This article was written by my father, a vocational high school teacher. Though he doesn’t teach Chinese, he enjoys writing reflections on teaching and life experiences. Such articles might be better suited for an education column in a newspaper, but lacking connections in that regard and wanting to share them online even after potential publication, he asked me to post them on my blog.
Preface
Underperforming students are those who struggle to understand lessons, can’t comprehend textbooks, find homework impossible, and perform poorly on exams. Such students often appear unmotivated with poor learning attitudes. In reality, this is just the surface—the root cause is learning difficulties. Because they can’t follow lessons or textbooks and find homework too challenging, they avoid it. Tasks other students finish in minutes take them far longer with poor results. These struggles breed academic aversion. To improve, we must first identify the causes of their learning difficulties, help them overcome these hurdles, make learning enjoyable, and address their aversion—only then can their performance improve.
1. What to Do When You Can’t Understand Lessons?
Struggling to Follow Lessons Is Common
The reasons often lie in gaps in foundational knowledge or weak comprehension. If you can’t understand a lesson, make time after class to study the textbook thoroughly. Ask teachers or classmates about unclear points. Teachers should promptly identify teaching issues to improve future instruction. When explaining concepts, teachers should reduce complexity—start with simple, basic, and intuitive knowledge, and reinforce fundamentals.
Teaching language should align with students’ life experiences to foster genuine connection. Only authentic engagement can resonate with students and hold their attention.
Teaching Must Follow Cognitive Principles
Rational understanding must build on perceptual knowledge. Teachers should prioritize creating perceptual experiences—even improvising conditions if necessary—through hands-on practice, observation, and experimentation. Students should analyze phenomena, describe them accurately, and form scientific explanations to derive concepts and principles. Examples must relate to students’ lived experiences.
Regularly assess teaching effectiveness to identify gaps and refine methods.
Don’t let difficulties pile up. Address them immediately. Some students who can’t follow lessons also skip post-class reading, resigning to confusion. This widens knowledge gaps and compounds learning challenges.
When lessons make sense, textbooks are understandable, and problems feel solvable with effort, learning becomes joyful. One student, struggling in a regular high school with strict demands, refused to attend. After transferring to vocational school, his parents noticed he became happier—singing on his way home, studying voluntarily until 10 PM, something unheard of before. His father credited vocational teachers, but the truth was simpler: the vocational curriculum matched his ability. What was impossible in regular high school became achievable, sparking his motivation.
Learning Difficulty Should Match Ability
Content shouldn’t be too easy or too hard—it should feel attainable with effort. Advanced learners can skip grades; those struggling might repeat them. People enjoy challenges that bring satisfaction. If material is insurmountably difficult, aversion sets in.
2. The Right Learning Method: Reading and Practice
“Diligence is the path to the mountain of knowledge; practice is the boat to the sea of learning.”
The method is simple: read more, practice more. Start by mastering the textbook—read it repeatedly. Once isn’t enough; multiple passes help retention and integration. Understanding the book means mastering the subject. But what if the text is incomprehensible? Like missing episodes of a TV show, gaps in knowledge disrupt comprehension. Fill those gaps first.
Next is practicing problems. Understanding the books alone isn’t enough—you need to solve many problems to flexibly apply what you’ve learned. Start with simple exercises. If solving problems feels difficult, begin by studying example questions and answered exercises, focusing on learning materials that provide detailed analysis and step-by-step solutions. Once you grasp them, redo the problems yourself and consider whether there are alternative approaches, aiming to draw inferences about other cases from one instance.
For every problem you solve, ensure you truly master it—don’t settle for half-understood knowledge. Grasp the underlying principles and methods rather than relying on rote memorization. Sometimes, you might feel you’ve learned something, only to realize you can’t solve the problem again later. This phenomenon is common in math. Students weak in math often resort to rote memorization as their primary learning method. However, math requires its own way of thinking—it’s not about memorization but about methodology and computation. Results are derived by applying formulas, theorems, and mathematical methods based on given conditions. Rote memorization simply doesn’t work for learning math.
