Proponents of "gifted and talented" programs often tend to sound like they represent an oppressed minority. While they say that they don't deny the need for "remedial" programing for struggling students, you might hear the occasional lament that "gifted" kids are being given short shrift. On the other side, you see what seems almost like a mad panic at the news, especially here in Maine, about lagging literacy and numeracy among students. This justifies beefing up the low end of education, so to speak. And what about the "middle class" of students, those who do their homework, make average grades, neither the best students nor the worst? Don't they deserve special attention (and funding) as well? And round we go.
It is my contention that science has led us beyond the point where the various views of this issue are even relevant. We have to redefine the issues completely, given what we know now about talent development -- and our new friend and great equalizer, myelin. Myelin, that wonderful insulator of our neurons, that wraps as we practice a skill, that strengthens our circuits, making them fire faster and better, resulting in what certainly looks like giftedness.
You know that old chestnut, "all children are gifted?" You either believe it, give it lip service because it sounds good, or you dismiss it, saying, "yeah, but what about Mozart?" Big news: Mozart's genius has been debunked. He was great, yes. The fact that he had the best violin teacher in history for a father -- did that have anything to do with it? Mozart spent his very earliest years "deep practicing" and according to the commonly-accepted formula that 10,000 hours of deep practicing equals mastery, it's no wonder he is known as a unequaled genius at a very early age.
Are all children gifted? As we currently define the word, certainly not. But giftedness does not strike like lightning some lucky individuals. Talent is developed because of very specific neurological functions. (I've heard parents say they "just know" their kids were born gifted. I have not the background nor desire to argue with this. My ideas about talent development mean we find and nurture it in each child, and I don't make an exception for those whose "giftedness" has been obvious to their parents from birth. They count, too.) Nor is giftedness passed from parent to child like blue eyes or left-handedness. Giftedness is grown, and everyone has the equipment to grow it.
Once we comprehend the research breakthrough which has told us that we are all born with an equal ability to grow and wrap myelin through deep practice, we reach a crossroads. If we do the right thing, we abandon all gifted and talented programming, and make our entire school systems into talent development centers. How can we accept taxpayer dollars under any other circumstances? How can we in good conscience advance the educational opportunities for those children who have already developed a talent, leaving behind those who have the same potential but have not, for whatever reason, developed it?
We might think that "talent development" and "talent education" is somewhat beside the point in a discussion of public education. Talent applies to music, dance, theater, sports: those "extras" in the education curriculum, right? What if I told you that the brain of Einstein contained nice, fat, well-wrapped neurons indicating a lifetime of deep practice?
It's not just for "extras," if the arts should be given such a heinous appelation. It's for everything. Writing, reading, mathematics, science. Everything that we as a society believe deserve more money and attention, and everything that doesn't. In short, great achievement in any area involves deep practice. But do our great educators understand what it is? Do they understand the conditions in which it thrives? Do we give students the opportunity to discover it in their daily lives at school?
We have to consider what "deep practice" actually means in action, and then consider what it looks like in our public schools right now -- indeed, if it exists at all. Deep practice takes place when anyone, of any age, in any area of study, pushes themselves to the very edge of their capabilities. If you've ever watched your child struggle in a class full of older students -- I've seen it when my daughter advanced to the next level of ballet skill, surrounded by kids who've been at that level for a year, or when my son moved into the teen fencing class -- you have noticed that if they can cope with the struggle, they learn fast and well. My daughter came to me after one of her first classes at the next ballet level, laughing, "I didn't know what I was doing half the time." Ah, watch that myelin wrap! Or my son: "How were your bouts?" "Oh, lost them all, but it was great." Not that my kids always react well to the struggle of deep practice. Like everyone else, it often results in frustration, even tears. In public schools right now, I don't believe we have the proper understanding of that struggle. The kids don't like it, the teachers don't have the resources to cope with it. The myelin sits still, lonely and ignored.
