Criteria

When somebody says that they're not very good at something, what they are really acknowledging is that the criteria they have accepted (or imposed upon themselves) are beyond their reach. The more unassailable these criteria appear, the more the drive and determination to overcome them diminishes.

Sometimes we’re better off not knowing where the top of the mountain lies.

Talent

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” -Stephen King

The comments from my last blog post have led me to brush up a little on Attribution Theory. Most especially I've been reading about Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency to attribute the causes of behavior to dispositional traits rather than situational effects. For example, when someone spills something we tend to assume that they're clumsy rather than considering that the glass might be slippery or that they've been distracted by a friend or by stressful thoughts about a situation at work or at home.

So how does this relate to talent? Well, talent is principally something we attribute to others and it's also something we tend to think of as arising from internal processes rather than being produced by external factors. Whilst many people may believe that we can do little to induce talent, it's generally accepted that it’s possible to draw it out and encourage it (or the reverse). Teachers especially, are in the business of spotting talents in students and assisting their fuller development. In many ways teachers have the daunting responsibility of identifying underlying talents and guiding students to pursue them – in effect shaping the course of their lives. But at what point might the identification of talent be thought of as a fundamental attribution error? Perhaps Timmy just appears to be talented at maths because his older brother took a few moments to help him understand a few useful underlying principles and now Timmy enjoys maths more than anything else and is in advance of his classmates because of it. Perhaps Timmy had the temerity to paint on the classroom wall last time he did an art class and got told off. Perhaps he just likes the maths teacher. There are so many potential variables which contribute to the formation of each individual that to generalise by assuming someone is talented seems narrow minded at the very least. As we well know, teachers make mistakes, sometimes grossly. Consider, for example, the headmaster who said that a five-year-old Bertie would never amount to anything. Later, in Technical College, this same student was described as “a lazy dog who never bothered about mathematics at all.” Fortunately Einstein didn't take much notice of what these teachers thought, but many students lack such independence of thought.

Much as I agree with the above quote by Steven King, I think it also highlights a pervasive misunderstanding in contemporary attitudes which see success, rather than fulfillment, as the pinnacle of human achievement. Should we be encouraging young people to pursue their talents, that we have skillfully identified with our unique but untutored gift for talent spotting, or should we encourage what they find fulfilling? I fully admit that the two often overlap, and all for the better. But sometimes they don’t and we do students a serious disservice, much as it may break our hearts to see them squander the talents we perceive, when we encourage them, oblige them or subtly coerce them into pursuing routes which do not accord with their own desires.

But it isn’t only external perceptions that shape student achievements. Self perceptions also play a significant role in determining how individuals develop (though these perceptions are by no means immune to the influence of parents and teachers either). In various studies carried out by Carol Dweck and collaborators it was repeatedly found that students could be divided roughly equally between those who sought “learning goals” (increased competence) as opposed to those who sought “performance goals” (goals that provided favourable judgements or – crucially - the avoidance of negative judgements about their performance). These different goals were found to be predicated on contrasting beliefs about the nature of ability. Students who believe that ability is a fixed entity tend to seek performance goals and to avoid risk taking whilst students who believe that ability is alterable (ie: can be improved) are more persistent, relish challenges and see failure as an opportunity to learn (learning goals). Unsurprisingly these students also achieve significantly better results in challenging tasks. The upshot of this research has been a strong advocacy for methods of teaching that shift student perceptions of ability as a fixed entity to ones that see ability as malleable and therefore subject to hard work and determination. This makes a real difference.

Imagine the obstacles in Art Schools then, where many students have come specifically because school teachers have encouraged their unique talents? And what is talent after all, other than a stubbornly immutable conception of innate ability? No wonder you hear the word used so little in studio discussions or tutorials – it’s practically taboo. But that’s not the only obstacle art school teachers face. In this world increasingly dominated by X-Factor’s and Nation’s Got Talent shows it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult to persuade young people that hard work isn’t a sign of weakness but, on the contrary, is the road to mastery that even the most talented need to tread.

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.” -Albert Einstein

Here's a good article on a similar theme.

