The problem with the 10,000-hour rule is that many of its most ardent proponents are political ideologues who see the existence of genius as an affront to their vision of human equality, and will do anything to explain it away. They have a lot of explaining to do, starting with the case of Mozart. As Mr. Robinson points out, Nannerl, Mozart's older sister, was a gifted pianist who received the same intensive training as her better-known brother, yet she failed to develop as a composer. What stopped her? The simplest explanation is also the most persuasive one: He had something to say and she didn't. Or, to put it even more bluntly, he was a genius and she wasn't.
In Tycho & Kepler, Kitty Ferguson says that "to discover, as Kepler did, the true orbit of Mars using Tycho's observations ;required a level of subtlety, insight, and inventiveness . . . that arguably has not been surpassed in the history of science.' " Sounds to me as if he was a cut above the rest.
The other side of the idea is that, if we can figure out how to train people into geniuses, we can make them whenever we want to, and achieve world cultural domination. That was essentially what the Soviet Russians tried to do with their athletes and child prodigies. It doesn't ask what the kids themselves want to do. There's a lot of drama around being a gifted child, and it's doesn't always make for a happy childhood.
ReplyDeleteBetter to encourage the gifts already there, rather than try to manufacture them.
One of my sons spent most of his teen years studying cello at one of Germany's specialist music schools. The instruction was excellent, all teachers and professors from the conservatory with some famous soloists and/or music pedagogues among them, and the students were trained in proper practice techniques. Most of them worked and worked and worked, determined to succeed (you didn't get admitted without a solid core of talent and ambition), and most of them have now gone on to do something with their music, one way or another (my son being an exception). However, what Jakob told me was interesting: there were those who practised 6-7 or more hours per day, and yet everyone knew that they were never, but never going to be the Mozarts and Yehudi Menuhins of their generation. In other words, they've become good musicians but not great ones.
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