Wish you were a genius? Just practise

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7069310.ece

by bootload • 16 years ago

17 11 16 years ago

timesonline.co.uk

arvinjoar5• 16 years ago

This goes against all my experience. Certainly, practise is needed to become a master at something. But innate ability combined with motivation and practice will yield a result that motivation and practice could never yield on its own.

"The fact is that no one is born with innate talent. Everyone is born with a potential for musical pitch."

Seriously? I've heard so many tone-deaf kids play an instrument they've practised a lot, only to start out on the wrong note, and continuing all the way through the song without even notcing. The statement is outrageous to anyone remotely musical. Some people are born tone-deaf, technique can make up for that for some beginners, but it will become instantly noticeable for people who want to master music.

"Every time we learn about which things are teachable, we can improve the way we educate people and make changes on a policy level."

Now it gets scary, because this is what we do in Sweden. We spend a lot of resources on stupid people, and we are just fooling ourselves. The stupid people continue to be stupid, they are unable to learn the concepts behind math or any other subject they fail to learn, and they continue to fail.

As a smart person, this is downright scary. I have innate ability, spend resources on me, and I will become a god. This is not true for stupid people.

drunkpotato• 16 years ago

I have innate ability, spend resources on me, and I will become a god.

A wee overstatement, perhaps.

Certainly, the distribution of educational resources could be better optimized, but that won't happen in places where experimentation on educational styles is impossible.

arvinjoar5• 16 years ago

You want experimentation on educational styles? Try the market, because you won't get it with government schooling. The market is a discovery process, and today we got to see a spreadsheet on YC startups, some failed miserably, but many startups (e.g. reddit, dropbox, textpayme) were smash hits.

If the market for education was open to this discovery process, there would be a lot more gods walking around. As for stupid people, there would be no incentive to spend more resources on them than necessary for what they'll end up doing. Sure, parents are free to spend a fortune on their stupid kids, but it won't do anyone any good, and it's their choice to make.

An article by Lew Rockwell on the subject: http://mises.org/daily/2937

Also: When I say "god", I really mean a smart person that is able to reach his full potential.

appathy• 16 years ago

As a smart person

I don't think it's possible to judge your own smartness. Who wouldn't say that they are smart? Either way, at least you have humility.

arvinjoar5• 16 years ago

I've given up on humility, I'm smart, atleast relative to my environment. This has become obvious to me during my school years. I've never had to do homework or study before tests, because I'm smart. I know people who aren't dumb who have had to spend a lot of time studying.

It's not hard to know if you're smart or not, what's hard is knowing really how smart you really are. I'm probably not the smartest person on HN, I might very well be among the dumber ones? How would I really determine that? I have no good answer to that. But I am smart. You probably are, too, and the sooner you realize that and admit it openly, the better.

jodrellblank2• 16 years ago

"This goes against all my experience. Certainly, practise is needed to become a master at something. But innate ability combined with motivation and practice will yield a result that motivation and practice could never yield on its own."

citation needed. These tone deaf kids who practised a lot ; how much focused practise did they do to improve their tone recognition, exactly? Any at all? Or was their instrument practise of the "play the same tunes over and over" kind? Was it actually "a lot" or just "some"? In what kind of environment with what kind of support?

wushupork• 16 years ago

Having been immersed in professional martial arts, I see all the time really gifted people who don't amount to much because they fail to practice and are just not as "hungry" as some of their non-gifted counterparts who will push through their limitations. Innate ability will only get your foot in the door, but without self discipline, practice and wanting it bad enough, you just won't get to that level.

Wish you were a genius? Just practise

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