There’s only one thing better than a great teacher who accelerates your learning at something you care deeply about—a great teacher who accelerates your children’s learning about something they care deeply about. As a dad I’ve seen my kids grow not only with great classroom teachers but great music instructors, soccer coaches and the like. At…
In a somewhat incredible coincidence, I received a fascinating and self-reflective email from my colleague Gail McGee last night. At almost exactly the same time I was posting about our (people, that is, or at least American’s) imperviousness to improvement in our driving–due in significant part ot the lack of feedback–Gail wrote to me about the same…
Think for a minute about a task like driving. Most likely you do it almost every day. Usually multiple times per day. Often for hours at a time. So, really, you ought to be very, very good at it by now. World class. But if you’re like most people you’re not a very good driver and (less…
For the past year or two we’ve been working closely with a major teacher training organization to help them develop successful new teachers faster and more effectively. They work in more than a dozen cities and are the most data-driven organization we know of. One of the things we recently learned is particularly fascinating for everyone…
GREAT piece in the April 8 New Yorker by pianist Jeremy Denk… a retrospective on the role of practice in his development. Deeply reflective and insightful. Definitely worth the read though this video gives you a really good sense for a couple of the key sections, especially his first serious teacher’s use of feedback in his practice…