Kennan Thompson-Coyle-Ch. 3&4

Summary Ch.3:

The main idea of chapter 3 was the claim that people who excel at something do not come out of nowhere. Coyle uses three examples (The Brontes, the Z-Boys, and the Renaissance) to prove this point. Many people believe that the Brontes sisters were born geniuses and all of their writings were nothing but genius, but in all reality, they started right where everyone else starts out. The difference between these famous authors, artists, athletes, etc. and everyone else is that these people are willing to put in pain staking hours of "deep practice" to get to the position where they are at. One thing that really stood out to me was while Coyle was talking about the Brontes sisters he mentions that they created many writings that were artistic failures but had two redeeming qualities: "each one made them happy, and each one quietly earned them a bit of skill." They were right on that sweet spot.

Application:

This is an important message to share with your students! It doesn't matter where you start, it matters what you are doing NOW. If we can share with our students that that can become great as long as they put in the time, this will help motivate them to become better. I know this motivates me! I don't have to be born a genius. I just have to be willing to put in time to build myelin so my circuits can fire quicker and with more precision. I (and my students) have to put in "thousands of hours inside a deep-practice hothouse, firing and optimizing circuits, correcting errors, competing, and improving skills. This is how we can build skill.

Summary Ch.4:

The main idea of chapter 4 is what is contained in the title, "The Three Rules of Deep Practice." These rules are: 

1. Chunk it up 

2. Repeat it

3. Learn to feel it

Chunk it up is to break whatever it is you are working on into sections. This breaks up the learning process. It may seem slow, but it is worth it because you can fine tune your skill more than if you were to work on everything at once. If I am learning a new piece of music, don't just dive right in and try and learn the whole piece. Break it into sections. When we move to the second step it is essentially just practice. "Nothing you can do...is more effective in building skill than executing the action, firing the impulse down the nerve fiber, fixing errors, honing the circuit." This is part of the myelin building process. When we "learn to feel it" we begin to notice when we make mistakes by just the way we feel. This helps us be more efficient in our practicing.

Application:

This section really helped me figure out more effective ways of practicing. When I am working on music I have to be willing to take time and really dive into the piece phrase by phrase rather than view the music on a surface level of the entire piece. It also makes the song a lot less overwhelming to learn when you can chunk it up. Also, with most pieces, there are repeating sections. So if you learn one, you've learned the gist of them all! Obviously there are differences within repeating phrases, but the notes and the rhythms are still the same. I also think learning to feel when you are doing something correctly or incorrectly is a huge part of practice. It is essential when you are practicing by yourself. This is how we can learn to correct ourselves. The three rules of deep practice can be a great roadmap to any student and professional to guide their practice.