Really good advice (some of which I even followed myself, as well as telling my kids). Missing age: 9th grade at 14, 10th at 15.
Friends with those in another class is good, but really really hard. Unless you're in an ECA, like dancing(??), band, choir, sports, clubs (chess! cars? book), Boy/Girl Scouts (if available).
All boys should be in some sport. (I did cross-country, tennis not track, & golf; my kids did swimming, after trying soccer)
Dancing is great but not easy in HS. In college I did: ballroom dancing, modern dance, folk dance, tap dance, & jitterbug. (In HS no dance.) Dance usually has lots of girls.
If you're not yet a touch typist - Take Typing. My college counselor advised against it, but it's been one of the best skills I actually learned in HS.
Take a shop class, or home ec/cooking -- make actual, physical things, including cooking meals.
Successful people keep journals. (7 Habits ... etc) Doesn't have to be different than a diary - the practice of writing is more important than exactly what is written about.
Public Library is GREAT -- read the book and return it (rather than have it clutter up the house). As Twenge noted: 7 Harry Potter books, and also the Twilight saga, are hugely popular because they're so good. EVEN IF you've seen the movies, the books are valuable.
[Making good movies out of great books insures fewer in the future will read those book. LOTR, and likely also now Dune. ]
Not sure it really matters TBH though I agree at least in the 90's it was and equally I'm glad I took the class in HS too. I feel society has moved away from employment where wpm even matters and kids growing up with peck style since 5 can put out some impressive wpm for the style that is good enough in practice especially with the rise of AI suggesting words.
I would add: spend more time outside. Nature is good for your mood and mental health, makes you feel less isolated even if you are alone in it, and tends to give you more "normal" levels of stimulation and fewer engineered superstimuli.
“Use the public library.” Libraries and library networks vary greatly in quality. My high school library was decent, but when I look at the books that Rob Henderson read in high school, I’m a bit jealous. Maybe my library wasn’t as good, but more likely he was a more advanced reader.
Almost any book that exists can be purchased on Amazon, unfortunately searching for books on Amazon is worse than searching for books at the library. I rarely search or recommend searching for books on Amazon. It doesn’t work for me. Best is to find people that you trust and get book recommendations from them or go to a library or small book store. Certain small bookstores can be helpful, but beware of viewpoint bias. Same for Barnes and Noble.
Before buying on Amazon, depending on your budget and time constraints, check the library first. Read the first few chapters of the library’s copy. If good enough buy the book online.
I like to scribble with pencil in all the books I read. Stars and underlines for important ideas. Boxes around things I want to excerpt. Fold the corner of pages to help me locate things to come back to later.
I will also check out 20 books from the library at a time, sometimes all on the same topic. Then I sort through my stack looking for the very best biography on Orwell or MLK or history of religion etc.
I believe there is a dearth good books for children and teens. Jean Twenge recently wrote a piece called “Are books dead? Why Gen Z doesn't read.” I left her a long comment explaining why teens aren’t reading as much as they used to and suggest ways to promote reading. You might want to check that out. It seems to me there is an important trade-off between giving yourself time for independent reading vs taking a big load of AP/honors classes. The AP classes are tempting, but possibly more important is independent reading.
I firmly believe, and others will probably attest that regular self-directed/independent reading is probably equally or more important than regular classwork.
Rob Henderson’s memoir is one of the best examples of this. If you read his memoir you’ll notice that he’s not a great student. He does very little homework, but he does well on tests. His strength is walking the stacks of libraries. And he reads the textbooks his teachers assign; sometimes far ahead of the class.
This habit of walking the stacks is really helpful. I do this in various ways. One way is to find the section of the library that shelves books of a particular topic that you’re interested in. Then go through each book in that section. Pull out all the good ones and check them all out. Public libraries will allow you to check out 100 books at a time. Then sort through them at home. You might have to bring a box or strong bag.
A second way to use the stacks is to discover your interests. In my twenties I would do experiments in which I would slowly walk the stacks noting my interest level to each subject. For example astronomy, history, psychology, warfare, mystery, cooking, sports, math, economics, biology, etc. This might take an hour, but after you’ve walked all the stacks you’ll have a good sense of what you’re most interested in. You can repeat this experiment periodically throughout your life to see if you’re on the right path. You can do the same thing in college.
The best thing that ever happened in my high school years was my honors English teachers assigning 1500 pages of independent reading each semester. I would cheat in just about any way I could—tests, homework, class assignments—but there was no way to cheat independent reading because the teacher would interview you for each book you claimed to have read. So I actually read all the books I claimed to have read. This was a huge benefit to me.
