My mum never...

My mum never went to school in the United States of America before this semester. This semester she is taking a social psychology class with Dr. Potterton. She goes every Wednesday evening from 1800- 2100. On Wednesday's, my classes end at 1340 so I am able to go with her and sit-in in her class. Dr. Potterton is gracious enough to let me do that. I think part of that has to do with the fact that I have taken three of his psychology classes before and did extremely well in them. He was also nice enough to loan me an extremely good book titled Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer (a book I HIGHLY recommend, by the way). Anyways, it is really exciting for my mother to be back in school (and to be in school in the States for the first time ever). She really wants to do well so she is asking for my help and advice, which is a HUGE flip-flop in our lives. I'm usually the one asking for the help and advice (when I'm not stubborn enough to ask Mum for help). It's like teaching a young child about how to study. I find myself using techniques and advice I have acquired along the way in my education. Important skills that I took for granted like how to study and how to take notes. Luckily she's a fast learner. I have to teach her that there is a system and a method. What I am essentially saying is that she is seeing everything on a micro level. I am trying to show her how to look at it from a macro level. The best way I can explain is in football terms (surprise, surprise). In football, coaches give the playbook to their players. The players have to learn the whole playbook, especially the quarterbacks. But how do you learn a 500 page playbook in a matter of weeks? How do you learn a new, different playbook every time you get a new coach? That's 500 pages of new plays and new terminology. Well it's actually simple. Instead of learning every single play, you learn the system and concept. Every single play is different and called differently. But each play fits into the system. For example, "Right Wing 46 Sweep" means "Right Wing" formation, the runningback in the 4 position is going to get the ball and go through the 6 hole and he's going to Sweep (which tells the quarterback to toss the ball, not hand the ball, to the runningback, and also tells what the offensive line to do as well). Now with that base play and system in general, I can make a play up off the top of my head and my players should know exactly how to execute the play. For example, when I say "Right Wing 32 Trap" my players should know that the runningback in the 3 spot is going to go up the 2 hole on a Trap play. Same concept in school. Don't learn every single individual thing. Learn the system and the rules and learn how to exploit it. Learn what to look for. Key words and key phrases show you what to look for. One thing I really enjoy about my mum being in school (and what she also enjoys) is that we get to spend some quality time together. We don't get to see much of each other. We spend Monday nights studying together and watching Monday Night Football together and we get to go out together just her and I, and not the rest of our family. That's special to me.