King Arthur and His 10,000 Hours

Parent teacher conferences. Oh joy.

As a teacher I loved and dreaded them. By the time I hit my second year teaching I learned I should have a box of tissues at the ready for overly emotional moms.

I loved sharing wonderful positive stories about every student, but as a person I value facts and logic too. If I was the parent sitting across from me I'd want the whole story, so I made it my goal to share the whole story as I understood it at the time.

Yes, little Sally J was sweet and attentive. She played nice with others and sat quietly at story time. She rarely got into disagreements with other children and shared her time and belongings with everyone. She is a beautiful child...that happens to struggle with reversing her letters, holding her pencil, and learning her reading words.

Does this mean she is incapable? Does this mean we should focus on all of her gifts without addressing our areas of concern? Could this information lead us to believe she is not gifted...or even..that she is gifted and this little thing called reading should not detract from her astounding ability to play well with others and build relationships?

What is gifted? What does that mean? Does it make us more or less responsible? Are you gifted but not skilled? Could your gifts be in jeopardy without attention to the things that we find difficult?

Last week I took my son out to dinner after parent teacher conferences. He is a lot of fun to talk to. His natural curiosity makes for excellent conversation while walking or spending time together. I would say...as objectively as I can... that he is quite gifted. Not many 12 year olds are interested in Stephen Hawking and can use creative logic to discuss the possibility of time travel and the creation of the universe.

I have moments with him frequently that make me swell with pride. He is kind, spiritually curious, and creative. These are all qualities that I value in people very much. He also has a learning disability that happens to make school a pretty rotten place sometimes.

As a parent I think about the difference between gifted and skilled quite a lot. My son has gifts but he is not skilled enough yet to be able to use those gifts in a masterful way. Practice is hard for everyone but for someone like my child, it is even more difficult.

He and I sat across from each other eating our sub sandwiches. I wanted to let him know that I was proud of the person he was becoming and that he had many gifts and talents to share with the world. I was trying to think about how to do this without minimizing the fact that he was also going to need to work extraordinarily hard to get himself appropriately prepared to wield the sword the gods had bestowed upon him.

My memory flashed back to a professor I had when I was an undergraduate. Dr. Patton of Graceland College was tough. I was a student of his in a variety of psychology classes. I learned many important things about people and myself from him but here are a couple of gems.

1. If you want to be successful you must learn how to perform
2. The potential implications of the Rubber Band Hypothesis are not to be ignored

Rubber Band Hypothesis? Yes. This is one piece of information I have held on to since 1992 or 93 when I first heard it. The idea here is that we are all born with a "Rubber Band." It is what we choose to do or the things and experiences we are exposed to that stretches it or keeps it in that small shriveled and underdeveloped state.

Some people are born with a smaller band but with the right exposure, a developed work ethic, and with practice stretch it several times the original size. On the other hand, some people are born with a larger rubber band (gifts) that are never stretched or developed for one reason or another. Either they were not born into an environment that supported gift development, or they were never able to gain the skills to use their gifts due to lack of practice, or a disability, or a combination of these variables.

How could I get my son to articulate and understand the Rubber Band Hypothesis without giving him yet another lecture on the value of practice?

Hooray for Disney.

I asked my son if he remembered the Disney movie, "The Sword and the Stone." In this cartoon version of the King Arthur story, young Arthur is Merlin's student. It is true that our king is born into his position. He is the only one that can remove the sword from the stone. The movie however does not focus on this much. Instead we see the boy as he struggles with his own awkward nature and how before he can become a king he must first become a student.

My son has a great memory for lyrics and movie lines. I knew he would remember this movie and he did not disappoint.

What good is it to have a birthright like Arthur if he did not possess the skills and knowledge needed to lead effectively? He was going to have to move beyond his own insecurities and learn about history, geography, science, politics, people...and how to use that sword that belonged to him.

He told me all about it...and I was spared having to give lecture number 10,021.

Yes... I also reiterated that I was proud of him and of his attempts to better himself. I try to focus on the process rather than the outcome. Everyone needs a cheerleader once in a while, I know that. Moms are coaches and cheerleaders in the same person. It is a delicate tightrope walking act that I am mindful of as a parent. Too much of one or the other is not necessarily a good thing.

Yesterday as I was walking on campus I found myself back in front of my music professor friend's door. He had a sign posted about Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 hour theory that asked students to consider what it meant for art and music students. To me it means gifted or not, lock yourself in the darn practice room and get down to business.

What good is a gift without the skills to use it? I am willing to bet that Michelangelo did a lot of practice learning to use his tools before he was able to express his giftedness through the creation of David.

Gifts are nice...it just takes practice to unwrap them. Without the practice we've potentially forfeited rights to the gift....

Thoughts to consider anyway, for everyone... not just artists and musicians.

Outliers Book Info
Rubber Band Hypothesis Info