I’m another classic brilliant-at-age-ten kid. The biggest problem I experienced related to being considered smart rather young was that a lot of my sense of self-worth got tied up in being the smartest kid in the room. This is suboptimal—not only does it lead to the not asking stupid questions issue, but it also means that as soon as I was in a situation in which I wasn’t smart about something, I felt like I had no worth as a human being whatsoever. (Possible confounding variable: I had depression.)
The closest thing to a solution I’ve found is to try to derive my self-worth from multiple sources. I am worth something as a human being not simply because of intellectual achievements, but also because I have friends who like me, I give to charity, I refused to give up. I don’t know how well this will work for other people, though.
The other big problem I encountered is that I tended to automatically give up if I wasn’t immediately good at something; this is why, among other reasons, I have a roughly ninth-grade understanding of math, even though I’ve taken calculus. (I’ve read studies that suggest that that’s common among children praised for traits instead of actions; I’m away from JSTOR and my psych textbooks at the moment, but if someone would like a citation then I can dig it up in a week or so.) My solution was to grade myself on process instead of achievement: I defined success not as “learning two new songs” but as “practicing guitar for half an hour every week.” My other solution was to work to overcome the ugh fields around activities I’m generally not good at, and to redefine those fields within my brain as “cool stuff I haven’t learned yet”, not “stuff I can’t do.”
My solution was to grade myself on process instead of achievement: I defined success not as “learning two new songs” but as “practicing guitar for half an hour every week.”
I would have thought that would be quite a bad idea, as it rewards you for attempting to do something, as opposed to succeeding. Kaj talked about this here.
I would have thought that would be quite a bad idea, as it rewards you for attempting to do something, as opposed to succeeding.
When done well (in particular with a focusing the practice on specific techniques) this is actually the right approach. You then transition to success focus once you get to a fairly high standard. Science says so, with randomised, controlled studies. (Source, Cambridge Handbook of Expertise etc., via memory.)
I’m another classic brilliant-at-age-ten kid. The biggest problem I experienced related to being considered smart rather young was that a lot of my sense of self-worth got tied up in being the smartest kid in the room. This is suboptimal—not only does it lead to the not asking stupid questions issue, but it also means that as soon as I was in a situation in which I wasn’t smart about something, I felt like I had no worth as a human being whatsoever. (Possible confounding variable: I had depression.)
The closest thing to a solution I’ve found is to try to derive my self-worth from multiple sources. I am worth something as a human being not simply because of intellectual achievements, but also because I have friends who like me, I give to charity, I refused to give up. I don’t know how well this will work for other people, though.
The other big problem I encountered is that I tended to automatically give up if I wasn’t immediately good at something; this is why, among other reasons, I have a roughly ninth-grade understanding of math, even though I’ve taken calculus. (I’ve read studies that suggest that that’s common among children praised for traits instead of actions; I’m away from JSTOR and my psych textbooks at the moment, but if someone would like a citation then I can dig it up in a week or so.) My solution was to grade myself on process instead of achievement: I defined success not as “learning two new songs” but as “practicing guitar for half an hour every week.” My other solution was to work to overcome the ugh fields around activities I’m generally not good at, and to redefine those fields within my brain as “cool stuff I haven’t learned yet”, not “stuff I can’t do.”
I would have thought that would be quite a bad idea, as it rewards you for attempting to do something, as opposed to succeeding. Kaj talked about this here.
When done well (in particular with a focusing the practice on specific techniques) this is actually the right approach. You then transition to success focus once you get to a fairly high standard. Science says so, with randomised, controlled studies. (Source, Cambridge Handbook of Expertise etc., via memory.)
Okay. I suspect that the focus on particular techniques is the main reason that you’re right. Thanks for pointing this out.
What do you consider practice to be an unsuccessful attempt to do, exactly?
Learn, I assume.