Separate

One of the oldest questions in the word:

You were on the dock. Both your mother and spouse, who could not swim, fell into the pond. You can swim, but you can only save on of them because, oh well...who would you save?

Morally, it threw you into a pit without a safe choice. You know you have to sacrifice one among them, and you will be pinned guilty whatsoever. That is why this question is not only tricky, but often held men hostage without possible ransom.

I was rinsing under the warm shower when this question suddenly dripped into my mind. Something made me think...

An alternative scenario, where you can save both.

The above scenario is close to a deadlock, and whoever asked it should be hung without jury for causing public (read:men) outrage. But what could you do in a situation under similar fashion. Let's imagine that the examination period is near. You are having a different examination than what your sibling and boy/girlfriend have. Both of them need extra coaching. After considering the spare time you are able to allocate, you can either pay total attention to either one of them, or spend sparing time on both and sacrifice by not coaching them sufficiently, while jeopardizing your own study time.

Who would you choose to help?

Let us rewrite the question statement by focusing on "what could you do", This way, you will think of what strategy you could employ for a better result. One of the methods I am revealing in this post is to craft learning plan for both. Identify their individual weaknesses, learning styles and habits, and the content which would be tested. Conduct the coaching session with both of them, and together you extract the gist of the syllabus (or anything which you think will be tested) into diagrams and notes. Let both of them practice before they teach one another. Later conduct a formative assessment on each subject to reinforce their understanding.

By extracting the gist, students learn to find important concepts to reorganize and give meaning to what they study, which save time and mental capacity to store key information. Teaching each other will allow students to profess the knowledge they internalized and reaffirm their understanding. A simple formative test will seal the deal.

Learning is all about finding the most effective and efficient strategy to achieve the learning goals. Set goals, find ways to reach it. That is the repeating process of learning.