What are the conditions in which deep practice can take place? You can't just assign a teacher to a class and get them to do it. For a student to go through that struggle, they need a lot of motivation. It's often called the trigger, or ignition, or spark. Something has clicked in a student's mind. They see someone doing something that looks incredibly cool and impossibly hard, and something has led them to think, "I can do that, too." But the spark isn't enough -- it doesn't happen without master coaching. Once a kid has caught the fever of motivation, a teacher has to understand the special techniques that can foster the kind of practice that works. Then we have to create the conditions optimal for deep practice to take place.
The model of public schooling needs to change in order to foster this kind of education. But what of it? The model needs to change anyway.
Stay tuned to The Minds of Kids for more stuff like this. Please argue and yell and throw chairs at me for my audacity. As Julia Roberts said in Mona Lisa Smile, "You're not required to like it. You are required to consider it."
Showing posts with label talent code. Show all posts
Showing posts with label talent code. Show all posts
Friday, August 6, 2010
Suzuki and the Talent Code
There should be dancing in the streets when an old idea is crushed under the weight of science and reason. If this old idea puts limitations on what we can achieve, what we can learn, what we can do, then let's laugh as it fizzles out under the brightness of a new one. Let's leave it behind us and not look back!
We have that new idea. It's about how we teach our kids.
There is a book that came out last year called The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. The facts that he puts forward are simple: there is no such thing as inborn talent. Once you accept that the above is true, you see how liberating this idea is. Anyone can do it. But can we handle it? Can we shoulder the burden of responsibility once we know that the kids that go through our schools are all capable of great things?
All you need to develop great talent are for certain factors to be in place. You need a spark of ignition, something to light a child up with the desire to be able to be or do something. You need a master coach, a teacher who gets you, gets the thing you want to learn, and is able to bring the two of you together. And you need what Coyle calls deep practice.
Deep practice is the hard part. It's the act of pushing yourself against the limit of your abilities. By doing this you build a substance called myelin, which literally wraps itself around neurons like paper towels on a roll. The more you engage in deep practice, the more you wrap myelin, the faster the electrical circuits in your brain fire. To develop talent is simply to wrap myelin. Scratch the surface of anyone who appears impossibly talented and you will find someone who has spent most of his or her life wrapping myelin.
Deep practice can be broken into three components, ways to manage the struggle of dancing at the edge of your capacity. When we do music and we come upon a passage cannot even imagine ever mastering, we do three things: we chunk it up. We slow it down. And we repeat it.
There are many people who instinctively understand this process, but I want to talk about one particular group. We have been brought together by the ideas of a man who voiced the above surprising claim over 50 years ago, in another country. In the late 1940s, Shinichi Suzuki said that every single child can become a great violinist. Those of us influenced by him, those of us practicing his ideas, teaching kids in the method he has given us, have clamored about this book, devouring it in one gulp and handing it out like party favors.
Once we discard the idea that only those born with certain abilities can become hugely talented, where are we? Lots of people say, "any child can do whatever they set their mind to," but do we really believe it? Do we understand what it means?
I think sometimes that our world of conventional education teaches kids their limitations rather than their possibilities. It is, by its nature and execution, negative. Kids sit in class doing math not learning of the glories of numbers that lay before them, but squashed by the fact that they feel -- they know -- they can't do it. They sit drawing diagrams of cells waiting for the moment that they can stop and do something else. Even in our so-called "gifted and talented" programs, what do we teach but that those of us not invited are neither gifted nor talented? But here is well-documented research saying that we are all equal under the sun. We all have neurons, we all wrap myelin. Every one of us can follow our dreams and see them become real.
We can turn education on its head and start all over. Teach kids that struggle is only the beginning. Frustration with stuff we only half understand and are convinced we can't master leads to mastery and understanding. Sometimes when my daughter is practicing the violin, she is in tears because she can't master something. Then she masters it. But why the tears? Maybe we need to model and teach that struggle is good, struggle is what works -- and struggle is manageable. Push it! Keep going! And then move on to the next impossibly hard thing.
