Faith based Non-profit helping those in need in Haiti since 1984, working under Haitian leadership and vision with worldwide volunteers. Licensed NGO & 501(c)3
#Haiti made it into @FIFAWorldCup without having played one game at home. Yesterday the coach said, “It was a pleasure to play at HOME today.” The red & blue diaspora crowd of more than 16K lit up the stadium with their energy, Haitian pride & of course their horns. This was indeed home. https://t.co/PjE02Qmg8A
A community college professor named Marty Lobdell taught the same study skills lecture for 30 years. The video quietly became one of the most watched educational recordings online, with over 10 million views.
He spent his career watching students fail not because they were lazy, but because no one had taught them how their brain actually works when learning something difficult.
The lecture, “Study Less Study Smart,” contains a powerful framework.
Your brain cannot sustain focus the way most people believe. Studies show the average learner hits a wall between 25 and 30 minutes. After that, efficiency collapses. You’re still sitting there, but almost nothing is being absorbed.
Lobdell told the story of a student who planned to study 6 hours a night, 5 nights a week. Thirty hours total. She failed every class. She was not lacking effort. She was confusing time near books with actual learning. The fix is simple: when focus drops, stop, take a 5 minute rewarding break, then return. That reset makes a massive difference.
He also destroyed the myth of highlighting and re reading. Recognition is not the same as recall. To prove it, he read 13 random letters. Almost no one remembered them. Then he turned them into “Happy Thursday.” The entire room recalled them instantly. The brain stores meaning, not repetition.
This is why elaborative encoding works so well.
Finally, he shared the most important principle: 80 percent of study time should be active recitation. Close the book and explain the material in your own words. Teach it to someone else or an empty chair. Retrieval is where real learning happens.
His closing line stuck with me: If this information does not change your
behaviour, you have not actually learned it.
The best students do not study more hours. They stop confusing the feeling of studying with the reality of learning.
Awesome donors enabled logistical miracles this week allowing over 170 Holiday food baskets delivered in north central #Haiti we are all grateful to #God#Pignon#giving
This is one visit in northern, #Haiti I really enjoyed. These entrepreneurs are reviving Haiti agriculture, exporting hot peppers to Miami https://t.co/5jaGbRaxne
Haiti’s latest kidnapping victim is the head of the National Lab; the @CDCgov’s point man on diseases. He was shot several times during a kidnapping, lost a lot of blood & will need to be flown out of the country. How much more?