The Effects of Thinking and Having a Strong Will in School

In my past two years of school I have discovered several things in high school, some of which include the will to think, the act of thinking, and the positive effects of both. I've noticed among some of my friends (I refuse to name any names because I know these people have the ability to do a whole lot better) that many people go to school, sit through a lecture, neglect their homework and barely pass. Hopefully you have heard the expression, “in one ear, out the other” because I'm going to talk about that a little bit. When you sit through a lecture, and you don't take notes, is it very easy at all to remember what you heard? I know that everyone is different, but this is how I see it and the best method I've found to work for myself. In one of my classes, we sit through a lecture then we do the homework. When I don't take notes, I don't remember anything the professor talked about, what I remember is all the random crap that ran through my mind while I was sitting through that lecture such as what kind of food I wanted to eat after class or what I was going to do that weekend. On the days I take notes, I don't ever look at those notes again but I still remember a lot more about what was talked about in class. The reason is, writing notes is considered a 'hands-on activity' and hands-on activities activate the brain so you have to think about what the professor is talking about. When you think and activate your brain, you are more likely to remember what you thought about.

I feel like in school, you are not there to learn about and remember the dates of history, the rules of grammar and English, and the equations of math, but you are there to learn how to learn, and to learn how to logically think. When's the last time you took a history test and remembered any of the dates you had memorized for that test a week later? Now you at least know what you are looking for if you ever wanted to recall those dates and you would know where to look! A person who graduated from high school with A's and B's could know just as much about something as a 2nd grader, but the graduated high school student would be able to learn a lot more about something than the 2nd grader. I'm not writing a research paper here so I don't have a way to prove any of these things but these are my theories and I want to know what other people think about this.