Categorization of the Learning Needs of our Children

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In order for us – parents, teachers and students to better understand learning requirements, we have classified the types of students into the following categories 4 by drawing a 2 x 2 matrix.

Each category is assigned a quadrant.

This is important because each type of student requires different action plans for fulfilling their learning requirements, and based upon what quadrant a student falls in there are different recommendations we need to implement.

The X axis is the studies axis,which goes from, the studies seeming to be difficult on the left hand side to the studies being easy on the right hand side. The Y axis represents the sincerity and dedication of the student, marked higher on the upward side and lower on the downward side.

This division naturally leads to the arisal of four quadrants, and hence four type of learning requirements, which we will elaborate with our hypothetical students Alice, Bob, Cathy and Dylan. Actually, the learning requirements fall along a continuum, however, this classification into four categories suffices for our needs of understanding and catering to the learning needs of students.

Let us look at Alice. She is relatively sincere. She has the ability to study long hours. She feels guilty, sad and depressed if she loses any marks. Moreover, she is performing relatively well in studies, usually throughout their academic history.

Such students usually have difficulties in the most challenging questions. Their main objective is to go from a relatively high score to a very high score in any given exam or an entrance exam. So, special and highly expert professors are required to cater to such students and we need to push their marks upwards via solving specific deliberate advanced level doubts in depth and detail. Difficult questions and their practise are the key here. When a doubt arises, it has to be solved swiftly and elaborately in depth and detail, explaining to the students about their particular shortcoming of understanding and enhancing their concepts with supplementary shortcuts and tricks to solve difficult questions faster.

Expert, smart professors are needed for these students because of the high caliber of academic expectations, and for the students to truly respect the professor and derive academic value from their expertise and experience.

In the next quadrant we find Bob, who is sincere and hardworking but still finds studies difficult and challenging. It is important to have a system of solving difficulties and doubts of our students who are facing this challenge. Motivating them via tips, tricks & guidance as to how to gain more marks is found to be relevant and effective. The sincerity and patience of the professor are the primary qualities that are relevant. We need to formulate a learning staircase for the students by advancing the level of questions beyond what the student is currently comfortable in doing, and help them review and revise whatever they may have forgotten. Pushing of the boundaries of their comfort zone is going to help us achieve the best academic result for our students.They may find scoring challenging initially, we need to keep motivating them with kindness and empathy and help them overcome any obstacle and perform to their fullest potential in all exams. With apt patient, persistent guidance and support and multiple layers of revision, problem practise and mistakes analysis, these students will also perform to their best possible potentials and do well in academics and life.

Next, we look at the students for whom the studies are easy, but they are not that self-motivated to work hard. In such cases, day to day and moment to moment  monitoring is required of the students, especially for the checking of the daily homework. These students have to be habituated into studying via day to day micro incentives and counselling. For example, we may give them a pizza they provided they put in certain minimum amount of work. We recommend that the parents also conduct day to day vivas and oral and written quizzes to check the retention and memorization of the students and communicate the results with the professors for the same. As we are the parents, Teachers & Counsellors, we need to monitor how much the student is remembering and forgetting. Basically, we need to take the onus of the responsibility for the student and their day to day academic activities. This will help us in understanding where the student is exactly lacking and thus enable us to guide the student aptly.  

Lastly but not the least, let us look at Dylan and his friends. For them, the studies are difficult as well as the sincerity element is lacking. We recommend that the field of study or the choice of subjects that currently the student has undergone or undertaken is not suitable and appropriate for them, and its best that they study something else that they are more interested in.
Whatever is chosen currently is not is not resonating with the student, that’s why the student is being non sincere and the studies are also hard for the student. However, if we still want to help these students out given that they have decided to stick to the current academic path, we have to treat their learning requirements to be a combination of Bob and Cathy’s, and inculcate features from both.


As a bonus for all long term Paathshalaites, we would mention one important realization. For real academic progress to happen, the studies should become easy for the students and the sincerity towards the studies should improve with time, so the movement of the student is towards the north east direction, in our diagram.
All in all, we wish us the best for all the academic endeavours for our children. May they rise and shine in this world, and surpass their peak academic potential and with your love and support and our expertise and academic guidance, this should not be too difficult to achieve.