Study Methods

Study  Methods ©

By Michael Casey

My daughter is studying in the room behind me, she’s “driven” so says her school, which is good, because you can only do the work yourself, nobody will do it for you. It reminded me how I studied.

If I go all the way back I can remember my brother studying to get into University. He used to have a reel to reel tape recording of Cream music screaming out of just one speaker. I have that speaker in the room behind me, with some fake flowers on top. So it’s amusing that his niece is studying with the silent speaker near her.

Another brother inherited the speaker and took it to University with him. As for me, I just did a bit of the OU, though I did meet Eric Clapton himself, my brothers were the cream academically, but it was me who met the man from Cream.

I got a cassette recorder in 1973, we all went to Digbeth Civic Hall for an auction of household stuff, and it was part of the load my dad bought. We also bought a high stool with red seat. That was the stool that I perched a typewriter on when I started to write a decade later.

Now what did I do with the tape recorder? I copied Status Quo’s Caroline album to a tape and then listened to the tape while I did my homework. I also recorded my French and Spanish vocabulary to it, along with some History notes when I was getting ready for my O Levels. I think I was the last class to do O Levels before GCSEs were invented.

My brother had left home, so I was all alone in the homework room, or middle room as we called it, so music was company, along with my BBC Radio4 and Folk Weave on Radio 2.

There was a tv programme on that said don’t study too long, break it up, otherwise you forget what you have just learnt. My brother’s wise words were “a little bit often.” However in those days I played rugby, so Saturday was a rugby day. So I gave myself off that day, which meant I did all the work on a Sunday.

Now if I had listened to my brother I would have done even better, but I still did do very well. Now the next generation is studying. The girls have a fancy Blik Dab Radio in their room, I was able to buy it with some vouchers I had. It’s small with a great sound, so I donated it to them and I kept an old one.

So music and study continues in the Casey family, though Katy Perry and Capital radio is preferred to Cream and Clapton now. They say that Classical music is good for the brain and helps it work better, I’ll have to wait for the research into Katy Perry and brainwaves to come out.

My small daughter loves to read and she loves having a class of 40 soft toys lined up as she reads to them. This is her study method. When she grows up she wants to be an Animal Biologist.