Suzuki didn't voice his ideas in terms of neuroscience. His method came from his study of how children learn their native language. He took apart that process and applied it to learning the violin. Listen to those around you. Repeat what you hear. Start slowly and build in baby steps. Enjoy yourself, celebrate each new word. Suzuki students chunk, slow and repeat every day. They've been managing deep practice since they were toddlers. Their struggle to learn is shared, praised and encouraged by parents.
Most of all, what Suzuki knew and what he taught came from love. Every child was dear to him. Every parent was taught to see the limitless ability of their children. How to teach with love. How to love with teaching. What is education but the belief in the hearts, minds, hands of every child? The Talent Code gives us nothing but the knowledge that we are right who teach with love and faith in all children.
We have that new idea. It's about how we teach our kids.
There is a book that came out last year called The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. The facts that he puts forward are simple: there is no such thing as inborn talent. Once you accept that the above is true, you see how liberating this idea is. Anyone can do it. But can we handle it? Can we shoulder the burden of responsibility once we know that the kids that go through our schools are all capable of great things?
All you need to develop great talent are for certain factors to be in place. You need a spark of ignition, something to light a child up with the desire to be able to be or do something. You need a master coach, a teacher who gets you, gets the thing you want to learn, and is able to bring the two of you together. And you need what Coyle calls deep practice.
Deep practice is the hard part. It's the act of pushing yourself against the limit of your abilities. By doing this you build a substance called myelin, which literally wraps itself around neurons like paper towels on a roll. The more you engage in deep practice, the more you wrap myelin, the faster the electrical circuits in your brain fire. To develop talent is simply to wrap myelin. Scratch the surface of anyone who appears impossibly talented and you will find someone who has spent most of his or her life wrapping myelin.
Deep practice can be broken into three components, ways to manage the struggle of dancing at the edge of your capacity. When we do music and we come upon a passage cannot even imagine ever mastering, we do three things: we chunk it up. We slow it down. And we repeat it.
There are many people who instinctively understand this process, but I want to talk about one particular group. We have been brought together by the ideas of a man who voiced the above surprising claim over 50 years ago, in another country. In the late 1940s, Shinichi Suzuki said that every single child can become a great violinist. Those of us influenced by him, those of us practicing his ideas, teaching kids in the method he has given us, have clamored about this book, devouring it in one gulp and handing it out like party favors.
Once we discard the idea that only those born with certain abilities can become hugely talented, where are we? Lots of people say, "any child can do whatever they set their mind to," but do we really believe it? Do we understand what it means?
I think sometimes that our world of conventional education teaches kids their limitations rather than their possibilities. It is, by its nature and execution, negative. Kids sit in class doing math not learning of the glories of numbers that lay before them, but squashed by the fact that they feel -- they know -- they can't do it. They sit drawing diagrams of cells waiting for the moment that they can stop and do something else. Even in our so-called "gifted and talented" programs, what do we teach but that those of us not invited are neither gifted nor talented? But here is well-documented research saying that we are all equal under the sun. We all have neurons, we all wrap myelin. Every one of us can follow our dreams and see them become real.
We can turn education on its head and start all over. Teach kids that struggle is only the beginning. Frustration with stuff we only half understand and are convinced we can't master leads to mastery and understanding. Sometimes when my daughter is practicing the violin, she is in tears because she can't master something. Then she masters it. But why the tears? Maybe we need to model and teach that struggle is good, struggle is what works -- and struggle is manageable. Push it! Keep going! And then move on to the next impossibly hard thing.
Suzuki didn't voice his ideas in terms of neuroscience. His method came from his study of how children learn their native language. He took apart that process and applied it to learning the violin. Listen to those around you. Repeat what you hear. Start slowly and build in baby steps. Enjoy yourself, celebrate each new word. Suzuki students chunk, slow and repeat every day. They've been managing deep practice since they were toddlers. Their struggle to learn is shared, praised and encouraged by parents.
Most of all, what Suzuki knew and what he taught came from love. Every child was dear to him. Every parent was taught to see the limitless ability of their children. How to teach with love. How to love with teaching. What is education but the belief in the hearts, minds, hands of every child? The Talent Code gives us nothing but the knowledge that we are right who teach with love and faith in all children.
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