Talent Code notes

Talent Code, Daniel Coyle.

• concept of Deep Practice: you stopped, you stumbled, struggled, figured it out. Operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes. 
• Importance of errors to learning practice. Inhibiting the sweet spot at the edge of our capabilities. 
• Practice makes myelin, myelin makes perfect. 
• Sven Anders Hedin, Scandinavia's Indiana Jones. 
• 10,000 hours of committed practice; and the 10-year rule ... "deliberate practice" and "deep practice" same thing. 
• If you have to ask whether the child possesses the rage to master, he doesn't. 
• deep practice x 10,000 hours = world-class skill. 
• Skill is insulation that wraps neural circuits and grows according to certain signals. 
• Holy Shit Effect. 
• 3 Rules of Deep Practice. 1. Chunk it Up. Absorb the whole thing (as a single coherent skill). Break it into chunks. Slow it down (It's how slow you can do it correctly.)
• Rule 2. Repeat it. Reps. Deep practice is exhausting. Shouldn't be able to do it for more than two hours. 
• Rule 3: Learn to feel it. Practicing is concentration. It's a feeling. Feeling of reaching, falling short, and reaching again. "divine dissatisfaction" - Martha Graham. Glenn Kurtz in his book, Practicing. 
• Deep practice is a seeking out a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions: 1. Pick a target; 2. Reach for it; 3. Evaluate gap between target and reach; 4. Return to step one. 
• Ignition -- deep practice requires energy, passion, and commitment. Motivational fuel -- second element of the talent code. 
• Passion -- from outside first. Ignition is simple if/then proposition. Then part is always the same -- better get busy. 
• Safety and future belonging -- powerful primal cues. Small Wonders -- doc; and Music of the Heart -- 99 movie. About the violin kids.
• Ignition triggered by words. Either on or off. No instant gratification. 
• "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- W.B. Yeats. 
• KIPP -- knowledge is power program, charter schools. Everything is earned. 1. You belong to a group; 2. Your group is together in a strange and dangerous new world; 3. New world is shaped like a mountain, and at the top is college. 
• Every element of this world sends clear, constant signals of belonging and identity. Attention to detail. "Stopping the school." Environment for deep-practicing good behavior. Brains are muscles. More they work, the smarter they get. 
• Master Coaching. "What a coach can teach a teacher" article. Book, You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned, Gallimore and Nater. 
• Wooden's laws of learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, correction, and repetition. 
• Piano teachers: they are teaching love ... first phase of learning to get learner involved, captivated, hooked and to get the learner to need and want more information and expertise. 
• Best coaches -- ability to locate the sweet spot on the edge of each individual student's ability, and to send the right signals to help the student reach toward the right goal, over and over. 
• 4 Virtues of Master Coaches... 1. Matrix (of knowledge and understanding and has System to teach it); 2. Perceptiveness (listening on many levels ... Now do X, compelling GPS directions ... probing, strategic impatience; do it faster, differently; small successes were not stopping points but stepping-stones. 3. Theatrical Honesty. 
• Got to make the kid an independent thinker, a problem-solver. Connect with the kid first. 
• Reading: Whole Language about ignition; Phonics about building reliable circuits, correcting errors. 
• Psychology: shyness and social skills ... have to linger in that uncomfortable area, learn to tolerate anxiety. If you practice, you can get to the level you want. Dr. Albert Ellis and cognitive-behavioral therapy. 
• according to Carol Dweck (motivation expert) ... world's parenting advice can be applied to simple rules: pay attention to what your children are fascinated by, and praise them for their effort.