The daily quiz is a lot of work for the teacher, but I've come to believe that it's a great, success-creating idea.

I'm a HUGE advocate of this, based entirely in my struggles with every other form of self-discipline.

It's true of me, and I suspect of just about everyone else, that I need DAILY HABITS.

If I don't make my bed every day, I stop making it altogether. (I'm in the 'stopped' mode now, ALTHOUGH I'll add that Jimmy and Andrew unmake the bed the minute I make it, so that's a major disincentive.)

If I don't exercise every day, I stop exercising. (I've been at a '10' on that, and am now in the process of slipping — though I predict I'll ramp up the effort to get back to once a day.)

I still haven't developed a once-a-day-check-Christopher's-binder-and-assignment book habit. That's half the battle right there; I need to do this on a daily basis.

Once you're doing something on a daily basis, it becomes a habit, which means it's far easier to do.

KUMON takes advantage of that aspect of human nature. With KUMON, you're not supposed to take any days off at all. No Sundays, no holidays.

You just keep going, 10 to 20 minutes a day, day in and day out.

I didn't do KUMON sheets in Los Angeles, and it was amazing how hard it was to re-establish the habit!

SO a once-a-day quiz is going to get students into the habit of daily study.

Obviously, writing 5 quizzes a week is going to be rough (though I believe Gambill uses the 3 most difficult problems from the homework set, yes? Even so, you have to do all the organizational work of setting up a new system.)

But once you've got the system in place & the quizzes written, you're there.

-- CatherineJohnson - 11 Feb 2006