for any student to have. A person can have a workshop full of good tools, the best tools money can buy, but until that person has the desire to build something, those tools are just going to sit there. On Course makes a person want to build something. There are many fine programs for learning study skills, but On Course deals not just with note taking, but also with the note taker. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery Have You ever seen the movie, Joe Versus the Volcano? Tom Hanks' character, Joe, is diagnosed as having a "brain cloud." They tell Joe that the brain cloud is fatal because they want him to think he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by jumping into a...well, don't want to give the story away. My "math disease" was no more real or life threatening than Joe's brain cloud. I started with elementary algebra. "These are numbers, as opposed to these things over here which are letters. We’ll mix them later, but don’t worry about that now." I took intermediate algebra twice. I made a C the first time, a passing grade, but I wanted to go into college algebra with as much momentum as possible. I put in several hours, everyday, learning algebra. It was worth it. When I got an A in college algebra, I knew for a fact that I could do anything. I would not have been more surprised or thrilled if I had suddenly learned to fly. The confidence it gave me is serving me well, to this day. I am so glad that EACC required college algebra and that they did not dumb it down or lower the bar for folks like me. I failed my freshman year of high school— including PE and Art (You gotta really try hard to fail PE and Art). My second year as a freshman, I ran for Student Council, as a freshman representative. I ran based on my experience; none of the other candidates had as much experience as I did at being a freshman. Took it real seriously. In 1991, I graduated from Arkansas Tech University, Suma Cum Laude (stop by and I'll show You the gold sticker on my diploma!), with a B.A. in psychology. That's quite a change. Some people make those changes on their own, out of necessity and often unconsciously. For our students who don't have 18 years to play hit-and-miss with life's lessons, On Course cuts to the chase and keeps the student focused on the desired changes. It's fun and it's powerful. When I decided to go to grad school in 1993, I tried to get an assistantship at the University of Arkansas. Time was running out, the semester was about to begin. My resume floated all over campus, from college to college, department to department. Nothing. One day in early August, Peggy Smith called me. She was the director of the Academic Development Office. During our interview, Peggy asked if I’d ever taught anything. No, I hadn’t. She lost one of her teaching assistants at the last minute. She was in a bind; I was in a bind. She took a chance on me. I taught Study Skills. I turned out to be very good teacher, a natural. And, hey, this study skills stuff would have really come in handy back when I was an undergrad. Still, I was frustrated that our study skills text did not address the real problem: responsibility, confidence, self-esteem, self-management, emotional intelligence, all those things that made the most difference for me. I included that kind of material, as best I could, into my lessons. The students loved it, they responded to it, they applied it and benefited from it. Over the next several years, I reviewed every study skills textbook I could find. None of them covered what I considered to be the important stuff. In 1999, I happened to see a brochure for a 4- day retreat for educators in Maryland. The get- together was put on by the author of a textbook. When I read the description of On Course, I got excited. After 6 years of frustration, I’d found what I was looking for. This Skip Downing guy sounded like a kindred spirit. Sure enough, he is. Those 4 days in Maryland gave me the tools to become a much better teacher. As an added bonus, it changed my life. On Course is about building confidence—earned confidence—and persistence. There are two ways to have the tallest building in town. One is to tear down everyone else's building. On Course helps students get to that satisfying place where they want to build the best life possible; On Course demonstrates that there is, even if we don't think so at first, deep satisfaction in accomplishing a difficult task. On Course is about dreaming big, meeting the challenge, building the life You want for Yourself. Students and parents have told me that On Course is also the best self-help book they’ve ever read. I know faculty members who give the book as gifts. The full title is On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and in Life. Not all of us are in college, but we are in life. On Course contains simple, straightforward strategies for getting the most out of our lives. Can’t beat a deal like that. ------------ About the author: Tom Hale teaches College Life & Success at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College. He has presented On Course in classrooms, conferences, and smokey barrooms. He is also one of the Lonesome Wizard Boys ("If we weren't so enlightened, we'd be petrified!"). His website: www.wizardboys.com Email: tomhale@wizardboys.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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