Advice from a professional 7th grader

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One of my favorite questions to ask students of any age is, “what advice would you give yo your younger self?”

It’s the type of open-ended question that empowers people to get really introspective really fast. It helps people come up with their own answers, to gain clarity, to take ownership of their own growth.

In this video I am speaking with Diego, a 7th grader I work with. Brilliant kid, uber-creative, outside-the-box thinker, and funny. He has a lot to share with the world! Needless to say, school is a struggle for him, and it’s really interesting to hear the advice he would give his younger self about it.

Finally, what advice would you give to YOUR younger self about life or school? Share your thoughts below.

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Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up? Everybody? This is my good friend Diego. Cam Middle School here in Boulder. And I wanted to ask him for today’s block cuz I wanted to ask him about what advice he would give to himself a year ago. So before we dive into that, I want to find out a little bit about the ego as we know you are a 7th grader would have been some of your favorite subjects over the years and pretty. Okay, I’m not really sure what else anything else not really good with history and stuff writing. Sort of in Reading. Oh, yeah. Alright and what have been some of your biggest struggles throughout school to be study habits? So last year, I would either like scare myself into a scenario of what would happen. If I fail this quiz on which normally didn’t end up very well. Like it’s yeah, it just really didn’t work out very well. So how would you scare yourself? I would pretty much stay up pretty late until I’m on the edge of losing sanity and I would pretty much think of all possible scenarios for what would happen. If I ever fit if I failed this test and what would happen. It was very effective and scaring me but not very good and like study wise cuz although I would study and get an okay-ish grade. It still wasn’t really working for me. So what were you what advice would you give yourself? At at like if you could travel back in time last year. What advice would you give yourself about study habits? Probably don’t stress too much and don’t study on the like the night. That’s like right before the test cuz that will ruin you. It’s not good for you to stress that much for you know anyone but I find it’s really hard for me when I’m working with students to get students to want to make the ship to studying before a test that they there’s a test on Friday. So getting them in the habit of learning how to start studying on Monday a little bit each day or a little bit every other day rather than the night before or not studying at all. How did you convince yourself to change that happened? Because that habits are hard to change. I probably eventually got to the point where it feels like the night of a quiz and I was going to do what I normally do to scare myself and I decided like it wasn’t a good idea for me. So I thought of any other ways for me to do it and so I decided that next Quiz I was going to come over and actually study before the night before the quiz so study and More in advance that work for you. I’m at work a lot better the grade my grades went up and we’re having your stress level. It definitely went down. I’m a lot less stress than I was last year or so and that’s important. And one more. We’re going to do two more pieces of advice. You would give yourself last year. What advice would you give yourself last year in terms of mindset or attitude about school or teachers? Anyting well last year kind of a negative mindset towards school. Like I’m going to fail on not going to do very well. And that didn’t like for some reason. I had the weird feeling that it was going to work for me and it did not so it was really hard to change my mindset to more like a positive level cuz mine’s that are really hard to change just like habits. So what what advice would you give yourself in terms of what your mindset should be or where you at today? Think more positively and look for the bright side. I like what’s more positive about you know, studying or class. You don’t like her homework. You don’t want to do what’s more positive mind. Well when I get home, I can take a break probably so probably set up media like in like a reward for me for like thinking positive. I’m not really sure what your attitude probably more positive than last year. Are you less resistant? Like if you don’t want to do homework or studying or you’re more able to just be like idgo just do it anyway. It’s probably. I’ve been a little bit less stubborn I think but I think you just like started doing often you start doing what you need to do. And you just start so that’s a change. Haha. You know how that changed or was it slow or Asian slow? Cuz I have this I have this thing coming up where if I don’t finish it, then I’ll repeat the grade and I do not want to do that. So I pretty much just decided like I’m tired of like skipping all these assignments and getting these crappy grades that I am getting. So I decided I think it’s time for me to probably on starting charge of the situation. That’s a great answer. I think there’s a lot of different ways people approach this in this type of way. It Sammy will be described as like a choice of maturity choices. Like I’m done with this. I’m going to step it up and that’s really hard to get people to you sort of have to get there on your own. Like I can’t make you do that your parents definitely get me to do that. If anything that can make it worse, but it’s really you kind of have to come to that out. Somehow. I’m your own gold with one other piece of advice you would give yourself in terms of how you communicate with teachers and how you add Advocate for yourself and tell communicate the teachers what you need how have you one piece of advice? Would you give yourself last year in terms of advocacy? Try listening to the teachers? Definitely and I if I have like any problems actually talked to the teachers instead of waiting till I collapse second to get a know that I know I’m going to get. And what do you find when you talk to teachers than you guys are proactive in you go say, hey help me out kind of surprised cuz I normally don’t regret advocating for myself. So I get there more positive about it in about helping me, which is a good thing. I hope so you feel like they even give you Tips or ideas that and how to succeed in their class that you wouldn’t have known about when you actually talked to the teacher then they’ll give you tips. If you asked for it like I had a missing assignment or a couple of sentiments that I was late on and I needed an extension. So normally what I would do is like not ask for the extension end up getting zero on the assignment but instead I actually asked for an extension and dumb I got them both in on time. I got booked. So awesome and what one other piece of advice would you give to a student who struggles with ADD who is struggling in school? And let’s say that there in Middle School let there in 6th grade or something. What piece of advice would you give to a middle schooler who struggling with ADD? Oh, I don’t know. Like it’s really just hard for me to come like kind of control myself. So I’m not really sure what advice I’d give that’s kind of a place really answered. So you have to think about it. Do you find that getting help from people helps? But I think that might be something that I see that you learn to do that people don’t want to do like we don’t want to ask anyone for help. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of a weird feeling when Are you like you don’t want anyone to really help you? And then you like you kind of have to admit the truth is that you actually do need help in that that’s kind of hard, but it changes actually not as bad. I hope you’re having an awesome day and we will see you soon. Any final words be well.