One of the best reasons to choose a career that pays well is to be able to afford books.
Here’s the Twenge piece with my long comment addressing teen reading.
Thinking back on my high school classmates, the ones who seem to have most embodied your advice are the ones who eventually wound up as doctors or lawyers. We had quite a few in our class. Interestingly to me at least was that many were not particularly stand out students or notable in their extracurriculars, but they did participate in activities. We also had a few who became multimillionaires and highly successful, mostly as engineers who patented hard tech. What they seem to have in common is that they kept their heads down, were extremely withdrawn and rarely seen at school after hours. However a couple were standouts in activities outside school. One worked in an autosop and another did metal fabrication in a family business. Nothing wrong with getting skills they don't teach at school. Some advice I might gleen from this is for kids to not feel like it is their mission to be the center of attention at school . It's perfectly fine to pursue outside interests.
Some advice might be more tailored to individual personalities. For kids who are not popular or have trouble fitting in, maybe don't try too hard. Keep to yourself but try to learn to get along. No need to be outspoken. Learning to enjoy solitude can be an alternative to getting picked on.
And for smart and curious kids I might suggest reading Ted Gioia's substack on his lifelong reading plan: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/my-lifetime-reading-plan. Learning early about yourself and what you want from life is no disadvantage. And it doesn't need to isolate you either. Gioia was on a national champion quiz team for Stanford, beating out Yale
“Make your lunch; occasionally make dinner for your family; do your own laundry.“. Excellent advice. I started cooking dinners for my family, two night a week in the 7th grade. Today this is my main form of “employment,” i.e. preparing food for my family.
Great advice, especially dancing. Especially if you aren’t into sports. Just attended swing dance event this weekend and was blown away by the number of 20-30 year olds there. All were very polite. Couldn’t tell gender on some, but all were very nice and I’m over 60!
“Choose electives for the people. Good teachers and good classmates are more important than the right subject matter.”
I took this approach in college with my engineering electives. Certainly there are benefits to learning from great teachers, but I also missed out on gaining important skills that would have helped me at work. I think it’s probably better to choose electives based on valuable skills to obtain. Of course you can always take certain classes later, especially if offered online. No one has to know you took a distance learning class. But if you don’t take a certain class in high school or college, you may never have the time or motivation to take it later, especially after getting married and having kids.
Also I think Arnold’s advice is slightly less applicable today than it was pre-internet. Today we have opportunities to be exposed to great teachers through the internet. For example listening to Econtalk weekly has been as important as my college and graduate school classes. Great teachers also come in the form of great books.
“Little House on the Prairie.“ Not what I would recommend for high school freshman, but I suppose children’s book can be read at any age. I still approve.
Writer Bailey White claimed - in her exaggerated, slightly picaresque mining of her own life - that she engaged her kindergarten classes in learning to read with a basically all-Titanic curriculum.
Children tend to eat up stuff like that. It is thrilling and not yet full of other meaning …
So if you’ve got young children, and you’ve interested them enough in LHOTP to get to “The Long Winter” - and I do think this series would be a good read-aloud because some of the natural descriptions made my eyes glaze over as a suburban child with little experience of what was so described, and a parent may do a little pruning for “reading copy” purposes - you could also share David Laskin’s book “The Children’s Blizzard” - on that theory that children love disasters.
These stories, too, may provide a grounding to resist - should you care to inculcate this - the current lazy and ignorant notions about “privilege” across time.
Really good advice (some of which I even followed myself, as well as telling my kids). Missing age: 9th grade at 14, 10th at 15.
Friends with those in another class is good, but really really hard. Unless you're in an ECA, like dancing(??), band, choir, sports, clubs (chess! cars? book), Boy/Girl Scouts (if available).
All boys should be in some sport. (I did cross-country, tennis not track, & golf; my kids did swimming, after trying soccer)
Dancing is great but not easy in HS. In college I did: ballroom dancing, modern dance, folk dance, tap dance, & jitterbug. (In HS no dance.) Dance usually has lots of girls.
If you're not yet a touch typist - Take Typing. My college counselor advised against it, but it's been one of the best skills I actually learned in HS.
Take a shop class, or home ec/cooking -- make actual, physical things, including cooking meals.
Successful people keep journals. (7 Habits ... etc) Doesn't have to be different than a diary - the practice of writing is more important than exactly what is written about.
Public Library is GREAT -- read the book and return it (rather than have it clutter up the house). As Twenge noted: 7 Harry Potter books, and also the Twilight saga, are hugely popular because they're so good. EVEN IF you've seen the movies, the books are valuable.
