The development of talent in young people requires a progression of teachers who provide different levels of guidance and challenges, fostering motivation and specialization in their chosen field.
Family background and cultural environment significantly influence the nurturing of talent, with parents playing a crucial role in creating a supportive and resourceful environment for their children's interests and aspirations.
While most fields studied follow distinct learning stages, the development of mathematicians and neurologists often diverges with a later onset of interest, driven by a strong academic background and independent pursuit of advanced learning.
Deep dives
Three Stages of Learning in Developing Talent
The book explores the lives of individuals who have achieved extraordinary levels of expertise in various fields, such as pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and neurologists. The research highlights three distinct stages of learning that most of these individuals go through. In the first stage, they have a teacher who is encouraging and fosters a love for the discipline. In the second stage, they move on to a more demanding teacher who focuses on technical aspects and introduces them to competitions or performances. Finally, in the third stage, they have a teacher who is highly respected and pushes them to their limits, demanding a significant level of dedication and practice. These stages are characterized by increasing motivation, parental involvement, and specialization in their chosen field.
The Influence of Family Background and Culture
The book emphasizes the role of family background and cultural environment in nurturing talent. It highlights that across all the different fields studied, individuals come from families where music, art, or intellectual pursuits are highly valued. Parents play a crucial role in encouraging their children's interests and providing the necessary resources, such as access to lessons, instruments, or competitions. Additionally, the research suggests that it is crucial for the family to create a culture where the development of talent in a specific domain is prioritized and celebrated.
Differences in the Development of Mathematicians and Neurologists
The book presents contrasting trajectories for mathematicians and neurologists compared to other fields. While pianists, sculptors, swimmers, and tennis players go through distinct learning stages, mathematicians and neurologists often have a later onset of interest in their respective fields. They typically develop a passion for math or neuroscience in their mid-teens and start independently pursuing advanced learning. Parents with a strong academic background often play a role in cultivating an intellectual environment at home, discussing scholarly topics, and fueling their children's curiosity. The development of mathematicians and neurologists is marked by their exceptional academic performance, self-study, and pursuit of higher education and research opportunities.
Motivation and developmental stages of musicians
In this podcast episode, the speaker explores the motivation and developmental stages of musicians, particularly pianists. The speaker discusses how the motivation of young pianists evolves over time. In the first stage, children are motivated by their parents' encouragement and the cultural values associated with music. In the second stage, children begin to develop a personal ambition for excelling at the piano. It is during the third stage that they start considering becoming professional pianists, often after being exposed to other talented young musicians. They also start to view music as a broader, more profound form of expression. Throughout their journey, these young musicians face demanding teachers and the challenges of being surrounded by other talented individuals. However, their inner desire and the significant effort they have already invested in music help them navigate these difficulties.
Differences in learning and development for sculptors
In addition to discussing musicians, the speaker briefly touches upon the development of sculptors as a unique category of artists. Unlike musicians or other types of experts, sculptors follow a different trajectory. They often start with an early interest in artistic activities, such as drawing and even carpentry. As they grow older, they enter universities without a predefined major and eventually choose to major in fine arts. They receive guidance and instruction from practicing artists, which helps shape their artistic development. The speaker highlights the emphasis on happiness in sculptors' families as a distinct value. Sculptors have a more exploratory and self-directed approach to their craft, with less reliance on deliberate practice and more emphasis on artistic creativity.
Benjamin Bloom is best known for Bloom's Taxonomy, a scheme for categorising ways of thinking about or interacting with learning content on a scale from less to more sophisticated. However, the project he led investigating the lifelong development of expertise should be much more famous.
The book's full title makes it feel as though it was published in 1685 rather than 1985: The dramatic findings of a ground-breaking study of 120 immensely talented individuals reveal astonishing new information on DevelopingTalent in Young People. Bloom's team looked at extraordinary achievers in six domains: pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and neurologists, so that he had two each from artistic, athletic, and academic pursuits. He was trying to understand the life circumstances during childhood and adolescense - particularly the practice routines and social milieu - which led to the development of the subjects' expertise.
Their research methods were unusual. Rather than using a large sample and taking quantitative data (which would have been difficult anyway due to the lack of a large number of exceptional people, by definition) or presenting qualitative interviews of individual case studies, Bloom's team interviewed around 20-30 people from each domain and then summarised the findings of these interviews. It leaves us with a sense of the qualitative experience of going through their learning processes, while also reducing the chances of over-generalising from a single case.
Pianists were the main focus of discussion where Bloom and his colleauges tried to generalised the findings, although all six categories had a full exposition as to the findings for their domain in particular. The pianists followed an especially clear pattern which is worth starting from, and subsequently comparing with the others.
In the context of an abundance of information about how people think and learn on shorter timescales (from seconds to weeks), having information about how people develop over the lifespan is invaluable. I will definitely be referring to this book a lot in future.
Enjoy the episode.
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RELATED EPISODES
This book is related to the development of expertise, which I talk about on a lot of episodes, but the one specific one I mentioned in the recording was:
22. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
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