[ExI] education again

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>
wrote:

> Bill,
>
> I see where you are coming from, but you should check the research of
> Scott Miller and Barry Duncan. They showed that assessing baseline
> performance, engaging in deliberate practice, and getting feedback are what
> set apart extreme performers from the (possibly similarly genetically
> endowed) high performers in sports, musicianship, and other fields. Their
> focus was on applying this to psychotherapists btw. This does not discount
> the power of genetics. Also we are not talking about making geniuses
> either. This is about developing superior performance on tasks that lend
> themselves to that. I think this is probably applicable to apprenticeship
> fields as referenced in the ad/post.
>
> -Henry
>

​I saw one study years ago done in a music school with about 500 students.
The only thing that separated them on performance was practice.  However,
it is unlikely that any of them went on to become world class musicians,
who, to guess, are one in many millions .

So the research you quote may very well be an excellent thing for sports or
whatever, but the part of post I quoted was just dead wrong.  You cannot
ignore genetics.  It always limits performance.

I have talked with world class musicians and they say that what it takes to
make one world class simply cannot be taught.  And even there, the geniuses
don't always put out superior performance.
And it may be that what cannot be taught is not a quantitative thing, like
sports.  It probably gets into creativity, a qualitative thing, not, we
think, affected by practice.

Bottom line: you cannot eliminate genetics.  My piano teacher told me that
none of her piano majors could play as fast as I could.  Simply genetic.
You cannot teach or practice speed.