[Making good movies out of great books insures fewer in the future will read those book. LOTR, and likely also now Dune. ]
Not sure it really matters TBH though I agree at least in the 90's it was and equally I'm glad I took the class in HS too. I feel society has moved away from employment where wpm even matters and kids growing up with peck style since 5 can put out some impressive wpm for the style that is good enough in practice especially with the rise of AI suggesting words.
I would add: spend more time outside. Nature is good for your mood and mental health, makes you feel less isolated even if you are alone in it, and tends to give you more "normal" levels of stimulation and fewer engineered superstimuli.
If your a guy, lift weights and drink protein shakes.
I love weights but hate shakes. It helps to have a strong appetite, but if so it's easy to get all the protein needed from food rich in it.
Girls should lift weights also. Protein shakes not necessary.
Why?
I would add two pieces of advice. 1) Don’t stay up late; get to bed by 9:30pm, even on weekends. 2) Exercise every day if you can.
(1) is very difficult given that a person’s teen years are when their body naturally falls asleep and wakes up later, but (2) is excellent advice
Interesting. Thank you.
Start online investment account at Robinhood, or some other brokerage. Dollar-Cost-Average invest $5 per month, or more if you have it.
“Use the public library.” Libraries and library networks vary greatly in quality. My high school library was decent, but when I look at the books that Rob Henderson read in high school, I’m a bit jealous. Maybe my library wasn’t as good, but more likely he was a more advanced reader.
Almost any book that exists can be purchased on Amazon, unfortunately searching for books on Amazon is worse than searching for books at the library. I rarely search or recommend searching for books on Amazon. It doesn’t work for me. Best is to find people that you trust and get book recommendations from them or go to a library or small book store. Certain small bookstores can be helpful, but beware of viewpoint bias. Same for Barnes and Noble.
Before buying on Amazon, depending on your budget and time constraints, check the library first. Read the first few chapters of the library’s copy. If good enough buy the book online.
I like to scribble with pencil in all the books I read. Stars and underlines for important ideas. Boxes around things I want to excerpt. Fold the corner of pages to help me locate things to come back to later.
I will also check out 20 books from the library at a time, sometimes all on the same topic. Then I sort through my stack looking for the very best biography on Orwell or MLK or history of religion etc.
I believe there is a dearth good books for children and teens. Jean Twenge recently wrote a piece called “Are books dead? Why Gen Z doesn't read.” I left her a long comment explaining why teens aren’t reading as much as they used to and suggest ways to promote reading. You might want to check that out. It seems to me there is an important trade-off between giving yourself time for independent reading vs taking a big load of AP/honors classes. The AP classes are tempting, but possibly more important is independent reading.
I firmly believe, and others will probably attest that regular self-directed/independent reading is probably equally or more important than regular classwork.
Rob Henderson’s memoir is one of the best examples of this. If you read his memoir you’ll notice that he’s not a great student. He does very little homework, but he does well on tests. His strength is walking the stacks of libraries. And he reads the textbooks his teachers assign; sometimes far ahead of the class.
This habit of walking the stacks is really helpful. I do this in various ways. One way is to find the section of the library that shelves books of a particular topic that you’re interested in. Then go through each book in that section. Pull out all the good ones and check them all out. Public libraries will allow you to check out 100 books at a time. Then sort through them at home. You might have to bring a box or strong bag.
A second way to use the stacks is to discover your interests. In my twenties I would do experiments in which I would slowly walk the stacks noting my interest level to each subject. For example astronomy, history, psychology, warfare, mystery, cooking, sports, math, economics, biology, etc. This might take an hour, but after you’ve walked all the stacks you’ll have a good sense of what you’re most interested in. You can repeat this experiment periodically throughout your life to see if you’re on the right path. You can do the same thing in college.
The best thing that ever happened in my high school years was my honors English teachers assigning 1500 pages of independent reading each semester. I would cheat in just about any way I could—tests, homework, class assignments—but there was no way to cheat independent reading because the teacher would interview you for each book you claimed to have read. So I actually read all the books I claimed to have read. This was a huge benefit to me.
One of the best reasons to choose a career that pays well is to be able to afford books.
