What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades. Optimum Learning. Minimum Time. (Paperback)

These reviewers miss Robinson's primary point: that traditional "learning" methods are boring, time-consuming, AND ineffective. Think of the methods as a football quarter-back's "playbook:" you don't have to run EVERY play in the book in EVERY game. Robinson himself says that the methods do not apply in every course, and that some methods apply more in some types of courses than others. Robinson does NOT tell students to employ ALL the methods ALL the time.

Another point I'd like to make is that any new set of learning techniques takes time. Heck, typing took me forever to master; but now that I've invested the time it saves me WAY more than the time I spent learning it.

Finally, Robinson's point is that HOWEVER MUCH time you have to devote to your studies, whether it's an hour a day per college course or an hour per week for a high school course -- whatever -- your time is best employed using these methods. If you're short of time, or the test isn't so important, Robinson says to cut back on the methods to fit your time budget and the importance of the test.

The more time you have, and the more important the test, the more you should use Robinson's methods. The less time you have, simply cut back. No biggie.

Either that, or go back to wasting all your time with the old "learning" methods of rereading your notes ad infinitum until test time.

Good luck!

Robinson is "angry at how school produces submissive students with battered egos." This is exactly what happened to me. I never liked school ("hate" would be a better word for how I felt). I thought this meant that I was stupid (this self-appraisal was aided by the fact that my first grade teacher claimed I had learning disabilities; Robinson sheds light on this outrageous phenomenon, explaining that teachers often use this label as punishment for rebellious, independently-minded students). I eventually developed a phobia of reading and felt guilty about the fact that I enjoy learning on my own, in my own time (going public on Amazon.com with what I have learned has been a great source of personal growth for me). Thanks to WHAT SMART STUDENTS KNOW, I realize that I was never stupid and there was never anything shameful about the fact that I learn better on my own. In fact, Robinson says that we are all our own best teachers, that no one teaches us better than we teach ourselves. Ironically, Robinson has taught me that I in fact possess the attitude necessary for success in school, an attitude built upon the conviction that learning is not important only when it is being graded. Learning happens all the time, in all aspects of life, not just in schools.

I really can't praise this book enough. Adam Robinson has helped liberate my soul. I know that sounds a bit verbose, but I believe this is only because we underestimate the extent to which our school experience shapes our self-conception. As John Taylor Gatto, an associate of Robinson and whose praise appears on this book's jacket (Gatto was voted "Teacher of the Year" several years running in New York City and state), has explained, schools are largely prison-like institutions where we are often abused. We carry this abuse, the damage done to our self-esteem, with us throughout our lives (it wasn't until reading Gatto that I realized how ridiculous it is that economic success is often closely linked to performance in school; for elaboration on this, I recommend Gatto's THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION). John Taylor Gatto says that in reality it only takes about 100 hours to learn how to read, write, and do basic math. The trick, he says, is to wait until the student is interested in learning the particular subject, and then move quickly. Why, if the basics can be learned rather easily, does basic schooling take 12 years? Because, according to Gatto, the real goal of compulsory education is to teach students to conform, to become pegs in the corporate system of the nation - they feel they need 12 years to achieve this objective. The aim of totalitarian education, Gatto claims, is not to teach conviction, but destroy the capacity to form any. I had thought there was something wrong with me for resisting this lesson. WHAT SMART STUDENTS KNOW has taught me that I had it right from the start: there is nothing wrong with me; there is something wrong with school!

Andrew Parodi

My guess is the author (perhaps he has a touch of Luddite as expressed in his take on computers in the last part of the book) prefers verbal to math subjects. That is why the math suggestions may touch a responsive chord for math haters. The book provides concrete techniques.