Friday Mindset #142

Happy Friday folks.

This week, a chat with a student got us thinking about plateaus.

We’ve been trying to convince this student - and the rest of them of course - to revise using high-utility strategies. But of course, these revision strategies slow down the feeling of progress because they’re hard. Plus when kids do engage in high-utility retrieval practice, their performance doesn’t always improve in an immediate and linear way. Patience and repetition is required. That’s tough for those kids who’ve listened, moved away from passive revision and instead tested themselves… then made only a small amount of progress before stalling, like this:

So we’ve been sharing this quote from writer George Leonard, who’s book Mastery is summarised here by James Clear. The bit we like suggests as we improve, we actually spend most of our time on a plateau:

Lovely stuff. Well worth sharing.

Right, that’s your aperitif. On to the main course.

Let’s dive in…

Something to try...

We’re a fan of Shane Parrish’s work. If you’re not familiar with Clear Thinking, it’s worth a read. Just down below you’re going to get a free downloadable resource that he sent through in a recent email, and that we’re sharing. You might not want all of it, but we’ve been impressed by two sections in particular that refer to study…

Section 6: The Inner Circle - this is a better version of an old activity we put in The A Level Mindset called The Vampire Test. We’re going to be using it in one-to-one sessions.

Section 7: Easy Mode. This metaphor has really got us thinking. It (coincidentally) references one of the 100 behaviours we included in The VESPA Handbook.

Follow the link to see what you make of it. And many, many thanks to Shane Parrish for sharing this, his annual review framework. Enjoy.

Something we're reading...

It’s quitters day, people!

At least it is according to this article about the failure of new year’s resolutions. Listen, we’ve bent your ear enough about reading - remember our full newsletter about it towards the end of last year? - but this is another good article to read with a tutor group. Structurally simple, clear and informally expressed, any group of kids at KS3, 4 or 5 will be able to get their teeth into this.

And it just so happens to be the exact day mentioned in the article. How’s that for timely, eh?

Our latest offer...

Do you know what we dug up over Christmas? A spare copy of the award-winning The VESPA Handbook. Publishers send a few copies through when a book’s published - we must have neglected to give this one away.

You know the drill: email us at [email protected] as soon as you read this, and you could be in with a shout! 

One last thing…

This newsletter is the 100% hand-typed output of three real people.

We toggle every AI co-pilot setting to ‘off’, do everything ourselves, and say no to every eager advertiser of mushroom coffee or CBD gummies. But, every now and again, to cover the cost of books and postage, we’ll ask if you wouldn’t mind buying us a coffee. If you’re enjoying our work or finding anything useful, why not sling us a hot drink.

Cheers!

All the best to you and yours,

Tony, Steve and Martin

p.s. Screenwriter John August (Go, Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Aladdin) is responding here to a parent asking him how to nurture a child’s interest in filmmaking. His metaphor about kindling really hit home. We’ve accidentally suffocated kids’ enthusiasms in the past by suggesting big branches or logs rather than more kindling. One to remember…