Knowledge in elementary, middle, and high school is interconnected. If there are gaps in certain areas, you’ll struggle to comprehend related problems, leading to difficulties like being unable to follow lessons, understand textbooks, or solve exercises. Identify your weak spots and start reinforcing them from there.
A math professor once shared his learning experience: When he was in high school, shortly after college entrance exams were reinstated, he realized his foundational knowledge was poor due to neglecting studies in his early years. Solving math problems felt overwhelmingly difficult—he struggled with even basic multiplication tables. So, he started self-studying multiplication from elementary-level material. Whenever he encountered problems like solving equations, he revisited middle school textbooks to relearn the basics. As his foundational knowledge solidified, solving problems became easier, and his learning obstacles diminished. If you can teach yourself, no difficulty can hinder your progress.
Reviewing the Past to Understand the New, Studying and Practicing Regularly
The character “习” (practice) emphasizes frequent review of previously learned material to solidify foundational knowledge. With a strong foundation, your ability to comprehend new concepts improves. After learning, practice regularly—only through repeated practice can you retain knowledge and apply it flexibly. Regularly review what you’ve learned, integrating new and old knowledge to identify patterns, making understanding and memorization easier.
Learning Without Thinking Is Labor Lost; Thinking Without Learning Is Perilous
If you can’t solve one type of problem, you likely can’t solve any of its variations. Conversely, mastering one problem type means you can handle all similar ones. When solving a problem, ensure you fully grasp the method and steps—don’t settle for vague or partial understanding. It’s not about solving countless problems but about thoroughly digesting and absorbing each one.
Reading is the process of learning, while solving problems is the process of thinking. Combining reading with problem-solving—integrating learning and reflection—has been regarded as the most effective study method since ancient times.
III. Memorization Techniques: First Understand the Meaning, Then Memorize the Wording
Correct Comprehension
To memorize a passage, first understand its meaning, then memorize how it’s phrased. Start by explaining the meaning in your own words, then compare it to the textbook’s wording. If you can’t articulate it, it’s likely because you haven’t grasped the key terms—the critical nouns, actions, or states—and don’t know how to describe them.
When memorizing, understanding the text’s meaning is crucial. Without comprehension, you won’t retain the meaning, making it harder to recall and articulate. Often, this leads to confused, reversed, or even logically flawed retellings that deviate significantly from the original meaning. For example, when explaining how an electromagnetic relay works, the textbook states: “When the relay’s coil is energized, it generates a magnetic field that pulls the armature, causing the switch to actuate. When the coil is de-energized, the magnetic field disappears, and the armature releases under the tension spring’s force, resetting the switch.” If you understand the concept, you’ll recognize that an electromagnetic relay is essentially a switch controlled by electromagnetic force. You can then rephrase it in your own words: “When the coil is energized, it creates electromagnetic attraction, closing the switch. When de-energized, the attraction ceases, and the switch resets.”
A classmate didn’t understand the concept. He described it as: the coil expands when energized, the switch closes, the coil contracts when de-energized, and the switch opens under the action of the spring. Another classmate said the switch closes when the coil is energized, generating a magnetic field, and the switch opens when the coil is de-energized, causing the magnetic field to disappear—mixing up the cause-and-effect relationship. Why does this happen?
This was several years ago when the school lacked proper equipment. Necessary experiments couldn’t be conducted, and teaching relied solely on the teacher’s chalkboard diagrams. Students had never seen the tools used in lessons, and hands-on practice was missing, leaving no intuitive understanding of the knowledge. Classes simply required rote memorization of textbook content. Memorizing without comprehension is extremely difficult—what’s barely remembered today is forgotten by tomorrow.
Now, things have improved significantly. The government prioritizes education, and schools are equipped with the necessary teaching instruments. Classrooms even have large-screen interactive whiteboards. Through physical demonstrations and computer animations, students can immediately grasp how things work.
