By Victor Ochieng’
As we cruise counties across the country, staging candid conversations with candidates, we have always put plenty of premium on the 3 G’s: Energy, Synergy and Strategy.
Energy
Candidates who want to access success in KCSE must increase their energy levels. Peak performance comes with starting strong, continuing strong and finishing strong. Candidates should finish like champions. Finish with great grace. Finish with might and main. Finish with power and poise. Finish with stamina and strength. Finish with bravery and bravado.
Energy means they purpose to go the extra mile. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary just lies in the prefix ‘extra’, which means students and schools that lead the academic queue through genuine means, understand the ‘extra factor’. They dream more. Do more. Become more. When ordinary students only focus on what teachers tackle, extraordinary ones do more. They revise and review more past exam papers. Extraordinary candidates take a leap of faith, and explore more in the academic agora.
Candidates with energy wake up early. They brave the bone-chilling cold. They bask in the morning dew. They enlarge their attention and concentration spans. They resist the temptation to sleep in class during the day. They retire to bed late. Their focus is on quality sleep. Not quantity sleep.
Candidates with energy steel their strength and stamina. They grit their teeth. They steady their nerves. They tighten their belts. They put their best feet forward. They pay the painful price and go for the big prize.
Candidates with energy borrow life lessons from elite athletes and world-class soccer players. Elite athletes dedicate 90% to preparation, and 10% to winning the races. Athletes practise for 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. World-class footballers know that they play the match based on how they prepared. In case they prepare poorly, they play poorly. In this context, exam requires academic, spiritual and psychological preparation.
Life has battles and wars. Sometimes, conquerors accept to lose battles, but they eventually win the war.
Candidates with energy stretch beyond elastic limits. They obey the wise words of Dr. John C. Maxwell, in his heroic book titled the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. In that true treasure trove, there is a law he calls the Law of Rubber Band. This awesome author of 77 books argues: Rubber bands are useful because they can stretch. Human beings also become useful only when they can stretch.
Candidates should stretch because it is homestretch, last lap. They must accept pressure piled on them by teachers and school arrowheads. After all, good things like gold and diamond go through intense pressure before they become admirable. Precious things are products of pressure.
Energy means candidates accept to sacrifice just for the sake of getting good grades. This is not the time to compete with the dead in sleeping. It is not the time to concentrate on looks more than books. It is not the time to prioritise food and entertainment. It is not the time to think about that boy or girl that changes your heartbeat to a drum beat.
Synergy
Synergy focuses on working and walking together. Dr. Steve Covey in his evergreen 7 Habits of Highly Effective People postulates that highly effective people synergise. Where there is synergy, there is energy. Ideally, synergy focuses on cooperation and collaboration. Candidates that pass exams with flying colours, collaborate in their class. Such candidates also cooperate with the administration, teachers and prefects.
Candidates cooperate through discipline and diligence. Jim Rohn said observed, “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” Discipline and knowledge are inseparable. No wonder, Solomon says in Proverbs 12:1, “Whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.”
We can explore discipline in five different ways. There is self-discipline or self-conquest, which entails ability to conquer self. Candidates should conquer laziness, pride, overconfidence, disorganisation, negativity, defeatist attitude, pessimism procrastination, complacency, unnecessary appetites, et cetera. Then, there is self-drive or personal initiative, which focuses on doing things without waiting for a push like the wheelbarrows. No one should remind candidates to read and review, pray and prepare for KCSE. We have external discipline, explored in terms of humility and obedience. Humility is the spirit of meekness, which is not weakness. In James 4:6, the best book says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Candidates that are not humble, stumble. Candidates that cannot practise humility, get humiliated. Obedience is submission to all forms of authority, absent or present.
Again, synergy focuses on what Napoleon Hill calls the Mastermind Alliance – two or more mortal minds merging to achieve a particular purpose. Synergy focuses on teamwork. TEAM means Together Each Achieves More or Miracles. The polymath Dr. John C. Maxwell sagely says: For the dream to work there must be teamwork. The dream in this context is the school target, students’ targets. Or the careers and highly-coveted courses candidate want to pursue in colleges and universities after high school.
