Study habits: Picking on Scott Riley Ong’s brain
It’s back to school and soon after tuition is paid and school supplies are purchased, many parents will be preoccupied with encouraging, urging, threatening, and bargaining with kids for good grades via good study habits. I remember my own parents and the study dynamics in the house eons ago. TV viewing privileges, exemption from household tasks, or a new Nintendo Game and Watch came with an-hour-a-day study period, which really felt like a death sentence.
I had the honor of having Scott Riley Ong as studio guest on an episode of Dateline Philippines Sunday on ANC. Who is Scott Riley Ong? He is one of 18 students who graduated Summa Cum Laude at the University of the Philippines, Diliman last April 2009. He graduated with a General Weighted Average (GWA) of 1.036! Unfair? You wish.
Now if my math (real waterloo, ask my U.P. professors) serves me right, that’s an average obtained from a profuse grade of 1.0’s (perfect grade, almost non existent like the Loch Less monster), and maybe a couple of 1.25’s and hopefully a 1.5. Scott said he did get a 1.5 (bingo!) and you’d hope it’s Math 11? Nope. Social Science (hah, for that I could get a 1.5 if I sold my soul).
A cursory check of Scott will give you contradictions. Before he came on the show, I was expecting thick glasses and everything nerdy. I prejudged him as someone who had no social life with perhaps a book plastered on his face most of his waking hours.
I was wrong.
He was “anime” like most kids sport the look these days, although I was right about the glasses except that they were rimless and “kinda cool”. He had just the right look for a B.S. Biology (quota course in U.P., if I may add) student, not too flashy and neither geeky. He was normal.
Dissecting Scott Riley on air for 12 minutes was a challenge. He was a man of few words. His mother who was also on the show and a woman of few words herself, was very humble considering what her son has achieved. From both of them I learned tips, that some of us parents may already know, but take for granted:
1. GET A TUTOR. I mentally resisted the idea because of preconceived notions that tutors were for dummies. But Scott explains a tutor puts structure into study habits, and he has a point. The politics and familiarity between parent and child are so complex that study period cannot go without patience flying out the window, or past sins and grudges dug from the grave. A tutor is objective and methodical, putting some science into studying. Scott was tutored at least 2 years during elementary and this influenced his future study habits.
2. SCHEDULE A SOCIAL LIFE. Scott grew up doing normal stuff associated with his age. He has a “barkada” who took care of life outside school, had his share of malling, computer games, and Facebook. If you have Facebook, you have spare time.
3. NEVER CRAM. It is important to read in advance. Scott says when studying becomes routine, one does not pressure the brain with a deluge of information as when cramming. He begins studying for the finals on the first day of school so to speak.
Not all kids are gifted but the good news is: good study habits are acquired. These habits could be a rare commodity in this generation of kids genetically gifted with short memory and even shorter interest span.
The sooner good study habits are imbibed in the family environment our schools can (mass) produce more Scott Rileys.
(Stanley Palisada is currently News Director of ABS-CBN Regional Network Group and anchor at both ABS-CBN and ANC. Before his current position in the ABS-CBN headquarters, Palisada worked as News Chief of ABS-CBN Iloilo and the pioneering anchor of TV Patrol Iloilo.)