Local author believes learners should study smart, not hard
In his book, comprising 16 chapters, Higgins features an all-inclusive approach to enhance students' brainpower and honing self-empowering life skills to improve their academic and personal performance.
The saying that quality is better than quantity rings true to the philosophy of studying for Dr John Higgins, a Kempton Park-based professor of humanities studies.
In unveiling his book, Study Smart Not Hard: 16 Keys to Brilliant Achievements, Higgins is reminded of a former Express article about a matriculant Nyeleti Mashele.
Mashele was robbed and pushed from a moving train and left with a serious head injury shortly before her final matric exams as reported in January of this year.
In his book, comprising 16 chapters, Higgins features an all-inclusive approach to enhance students’ brainpower and honing self-empowering life skills to improve their academic and personal performance.
He explained: “This model is based on scientific research results which revealed that improved personal performance of students greatly increases their learning ability.”
Dr Samson Makhado, Africa director at the Association of Christian Schools International, writes: “This book of Professor John Higgins, a distinguished author and international trainer, will assist every student to improve their academic and personal performance. I highly recommend the book to prepare anybody, learners, students, teachers, lecturers, and adults alike for excellence in life.”
Having grown up in a small Free State village, Higgins overcame hurdles to become the standing academic figure he is today. Working towards his dream to obtain a university qualification, the first major obstacle he faced was to obtain a matric exemption certificate, the passport to university.
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“Since math, one of the pre-requisites for this qualification was not part of my subjects, I had to consider switching subjects midway through my high school career to include math.”
Despite the doubt of being able to reach this goal, he worked hard and persisted under very difficult circumstances. Eventually, in just two years, he succeeded in passing his high school math, thereby proving wrong the teachers who had ill-advised him.
“The next hurdle I had to overcome was the lack of financial resources to attend university full time.”
However, he worked during the day and studied part-time to obtain a bachelor’s degree, followed by an honours bachelor’s, which he achieved cum laude, a master’s and finally a doctorate in the humanities from the Unisa.
His dreams escalated to entering the international world of education and training with his appointment in the faculty of an international institute for the development of leadership skills.
Higgins’ advice to young people is to dream big and to erase the words, ‘impossible’ and ‘cannot’ from their vocabulary.
“If you have a dream, believe that you can achieve it, work hard and refuse to give up. You will eventually taste success, no matter what adversities, disappointments, and setbacks you have to overcome,” he said.
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