10,000 Hours of Practice

In fifth grade, we have had many opportunities to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone.  Recently we have had Signal to Noise auditions and our class mayoral elections.  These events have brought to light the fact that we don't always win.  Even people we consider to be top in their field (The Beatles, Michael Jordan and Abraham Lincoln) have tried and failed.  The people in this clip had many opportunities to improve themselves after a multitude of failures.  The students have been thinking about how failure can make us more successful by providing opportunities to improve ourselves.  Failure is an inherent part of success.

After watching this video, we read an excerpt from the Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers.  The part that we read addressed the debate over whether innate talent is all you need to succeed.  The author argues that innate talent actually has ver little to do with success and success depends more on how much practice you put into your craft.  In fact, Gladwell argues that in order to be truly proficient at any one thing, you must put in 10,000 hours of practice!  He provides several examples of people considered to be the top of their field and through interviewing them he found they all had one thing in common: they were able to get at least 10,000 hours of practice in before they became a star.

In our BizTown lesson today, we listed topics that we were interested in to try to figure out what career type we are best suited for.  After reviewing the difference between interests and skills, we were reminded of Gladwell's argument that if you want to be good at something you have to work hard, make that VERY hard, for it!

As the students get closer and closer to middle school (forcasting for Highland is this Thursday!), it's important for them to remember that if they want to succeed at something it doesn't matter if it's their "innate talent" or not.  What they do need to remember is that success is something that is earned.