10,000 Hours to Success

Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author and staff writer for the New Yorker, has a magic number for success. In his latest book, Outliers: The Story of SuccessOutliers,  Gladwell makes a compelling case for explaining success. Turns out factors such as innate ability do not factor into success as much as we might think. Turns out practice.... 10,000 hours of practice to be exact translates into success.

From Bill Gates to Mozart to the Beatles and grandmaster chess champions, Gladwell uses the 10,000-Hour Rule again and again to explain their success. It's not that innate ability isn't a factor, it just isn't a determining factor. For a sneak peek at how Gladwell unravels his theory read the excerpt below:

A research study comparing amateur and professional pianist "couldn't find any naturals that float to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor did they find any grinds, people who worked harder than everyone else, but just didn't have what it takes to break the top ranks. Their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't just work harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder." (p. 30).

 My question is do we in schools reward or give preference to the student that "gets it" quickly or do we appreciate the student that works hard, very hard to master a task? Before you answer that question consider current grading practices and how we still tend to base grades on averages. Consider teacher comments about expectations of students? Do we even give students multiple opportunities to practice before we penalize them.... e.g.You can take a retest but can't score any higher than a 70% on the test. Clearly I am not feeling generous on this issue, but I truly want to.... help me identify ways we as schools have typical practices which emphasize work ethic over background knowledge.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.

Comments

kemeigh said…
Wow! Great thoughts in this one! It really seems alot more "fair" if we do allow kids to practice, practice and practice before penalizing them. The current system certainly does not encourage "do over." It encourages "Get it right the first time... or too bad." I wonder if we began encouraging our students to practice and practice and practice then they would be better employees and citizens. They would recognize that they don't have to be perfect.... just able to review, revise, adjust and try again.
January 14, 2009 at 10:31 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Controversy Over Cursive

Image
Twenty years ago ---- eek that's how long it has been since I graduated from high school, cursive was a given in the curriculum. Teachers used it, students had to be able to read it and write it. I can remember copying copious notes from the board in cursive. A lot has changed in those two decades. I now reserve cursive for signing checks and other documents. I rarely find I need to read something in cursive, other than perhaps a name. Typing, however, has become an absolute necessity. How important is cursive? With all the content that has been added, not to mention accountability.... how valuable is it? Do we need to spend time as early as third grade on teaching cursive? What do you think? Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocherdraco/88217480/
Read more

Planning for Differentiation

Image
An article in the Washington Post, Schools Look At Providing More Time For Teachers caught my eye recently which looks at teacher planning time. As you might imagine, teachers feel they lack planning time.... and they may have a point. The amount of planning time has stayed constant while requirements for inclusion and accountability have increased. My question is do we design curriculum to address these challenges from the onset or do we expect teachers to plan lessons, adjust their instruction for a variety of diverse learners, grade assignments, connect with parents and other colleagues, make copies in a 40 minute planning period? Why not differentiate the curriculum from the beginning? The graphic to the left depicts the Curriculum Planning Pyramid (Schumm, Vaughn, & Leavell, 1994) which represents how curriculum might be organized to meet the needs of all learners. The base represents the most important concepts you want ALL STUDENTS to learn. The middle layer represents
Read more

Luau as a Metaphor for School Improvement

Image
The luau, once called the aha aina, was an event that was designed to unite the participants and foster good will, thanks and praise. The purpose of the luau could have been to celebrate accomplishments, honor heroes or gods, or commemorate important events. While some ancient foods represented strength or virility, other foods might symbolize virtues or goals the participants hoped to achieve (from To-Hawaii.com) A luau, in other words, is all about reflection. What is going well? What are the next steps? This is exactly what our school improvement teams did last week. They reflected on the level of implementation of their plan and the level of effectiveness. Participants spent the morning going through their plans goal by goal – looking back toward accomplishments and looking forward to next steps. We over-laid these discussions with information on managing and effectively facilitating change. We read Implications for School Leaders Facilitating Change , which is from H
Read more