"there's another Appalachian Trail in South America"
what it means to create meaningful learning environments
Fleetwood Mac
classic rock and roll story - they get together in a basement and there's magic and they go sell a zillion records
the real story is far more interesting and complex
I got interested in FM b/c a friend asked 'What's their best album?' Rumors
What number album do you think that is in the history of that band? It's their 16th album
1967 London circuit over and over, band members coming and going
long tortured history and it isn't until they move to LA
something like 60 dif. band members, 10 years, 16 albums
when people grasp a topic, and area, an expertise - we have a tendency to telescope how long it took to learn that
10,000 hour rule
congnitively complex tasks - 4 hours a day for 10 years
even Mozart - he had been composing for 14 years when he wrote his first master work
the Beatles - what we forget is that they put in an extraordinary apprenticeship - house band in a strip club in Hamburg in the late 1950s
8 hour sets - had played as a live band 1200 times before they came to America
that kind of work and effort is crucial to understanding their success story
implication - behind learning there has to be an attitude about effort - an approach to the task - I believe that my effort is crucial to getting somewhere
the willingness to sit still and focus
if you ask American kids what it takes to do well in math they will say talent, ask the same question of kids in Hong Kong, for instance, they'll say effort
and they're right
if it is talent then there is not point in work b/c you will never get it
this is one of the reasons for the success of KIPP
the KIPP model starts with radically extending the school day 60% more time in class than their public school counterparts
if you are disadvanated and starting the race to learn behind, then more effort and time is the only way you're going to catch up
explaining and demonstrating to kids -what you get is a simple function of what you put in
2nd FM lesson
one of the most interesting things is how rocky their road to the top was
albums that didn't go anywhere, terrible reviews, fights
the founder and genius, driving force, gets hooked on lsd and goes to join a German cult
they built on their failures not their successes
capitalization learning style - building on your strengths until you reach an optimal state
compensation strategy - you compensate for your weaknesses
this is a much more powerful strategy
NFL draft
of course you pick the best first
an economist decided to test that and what he finds is - the quarterbacks in positions 1-50 underperform qbacks in positions 51-100
the ones at the bottom are hungrier and they work harder
list of dyslexic entrepreneurs
develop a team
delegate (reading and writing)
develop problem skills
compensation is a more important learning skill than capitalization
debate about class size - the data says that smaller classes and improved academic performance is pretty weak
maybe students compensate by learning self-reliance
if class size is such a determinant - then how does Asia work? their class sizes can be up to 35
we need to have respect for difficulty - being able to overcome obstacles is a crucial ability - how can we create constructive disadvantages - how can we create situations which allow them to flex their compensation muscle
3rd FM lesson
if you were to go back and listen to those 15 FM albums before Rumors - they get better and better and they are experimenting with the kind of music they want to make - they started out blues - trial and error - what kind of music their talents were best suited for - so they kind of zig zagged - learning is not always linear - you may reach the same place by a different roads
conceptual geniuses - one big idea - Picasso
vs. experimental innovator - someone who finds his way to genius through trial and error - Cezanne - he did his masterpieces in his fifties and sixties - it took him a long time to master what he did - he had to try and fail
Mark Twain - wrote HF in his fifties - it took nine years - can't figure out how to end it - he tries and fails and the result is one of the great works of American literature
incorporates idea of feedback
timely and targeted feedback - Cezanne learning brushstrokes from Pisarro
FM - what they are getting in each of their 'failures' is feedback, the music world tells them what they need to hear and they get step by step closer to their masterpiece
overconfidence - current financial crisis
ubiquitous in expert fields - our knowledge in a particular domain grows but our confidence also grows
providing decision makers with timely and targeted feedback
we no longer have the patience for something like FM to work
does it matter where or HOW the learning takes place?