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I don’t know where they learn it, but even lots of little kids are totally fixated on “easy” and “hard.”
They divide the world neatly into this organizational scheme, defined as follows: If can do it easily, it’s easy; if I can’t do it easily, it’s hard.
These kids are missing a lot of context, to say the least. They tend to relish what is easy, even as they treat it with a bit of scorn. Meanwhile, they resist what is hard, assuming that it will be out of reach.
Read MoreHow do you know exactly how much to practice a new skill or how long to spend preparing for a performance or speech?
You can go through the motions until things are pretty familiar; you can push yourself past the point of exhaustion through relentless repetition.
But the best approach is to carefully calibrate your effort to exactly what is needed, no more no less, using something I call the Comfort Score.
Read More“Just keep practicing! You’ll get it.”
Have you ever had a well-intentioned teacher tell you something like this?
It can be decent advice. But it’s limited.
“Just keep practicing” works when you’re on the right track. You understand the mathematical concept — you just need more experience solving similar problems. You are doing your scales with the correct fingering and just need to build speed. You have successfully completed one public speaking engagement and you’re gearing up for the next one.
Read MoreWhen I first tried to write songs as a teen, I was stuck. I had a few ideas, but nothing seemed complex or interesting enough.
As I built my repertoire of other people’s songs, I had a breakthrough. I realized that most of the songs were built out of simple and familiar patterns. I decided to try writing a song that consisted of only four chords, with two of them repeated extensively to comprise the verses. I finished my first song and was on my way to writing several others.
Was my work notable or groundbreaking? No way! They are cute songs, but they will never make me famous. That’s fine. They showed promise, but they were just like any songs you might expect from a teenage beginner.
Read MoreI have good news!
Parents, you can stop overthinking your kids’ activities.
Teachers, you can feel free to stop bending over backwards to make your subject kid-friendly.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter that much what you put in front of kids: The activities, the school subjects, and so on.
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