Accurate Description
Understanding the principle is the first step; the next is describing it. However, knowing how an electromagnetic relay works doesn’t guarantee the ability to explain it clearly—just as observing a phenomenon doesn’t mean we can articulate it well. You must also remember the names of components. Without knowing which part is the “coil” or the “armature,” even if you understand the concept, you can’t name the key elements. You might say, “That thing gets powered,” or “That thing moves,” like watching a basketball game where you recognize the action but don’t know any players. You’d resort to vague descriptions: “That guy,” “The tall one,” “The one wearing that jersey,” etc.
Why can literary masters write so well while we struggle? Because although we encounter phenomena daily, our mental vocabulary lacks the terms to describe them. Thus, memorizing key terms is crucial—what things are called, how actions are phrased, and how states are described. Once the meaning is clear and the keywords are memorized, explanations become error-free.
Memory is rooted in sensory experience. The richer the sensory input, the stronger the memory and the easier the recall. If sensory input is limited, forgetting is more likely because there are fewer associative cues. The more sensory details, the more connections are formed, making recall effortless. Sometimes, you misplace something moments after setting it down—not because you’re forgetful, but because there were too few cues to anchor the memory. To remember something, tie it to an experience. Observe firsthand, operate manually, or discuss with others—these actions create more associative links, making recall easier.
Rote memorization without comprehension not only consumes vast amounts of study time but also drains mental energy, contributing to student burnout. When memorization is unavoidable, focus on understanding the logic, remembering key terms, and grasping the relationships between concepts. Master these, and memorization becomes effortless.
IV. Teaching and Learning: Attitude Determines Everything
Teaching is a two-way interaction between teachers and students. The teacher’s role is to help students comprehend, retain, and flexibly apply knowledge. When students understand, remember, and can use what they’ve learned, they’ve truly mastered it.
Students Are the Core of Teaching
Only when students actively engage can teaching be effective. Like an egg hatching into a chick under external conditions, teaching is the external factor, while students’ initiative is the internal one. External factors work through internal ones. Teachers must ensure their explanations are comprehensible. If students don’t understand, their thinking isn’t stimulated, and teaching fails. Students must be willing to learn. If they’re disinterested, no amount of lecturing will help. No matter the external conditions, a rock won’t hatch into a chick. Learning is the student’s own responsibility—it cannot be forced or outsourced.
Active Learning and a Positive Attitude Make Teaching Meaningful
Confucius said: “I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn, nor do I explain to those who are not anxious to understand. If I present one corner and they cannot come back with the other three, I do not repeat.” This means that if students are not actively and enthusiastically engaged in learning and show no interest, they should not be taught. Even if you teach them, they won’t learn, and if they don’t learn, your efforts will be in vain. Attitude toward learning is crucial. Students with a positive learning attitude will actively seek answers from teachers when they encounter difficulties—such students have strong self-learning abilities and are proactive in their studies. Students who never ask questions simply let their problems remain unresolved, with no intention of learning. Even if they retake a recent exam, they’ll still score the same. Exams are meant to identify gaps in knowledge—when you discover something you don’t know, you should address it immediately. If you don’t, those gaps will persist, and you’ll never improve. Learning is a personal endeavor that requires your own effort. Just like athletes in sports, if they don’t train hard, their strength and skills won’t improve. The same goes for learning—it cannot be done by someone else. No matter how well a teacher teaches, they cannot teach a student who refuses to learn.
Postscript
Poor academic performance doesn’t happen overnight. When learning difficulties persist without being addressed, they accumulate over time, leading to a loss of confidence and eventual abandonment of studies—students might read novels in class, play with their phones after school, skip homework, and see their grades decline further. It’s essential to tackle learning challenges promptly to prevent them from snowballing into insurmountable obstacles.
From the author:
I often wish that when facing some key decisions in life, someone could tell me the best course of action so that I would not waste my precious time. Putting myself in others' shoes, I therefore write blogs often, hoping to record in this tiny corner of the vast Internet the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that matter to me, and to help those who seek help.
