Five Habits of Great students Reaction Paper

Within the article Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM schools, readers are engulfed within the lives and everyday habits of students attending the #1 STEM high school within the nation, High Technology High school in Lincroft New Jersey. With these students making groundbreaking academic strides, there must be a connection between their success and their everyday academic rituals, these habits being exposed within the article consisting of hobbies such as furious and constant reading and writing, immaculate and diverse preparation and organization skills, encouraged curiosity, and collaboration within all fields of education and people. With all of these habits showing obvious positive effects on these children, one must acknowledge the influences these seemingly simple tasks and patterns have on these children. To myself as a reader the habit that I find to be the most interesting and beneficial is the freedom and power that is held within the pencil at this school. Writing is the basis of everything around us. Our language, our communication, our thoughts and ideas. Writing is such an important and potentially building skill for students, but with the norm of writing revolving around essays and reports and research papers strictly for a grade can make writing disheartening for students and their inner writers. The habit of writing anything and everything at High Technology High school not just for a grade is quite attractive to begin with due to its creative freedom. On top of this, this constant flow of writing from students without the shadowing fear of a inadequate grade makes students confident, comfortable and more likely to take chances within their writing. This habit of writing everyday without the outcome of a grade is the most agreeable and best habit as it influences all parts of their life, causing students to push themselves and know their strengths and weaknesses and truly become writers, not just students with a due date and guideline.

However, although I do see the positivity within these habits on students, I also think that a lot of these habits are simple and implied in a lot of classrooms across the country. Every teacher wants you to read and write and work together with others and ask questions to stay curious, if they didn’t they wouldn’t be much of teachers to begin with. Yet, what does differ between High Technology High school and other schools is the environment. Within the article it describes of after test activities including reading of a variety of genres and writing of all sorts, but when looking around at any random classroom the after test activities differ greatly. Students playing computer games or twiddling thumbs or staring blankly into space. Sadly is the fact that rarely now do you see students cracking open a book in their spare time without being told to do so. With this in mind however, it could be something as simple as this environment swap that could change a students whole mentality. Possibly putting a student who isn’t greatly interested in reading into a room full of peers with their favorite read could rub off  awfully fast, leading to how maybe just a change in environment and a few tweaks here and there in a students everyday routine could lead to improvements of all schools being as high leveled as High Technology High school.