Here’s the Twenge piece with my long comment addressing teen reading.
https://jeanmtwenge.substack.com/p/are-books-dead-why-gen-z-doesnt-read?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Thinking back on my high school classmates, the ones who seem to have most embodied your advice are the ones who eventually wound up as doctors or lawyers. We had quite a few in our class. Interestingly to me at least was that many were not particularly stand out students or notable in their extracurriculars, but they did participate in activities. We also had a few who became multimillionaires and highly successful, mostly as engineers who patented hard tech. What they seem to have in common is that they kept their heads down, were extremely withdrawn and rarely seen at school after hours. However a couple were standouts in activities outside school. One worked in an autosop and another did metal fabrication in a family business. Nothing wrong with getting skills they don't teach at school. Some advice I might gleen from this is for kids to not feel like it is their mission to be the center of attention at school . It's perfectly fine to pursue outside interests.
Some advice might be more tailored to individual personalities. For kids who are not popular or have trouble fitting in, maybe don't try too hard. Keep to yourself but try to learn to get along. No need to be outspoken. Learning to enjoy solitude can be an alternative to getting picked on.
And for smart and curious kids I might suggest reading Ted Gioia's substack on his lifelong reading plan: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/my-lifetime-reading-plan. Learning early about yourself and what you want from life is no disadvantage. And it doesn't need to isolate you either. Gioia was on a national champion quiz team for Stanford, beating out Yale
Thanks for this. I shared this with our oldest who is starting high school this fall.
Arnold
Good advice.
I read almost all the biographies in my high school library.
One /two per day, for years.
Great.
Now in my seventies, I wish someone would have recommended these (didn’t find until my sixties) . . .
Augustine - confessions (big impact on western culture)
Peter Abelard - history of my misfortunes and other authors
Milton - paradise lost, and several biographies by others
Lord Acton, all works, and several biographies (depressed seeing end west) “read everything worth reading - knew everyone worth knowing”.
John Morley - all his biographies he wrote about others (he debated Lenin in London)
Darwin - Gertrude himmelfard
Rousseau - confessions (big impact on modern world)
Kepler -amazing impact in producing trust in science.
Newton - as many biographies as possible.
Faraday/Maxwell/einstein - overturned Newton.
No one ever recommended these.
What a loss.
Thanks
Clay
It's funny reading this, I've just turned 60 and am now filled with a great urgency to start reading all these books and others.
Martin
Forgot include “The education of Henry Adams.’’
Best explanation of transition from end of Middle Ages to modernity I’ve found.
Thanks
Clay
A youth who has the maturity to follow your advice doesn't really need to do so. Temperament will show the way.
“Make your lunch; occasionally make dinner for your family; do your own laundry.“. Excellent advice. I started cooking dinners for my family, two night a week in the 7th grade. Today this is my main form of “employment,” i.e. preparing food for my family.
Great advice, especially dancing. Especially if you aren’t into sports. Just attended swing dance event this weekend and was blown away by the number of 20-30 year olds there. All were very polite. Couldn’t tell gender on some, but all were very nice and I’m over 60!
“Choose electives for the people. Good teachers and good classmates are more important than the right subject matter.”
I took this approach in college with my engineering electives. Certainly there are benefits to learning from great teachers, but I also missed out on gaining important skills that would have helped me at work. I think it’s probably better to choose electives based on valuable skills to obtain. Of course you can always take certain classes later, especially if offered online. No one has to know you took a distance learning class. But if you don’t take a certain class in high school or college, you may never have the time or motivation to take it later, especially after getting married and having kids.
Also I think Arnold’s advice is slightly less applicable today than it was pre-internet. Today we have opportunities to be exposed to great teachers through the internet. For example listening to Econtalk weekly has been as important as my college and graduate school classes. Great teachers also come in the form of great books.
That's a good list, thanks for writing it up.
Just two words of advice for everyone at all times: LISTEN & READ!
“Little House on the Prairie.“ Not what I would recommend for high school freshman, but I suppose children’s book can be read at any age. I still approve.
"The Long Winter" has far more of reality than whatever it is they will be encouraged to read.
I’ll read it with them. Thank you.
Writer Bailey White claimed - in her exaggerated, slightly picaresque mining of her own life - that she engaged her kindergarten classes in learning to read with a basically all-Titanic curriculum.
Children tend to eat up stuff like that. It is thrilling and not yet full of other meaning …
So if you’ve got young children, and you’ve interested them enough in LHOTP to get to “The Long Winter” - and I do think this series would be a good read-aloud because some of the natural descriptions made my eyes glaze over as a suburban child with little experience of what was so described, and a parent may do a little pruning for “reading copy” purposes - you could also share David Laskin’s book “The Children’s Blizzard” - on that theory that children love disasters.
These stories, too, may provide a grounding to resist - should you care to inculcate this - the current lazy and ignorant notions about “privilege” across time.