I looked at the scattered notes and index cards covering my dining room table last week, struck by a distant but very real memory of my college freshman self during finals: Sprawled out at 6 a.m. in a study room in my freshman dorm, surrounded by textbooks and index cards after pulling an all-nighter.

Trying to absorb every significant event in the history of Western Civilization in one sitting, I learned, was not such a good idea.

Last week many New York City public high school students faced their first round of high school finals, in some cases digesting large quantities of information at the last minute. This week, many of those same students will also take New York State Regents exams they must pass in order to graduate.

Those who know how to keep up with assigned reading and to carefully organize, outline, and study their notes well in advance probably sailed through their finals. Others found the experience daunting, judging from frantic text messaging and Facebook posts proclaiming imminent failure and pleas for help finding the right notes.<!--more-->

As I observed the stressful spectacle unfold from a distance, I couldn’t help wondering if excellent students are born or nurtured. Why do some students just know how to study and have an innate sense of what teachers want? How do high schools prepare freshmen to take multiple exams, in some cases three in a day? Why didn’t some of these students learn study and time management skills in middle school? What kind of preparation works best?

I asked Gary Natriello, a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, what conclusions might be drawn about the way study skills are taught – or not taught -- in U.S. high schools.

Natriello noted that it would be most useful to equip students early in their career, say at the end of elementary or the beginning of middle school, with the ability to read, review, and organize notes. In some schools, that is exactly what happens: special study skills programs and seminars are offered to help students, especially freshmen, get organized.

I know these are not skills I learned in my suburban high school; I had to acquire them years later, the hard way, on my own. Or was I not tuned in?

“High school students often have no idea why their teachers think they should take notes, even though some hold them accountable by grading their notebooks," Natriello said. “Teachers must communicate the rules and what kind of strategies will make them successful."

And while it should be the obligation of schools to make sure study skills get communicated, it’s not entirely clear where the responsibility lies and how it gets translated.

“Kids don’t inherently know what it means to study hard, and that is something we know from studies," Natriello said. “Kids might report that they are working hard, but if you ask them what they are doing, they in fact are not putting in much time and effort."

In today's multitasking, electronic world, moments of highly focused, uninterrupted study can be hard to come by. According to a recent New York Times article, the average young American now spends practically every waking minute connected to an electronic device.

A student who says she is studying on Facebook with friends could be chattering away about next week's dance. And let’s not forget the random sighing, snacking, spacing out, and texting that may accompany study sessions, along with glances at, say, Rolling Stone magazine.

Even with total concentration, it can’t be ideal to absorb the complexities of the human digestive system and the life of a cell in one sitting. Natriello suggested parents reinforce the concept of reviewing notes well before a final exam so that when it comes time for the test, students are refreshing the material -- not learning it for the first time.

“The danger is very smart kids get by with a lot of things early on and sometimes all the way through because they are smart enough that the study skills are less important to them," he said. “So the kids who kind of skated through middle school because they are pretty smart and didn’t need to study much will at some point get clobbered."

Insideschools would like to hear more about how New York City public high schools and middle schools that precede them are preparing students for finals. Was your child ready? What did the school do, or not do that you wished they had done? What was finals like in your household? Any suggestions or ideas on what really helped, or on what schools can and should be doing to prepare kids for the world of constant testing they live in?

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