Copying others’ work hampers learning

By George Olwalo

Weak students are their own worst enemies. This is because they know they are poor in a subject but instead of working hard to improve, they seek easy ways that do not work.

For instance, instead of sitting at the front of the class and paying full attention to the teacher, they prefer to sit at the back where they pay little attention and occasionally fall asleep.

These students don’t ask the teacher to explain better when they fail to understand a concept.

Even worse, whenever a subject teacher leaves a class assignment to be done, these students take the path of least resistance by waiting for bright classmates to complete the assignment then copy the work and pass it off as their own effort.

After marking the books and seeing that most members of the class had a ‘grasp’ of what was taught, a teacher may assume that a good job has been done and move on to the next topic. Under these circumstances the weak learners who submitted copied work suffer.

To improve on your weakest subject, be attentive whenever a teacher for that subject is teaching. During lessons, be active and ask or answer questions. This will help you open up. Don’t worry about giving wrong answers or asking stupid questions. Don’t be intimidated by students who laugh at you. What matters is that you actively participate during lessons.

Grasp concepts

Identify a classmate who is good in the subject you are poor at. Befriend him or her and when an assignment is difficult discuss it with him or her. Never copy his or her work.

If this discussion does not help, complete your assignment anyway. Let the teacher know you had trouble and ask him or her to show you how to answer the questions step by step.

Note that the syllabus is designed in such a way that each topic taught builds on a concepts learnt earlier. Therefore, it is important to grasp each concept. If you copy other students’ work instead of grasping a concept, you are bound to fail.