Skip to main content

The child prodigy

When I was at violin class, there was a prodigy alongwith me. He was the teachers pet. He could do anything on the violin - while we lesser mortals struggled. On the face of it, his ability was sheer talent. But, as I grew up, I realized that it was neither talent nor was it self motivation - it was more of practice and discipline. Not taking away anything from the kids or parents (and they both surely did a lot for the child to reach there).

If a chlid starts at age 5 - anything - be it violin or music or dance or karate - it is hard for a child to be self motivated. You typically cannot start anything before that - except perhaps swimming or cycling, but age 5 plus is when you can start most things. The one way to be self motivated is when the child people around her do all of these things - which is why in a musical household - the children learn much faster - because the learning not by catching the child and plonking them down in front of a teacher - but they learn by seeing whats happening around them. Everybody is singing - they sing too - they think it is the natural thing to do.

Corollary: If our child is learning to watch TV, the chances that we are sitting around watching TV are extremely high. If your child is learning to read  - the chances that you have spent time with her reading aloud is very high.

That is stage zero. The next stage where the child has to be made to put in effort to learn something. So, if it is a musical household, the child is made to put in the effort with various members of the household or if they run a class with various students. This is the difficult stage. Putting in effort is difficult for children. It is tough for adults - so you can imagine how it is for children. Here parents, teachers or guardians put in the effort to make the child learn. It is not easy - especially in an age like this where there are many distractions and "enjoyments". A fair amount of rigor is required.

After this stage, the child probably gets to enter competitions, get encouragement and knows that "she is good". It is only after this level that self motivation kicks in - atleast to some extent - but the parents and guardians and teachers and coaches continue their work.

This is my theory. It has fitted in well with almost anybody I have known till now. Is it right? What are the lessons that can be drawn from it from a training perspective?

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why does elearning exist?

 Elearning is one of those niches that does not deserve to exist. Yes, it was a novelty 20 years ago, but not now. It cannot exist. But somehow it does. Disclaimer: I used to head a content team once upon a time. And I used to ask those whom I hired - tell me the last thing you learnt from an e-learning. The answer is - pretty much nothing (and this is a good decade ago).  Why?  If you want to learn a recipe, you go to Youtube, or Reels or something like that. If you are terribly old fashioned - as in, you read - then you go to a website and read the recipe and make it.  Most other things you learn by doing or learning on the job or asking an expert.  If you have to learn something in depth, then there are other ways.  So, where does e-learning fit in all this? E-learning is one of those products that the customer hates, but has no choice, because someone has decided it is the best way. For instance, you have to learn a new CRM or some other product - you w...
Post a Comment
Read more