Synergy is unity of purpose. Psalms 133 talks of how sweet and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity, and where there is unity, God Almighty commands a blessing. For results to come there must be unity in the candidate class. There must be unity in the staffroom. All must know: united we stand, but divided we fall. Without unity of purpose, schools fall and fail flat.
Strategy
Results do not come easily. There must be stupendous strategies put in place. Peak performance requires study strategies, content mastery strategies, memory/retention strategies, exam preparation strategies, high achievers strategies and aspiring achievers strategies.
On study strategies, candidates must have all the academic tools and well-written notes. They must focus on prodigious reading habits and expand their concentration spans. Candidates should evince time management techniques like setting priorities right. It behooves them to have all-inclusive study schedules on daily basis and come up with what-to-do lists or task lists. For there in no room for gambling in the candidate class.
They enhance content through the good grasp of the syllabus covered, cyclic reading of notes, approved textbooks and KCSE set texts. They gain content through guided reading, guided exams, topical revision and review of past exam papers. They garner content through research-based learning and subject-based contests, symposiums and hot sittings.
Content is grasped when candidates get prone to all forms of consultation: one-on-one conferencing with teachers, peer-to-peer, class and group consultation. They grasp content when they embrace ability grouping: the general one, subject-based, academic villages, parenting groups or family units, and high achievers pairing up with aspiring high achievers.
They grasp content when they engage in active group discussions. How? Through guided discussions, group exams, group consultations, making of marking schemes, copying of marking schemes and peer teaching.
Of memory and retention, candidates should focus on techniques like challenging the memory, repetition, self-testing, drawing or diagram technique, involvement of multiple senses, minding the diet, method of loci, use of songs, chunking information, organisation of material, visualisation of knowledge, active study, frequent review, some modicum of silence and solitude; mindfulness and meditation methods.
They boost memory and retention through these ten laws: Law of fun or interest, law of fitness, law of senses, law of concentration, law of comprehension, law of small chunks, law of previous knowledge, law of exaggeration and law of repetition. Repetition is the mother of all memories.
Alongside content mastery and retention, candidates should focus on exam preparation strategies. They should prepare for exams. Keep abreast with the trends in the setting and marking of exams. They should focus on format of exams and the Table of Specification (ToS) or the Test Blueprint. They should have an idea of mistakes commonly made and penalties. Candidates should know how to respond to exam questions in the required breadth and depth. Knowing how to score free marks and plotting work on paper, is of essence. They should hone examination skills and grasp the art of science practicals.
High achievers in the candidate class should focus on the following strategies: working for straight A’s in the subject cohorts. Joining academic villages. Pairing up with aspiring high achievers. Engaging in peer teaching. Being prone to self-testing and individual exams. Having frequent one-on-one conferencing with teachers. Working out on the Principle of Continuous Improvement (PCI). Grasping the art of examination. Filling in the gaps. Avoiding overconfidence. Getting rid of stupid pride. Overcoming hubris – excess self-confidence and pride. Overcoming complacency.
Aspiring achievers who yearn to leg up their academic performance should focus on strategies like embracing ability grouping. Pairing up with high achievers. Going back to Form One and Two work. Identifying simple areas they can score free marks. Grasping the art of examination. Focusing on all forms of consultation. Taking remedial and revision lessons seriously. Banking on one-on-one consultation with tutors. Targeting a D+ (plus) and above in the core subjects, and C (plain) and above in the optional subjects. Above all, students who seem weak and sick academically should not give up.
Successful people double their failure rate. Winston Churchill put it aptly, “Success is moving from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.” Therefore, despite bad history of failure, students should not give up. Thomas Alva Edison in his attempts to invent the light bulb, failed 10,000 times, but did not give up. In fact he said, “I have not failed, I have only found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” At age 67, ferocious flames of fire razed down his factory. Upon receiving the sad news, he said, “Thank God. All our mistakes are razed down. We can begin more intelligently.” In a short span of time, he invented the phonograph. What an attitude!
The writer rolls out talks and training services focusing on Best Academic Practices.
