GENIUS: THE MODERN VIEW

 

Some people tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, people like Mozart or Einstein whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension.

The latest research suggests a more democratic view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. Itís not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, itís deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among todayís top child-performers. What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had - the ability to focus for long periods of time, and a parent who was intent on improving his sonís skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there.

If you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, youíd take a student who possessed a slightly above average ability. It wouldn't have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet someone who had excelled in her area of interest, and who shared some biographical traits with her - anything to create a sense of affinity.

This contact would give the girl a vision of her future self. It would give her a glimpse of a kind of enchanted circle she might someday join. It might even help if she suffered from a profound sense of insecurity, fueling a desperate need for success.

Armed with this ambition, she would immerse herself in study, giving her a core knowledge of her field. And she would practice. Her practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused. The aim of this practice would be to concentrate meticulously on technique.

For example, a karateka might try to slow down her kata performance so it takes 60 seconds to complete each movement, and then see how many errors she could detect. By practicing this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating over and over, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.

Then our student would find an accomplished mentor who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance from the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. And she would be redoing challenging problems dozens and dozens of times.Ý She would be ingraining habits of thought she will be able to call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.

The primary trait that our student possesses is not some mysterious genius. It's the ability to develop and maintain a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.

This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is in love with genetics and what weíre "hard-wired" to do. And itís true that our genes place a leash on our capacities. But the human brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through our behavior. As the research shows, itís not so much who you are, it's what you do.

adapted from "Genius" by David Brooks NYT 5/1/09

 

 

If you're looking for a great teacher,

don't pick someone who is "normal".

Michael Mead