Week 2: What is intelligence and does it matter?
The week started with the interview with Professor Gordon Stobart, an author of the book called "Expert learner".
He expresses the idea that I come up with when I started to learn how to learn. He says that we exaggerate the importance of intelligence and abilities. The ability itself is a skill that can be developed, and it dramatically depends on the environment. A person from a privileged background usually has bigger vocabulary, more diverse experience, rather than a person from disadvantaged background. So one could say his/her abilities are higher.
So what actually matters most when you learn are your background (or the environment you create to your students as a teacher) and deliberate practice.
The rule of 10'000 hours is actually about hours of deliberate practice (10 years of 3 hours a day).
It's a practice when you intentionally do something that you are not good at.
What is deliberate practice for me? What am I not good at?
- Harmony. T goes to S. D'oh!
- Creating melodies. Thinking of melody as a complete thought with a beginning and an end.
- Polyphonic music. It is difficult for me to listen to the dialog of several voices that I play.
- Singing. My music intonation is not precise.
- Grasping the whole piece I am going to perform. To see its structure as a building, an architecture.
- In teaching: maintain a long-term interest to the subject I teach to children.
So how should I practice it?
Analyze pieces I play in terms of its harmonic language and voicing. Maybe I should draw a structure of my pieces. I must create melodies, improvise, sing every day.
Such kind of practice is quite painful, cause you fail 50/50 times. Otherwise it's not a deliberate practice.
This statement made me to think about today's practice. Was it deliberate? Considering that I had only 50% of success in my actions, yes :D I tried to memorize 4 pieces from Tchaikovsky "Album for children" (or how it is translated into English). I played, analyzed (mentally) and repeated without the book. I hope such kind of exercises will give a wider framework, I will memorize quicker, hold more details, connections and changes in mind.
What can I improve in my practice? I want to learn to listen to my play in real time, to have an absolute control over the sound. I should train more without an instrument. I should create a clear image of desirable sound, clear image of my movements (precise, flexible and relaxed). And I MUST sleep more.
What can I practice as a teacher? First of all, I should keep track of the students' progress. And since there are many students, I should write it down in order not to forget. It will motivate children to become better than yesterday, I hope. I need to take a video of myself teaching and see what kills an interest and why. I will do it tomorrow.
I want to write down some teaching principles to the paper and read them each day before classes begin. And at the end of the day analyze what when good and what was against that principles, why and what could I do differently.
Another reflection. The professor mentions the books I've read or heard about: "The peak", "Little book of talent". "The peak" is a must-read book.
... to be continued as I have watchced only 2/4 videos this week and haven't done a week assessment yet.
