Readiness Lists

 Ready for Scholar Phase? Check out this list to help you determine if you are ready for this class:

1. Usually, at the onset of puberty
2. Readiness to apply a new level of effort to personal and academic achievement
3. Ready to make commitments and be accountable
4. Able to personally set up a structure or schedule for study
5. Able to commit to 1-2 hours of dedicated study on any given subject
6. Comfortable or getting comfortable speaking up in a mentored peer-discussion
7. Able to ponder, think, read, write, listen, discuss, debate, analyze, and learn
8. Able to or willing to lose their life in studying (that may seem a little over the top, but the gist is to be able to engage with the area of study

Harvard Skills

1. The ability to define problems without a guide. 
2. The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
3. The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.  
4. The ability to work in teams without guidance. 
5. The ability to work absolutely alone. 
6. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one. 
7. The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns. 
8. The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application. 
9. The ability to think inductively, deductively, and dialectically. 

Princeton University Skills (1993) 

• The ability to think, speak, and write clearly. 
• The ability to reason critically and systematically. 
• The ability to conceptualize and solve problems. 
• The ability to think independently. 
• The ability to take initiative and work independently. 
• The ability to work in cooperation with others and learn col- laboratively. 
• The ability to judge what it means to understand something thoroughly. 
• The ability to distinguish the important from the trivial, the enduring from the ephemeral. 
• Familiarity with different modes of thought (including quan- titative, historical, scientific, and aesthetic). 
• Depth of knowledge in a particular field. 
• The ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures. 
• The ability to pursue life-long learning.

Other skills that greatly enhance your ability to learn in this class:

• Understand human nature and lead accordingly (Atticus Finch)
• Identify needed personal traits and turn them into habits (Aristotle)
• Establish, maintain, and improve lasting relationships (Little Men)
• Keep one’s life balanced between spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional (Stephen Covey)
• Discern the truth from error regardless of the source or the delivery (Mortimer Adler)
• Discern truth from “right” (what society says is right) (Tomas Sowell)
• Have the ability and discipline to do right. (Jean Val Jean)
• The ability and discipline to constantly improve.