Talent versus hard work
Been thinking about a motivational quote I see at my niece's violin lesson and also her gymnastics club that says
Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard.
I asked her what she thought about it but she had a limited grasp of 'talent' as a concept and that was the end of that. So this is not a 'conversations with an eight-year-old about talent' blog post because she was unconcerned. She practices violin every day because she enjoys it and I enjoy taking her to her violin lessons when her dad is at work, which is most weeks.
There's always this rumbling debate about talent, about whether certain skills can be taught, etcetera, etcetera. All the words we use around talent, like inspiration. Everything a bit metaphysical.
Another similar one, that's probably at my niece's jujitsu gym somewhere:
A black belt is a white belt who never gave up.
My wife and I were having a discussion about most of STEM being continual failure. The default mode of science experiments is failure, of working on the big maths problems is failure. That's where most time is spent.
As is learning a musical instrument. As is learning anything new. I think being really good at things is actually about being good at and comfortable with failure.
Really don't want to end up talking about 'resilience' which has become one of those words that makes my eyes roll even though it is good and useful, just the way people talk about it sometimes. But you knew what I mean. Resilience. There are a thousand TED Talks to watch if it doesn't produce the same reaction.
Schools use a 'growth mindset' - a lot of the moaning and groaning about schools is our own outdated experience. They aren't like that any more. Schools (are supposed to) reward enquiry and attempts. Then other people will complain about participation trophies and yet again schools cannot win. (Can you tell I'm from a family of teachers?)
Do I even believe in talent at all? Maybe not! So maybe the premise doesn't even apply. Maybe we just have certain traits that dispose us to certain things. Like Michael Phelps and his wingspan helping him be good at swimming. Of course if he never trained he wouldn't be a mega Olympian. Also, we are allowed to give up. That's an okay thing to decide, that you don't want to be a black belt or are not interested in the trade-offs something involves. I'm still not going to take up the violin or jujitsu.