bill w​


>
> On Jun 2, 2016, at 4:41 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> The failure of our model of largely passive learning and rote practice is
> explained by Daniel Coyle in his book The Talent Code
> <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055380684X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=055380684X&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=ad8754889b36441571eb3febb0f56a43> (sent
> to me by Ron G.), which upends the notion that talent is a genetic gift. It
> isn't--in his words, it's grown by *deep practice*, the *ignition of
> motivation* and *master coaching*.
> BS - this is the same old tired old Blank Slate idea that genetics doesn't
> count for anything.
>
> This idea should have died with Skinner, or at the very least after
> reading Pinker's Blank Slate.
>
> I assume massive amounts of data accompanied The Talent Code?  I have to
> doubt it.
>
> I have no opinion on the rest of this post.  But you don't make geniuses
> with practice.
>
> bill w
>
> On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 8:42 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Suggestions please?
>>
>>
>>
>> http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/06/its-time-to-ditch-4-years-of-costly.html
>>
>> *Short, intense directed apprenticeships that teach students how to learn
>> on their own to mastery are the future of higher education.*
>> *So it turns out sitting in a chair for four years doesn't deliver
>> mastery in anything but the acquisition of staggering student-loan debt.* Practical
>> (i.e. useful) mastery requires not just hours of practice but *directed
>> deep learning via doing* of the sort you only get in an apprenticeship.
>> The failure of our model of largely passive learning and rote practice is
>> explained by Daniel Coyle in his book The Talent Code
>> <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055380684X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=055380684X&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=ad8754889b36441571eb3febb0f56a43> (sent
>> to me by Ron G.), which upends the notion that talent is a genetic gift. It
>> isn't--in his words, it's grown by *deep practice*, the *ignition of
>> motivation* and *master coaching*.
>> *Using these techniques, student reach levels of accomplishment in months
>> that surpass those of students who spent years in hyper-costly conventional
>> education programs.* The potential to radically improve our higher
>> education system while reducing the cost of that education by 90% is the
>> topic of my books Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering
>> Economy
>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1497533406/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1497533406&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20>
>>  and The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy: The Revolution
>> in Higher Education
>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491222212/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1491222212&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20>
>> .
>> *Let's start by admitting our system of higher education is unsustainable
>> and broken: a complete failure by any reasonable, objective standard.* Tuition
>> has soared $1,100% while the output of the system (the economic/educational
>> value of a college degree) has declined precipitously.
>> A recent major study, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College
>> Campuses
>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LE9ILS/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004LE9ILS&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20>,
>> concluded that *"American higher education is characterized by limited
>> or no learning for a large proportion of students."*
>> 'Academically Adrift': The News Gets Worse and Worse
>> <http://chronicle.com/article/Academically-Adrift-The/130743/> (The
>> Chronicle of Higher Education)
>> *These two charts are the acme of unsustainability: college tuition has
>> skyrocketed, along with federally funded student loan debt.*
>> *The typical graduate of a short, intense directed apprenticeship says "I
>> learned more in a month here than I did in four years of college."* This
>> is a statement of fact, and it is the result of the methods deployed in
>> structured on-the-job training.
>>
>> It is a fact that passively listening to a lecture does not generate the
>> sort of mastery that creates economic value or the sort of deep
>> understanding that is the goal of a classic liberal arts education.
>> It's also a fact that rote practice also doesn't lead to mastery, and
>> often kills the very passion for a subject that in more productive programs
>> jumpstarts mastery.
>> *Our higher educational system has failed so badly that many students are
>> incapable of writing/communicating effectively.* In a world of rapidly
>> changing technologies across every field and an emerging economy that
>> places an ever-higher premium on collaboration and clear communication
>> across multiple time zones and languages, the ability to write clearly is
>> absolutely essential.
>> To "graduate" students with poor writing skills is completely
>> unforgivable. Yet in the current system, if a student logs the requisite
>> number of credits, a diploma is duly issued, regardless of how little
>> he/she actually learned.
>> *Here's a six-month program that could replace four years of
>> hyper-costly, ineffective university.*
>> 1. Teach the students how to learn on their own, for the rest of their
>> lives. This could take as little as a few hours or days. Once a student
>> learns how to pursue deep learning and deep practice on their own, they
>> don't need years of classrooms--they just need the guidance of someone
>> experienced in the field, i.e. a structured apprenticeship.
>> 2. One semester in a wide variety of on-the-job experiences. Once
>> students are given real experience in a variety of fields and industries,
>> it's likely some spark of ignition will occur and they'll find the
>> motivation to pursue real mastery instead of a worthless credential.
>> 3. Directed apprenticeships plus online lectures/workshops by the best
>> lecturers viewed before or after the students' real work. The key to
>> learning deeply and learning fast is to push right up against the current
>> level of competence, where failure occurs and can be addressed one piece at
>> a time.
>> Interestingly, Coyle notes that the most successful incubators of talent
>> around the world are generally in makeshift or decrepit buildings, not
>> fancy new gleaming buildings of the sort that dot American college
>> campuses. Surrounded by luxury, who feels any hunger to learn anything
>> voraciously?
>> *The entire "campus experience" should be jettisoned, not just as an
>> overly expensive infrastructure but as a detriment to fast, deep learning
>> that is the foundation of mastery.*
>> It isn't that hard to teach students how to improve their
>> writing/communications skills very quickly, and give them a taste of the
>> classic liberal arts education so many people claim is the goal of $120,000
>> four-year programs that fail to generate a deep understanding of anything
>> remotely leading to mastery.
>> Give them a single sentence by Melville, Austin, et al. and have them
>> compose a sentence that is like the original in cadence, structure and
>> meaning in one minute flat. Go, go, go. Then break down each phrase and
>> each component and work through each one to improve their first efforts,
>> step by step. Repeat the process, always under intense time pressure.
>> Then take them out into the real world to report a journalistic story by
>> interviewing people, checking facts, confirming quotes from sources,
>> question the received wisdom around the topic and compose the story in
>> journalistic style. Once again, break down their efforts line by line in
>> comparison with a professional journalists' story on the same topic.
>> Then, in the second class... more doing the work at a breakneck pace,
>> more being pushed beyond their current level of expertise, more corrections
>> of errors and weaknesses, step by step, in a pressure-cooker of deadlines.
>> I can pretty much guarantee the students in such a directed
>> apprenticeship will learn more about writing in a week than they would in a
>> year of conventional coursework.
>> *Short, intense directed apprenticeships that teach students how to learn
>> on their own to mastery are the future of higher education*. We can
>> continue to squander trillions of dollars on an ineffective system until it
>> finally collapses under its own weight, or we can admit the current
>> contraption is unsustainable and a failure, and move on to a better,
>> cheaper system.
>>
>> *A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs
>> for All
>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYBYQZ4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01FYBYQZ4&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=AXNFHTKZO2653EFV> is
>> now available as an Audible audio book.*
>> *My new book is #2 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social
>> science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform
>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ELXQZGE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01ELXQZGE&linkCode=as2&tag=charleshughsm-20&linkId=33DAOPEVGBNGBS37> ($3.95
>> Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition)For more, please visit the book's website
>> <http://www.oftwominds.com/SQ-book.html>.*
>>
>>
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