The Fall from Grades

“What would it be like if one of today's art schools offered a single prize so lucrative and prominent that the winner would be virtually assured of making a living? The whole school, I think, would become obsessed with the prize, and suddenly the non-competitive atmosphere of post modern practice would evaporate.” -James Elkins

If you start typing the word “intrinsic” into Google you’re likely to see a drop-down list of suggestions appear. Second down the list will be “intrinsic motivation”. You can do exactly the same for the word “extrinsic” with the same result. These two forms of motivation have a huge role to play in education but almost everybody would hope that the principle motivator for anything students (or staff) do is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something for its own sake whereas extrinsic motivation seeks approval - or the avoidance of disapproval - or other kinds of rewards (money, prizes accolades, praise etc) from external sources. It’s very well documented that intrinsically motivated people consistently perform better at creative and cognitively challenging tasks, are more persistent and generally enjoy what they do more than extrinsically motivated people.

Of course, it would be an oversimplification to say that people are either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Most individuals are intrinsically AND extrinsically motivated by different things to different degrees depending on a variety of factors. Nonetheless we all recognize that some things just motivate us whereas other things, you couldn’t even pay us to do.

There's a rather curious phenomenon which is closely related to these forms of motivation known as the “Overjustification Effect” where people who are intrinsically motivated lose interest in an activity if it becomes associated with rewards. Most particularly they lose the ability to sustain their motivation after rewards are removed. In other words, the introduction of rewards actually destroys peoples’ intrinsic motivation. It's speculated that rewards are closely associated with typical means of persuading people to do dreary work or carry out chores, and this begins to form negative perceptions around any related activity.

Surprise rewards, on the other hand, do have a vaguely positive influence on people's subsequent motivation but such rewards have to be both genuinely unexpected and justified. Rewarding someone for no clear reason or for something which they feel is undeserving can simply lead to confusion.

“These findings are consistent across a variety of subject populations, rewards, and tasks, with the most destructive effects occurring in activities that require creativity or higher-order thinking. That this effect is produced by the extrinsic motivators known as grades has been documented with students of different ages and from different cultures. Yet the findings are rarely cited by educators.” (Alfie Kohn 1994)

Teachers have to tread a very narrow line when it comes to motivation - between challenging and potentially demotivating students. They need to galvanise students’ motivation as a means of challenging them. Challenges are one of the primary means by which people learn and develop but without motivation on the part of students it's often impossible to present challenges meaningfully. One of a teacher's fundamental skills therefore is to accurately gauge the level at which a challenge can be pitched without dulling the pleasure of engagement. For this reason, encouragement is one of the most useful tools at their disposal, but it’s important that this encouragement isn’t some form of disguised praise or the offer of future reward but rather a genuine involvement in the student’s striving to improve what they do.

Generally speaking then, rewards are inadvisable (unless, of course, you want to manipulate someone, and don’t care about the longer term consequences). In ideal circumstances it’s preferable to create as many opportunities as possible for extrinsically motivated people to develop intrinsic motivation. Supporting autonomy, providing choice and alternative ways of achieving successful outcomes, making projects relevant, achievable and challenging and creating an environment which is enabling and supportive, all help people internalize their motivation. In other words anything that promotes, clarifies and makes something rewarding in itself, has the potential to transform an extrinsically motivated individual into an intrinsically motivated one.

Ultimately, it’s not important whether I, as a teacher, think that what a student has done is good or not. What’s important is whether they’ve achieved something which is valuable to their development and whether the goals they’re setting for themselves, and that are set for them, are relevant and challenging enough to maintain their interest and engagement. Everybody strives to improve what they do - we should be building on this desire, not stifling it. The aim of education should be to promote students' independence and self-efficacy as much as possible, not to cultivate self-doubt and dependence. Grades especially, are the last thing that we should be offering as a means of motivating students. Grades are little more than an addictive and pernicious drug peddled by schools and universities to maintain dependency and conformity to their antiquated systems of assessment. Grades are a drug students would do better without – literally.

References:

I've also written on the problem of grading here.

ELKINS, J., 2001. Why Art Cannot be Taught. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.

DEAN, J., 2009. How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation. [online]. Available from: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.php

HATTIE, J. and TIMPERLEY, H., 2007. The Power of Feedback. [online]. Available from: http://rer.sagepub.com/content/77/1/81.full.pdf+html

HITZ, R. and DRISCOLL, A., (undated). Praise in the Classroom. [online]. Available from: http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9213/praise.htm

KAPLAN, A. 2009. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. [online]. Education.com. Available from: http://www.education.com/reference/article/intrinsic-and-extrinsic-motivation/

KOHN, A. 1994. GRADING: The Issue Is Not How but Why. [online]. Available from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/grading.htm

KOHN, A., 1999. From Degrading to De-Grading. High School Magazine. [online] Available from: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm

The Myth of Genius

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

-Albert Einstein

Let's think about this for a moment. What do we mean by genius? Someone who consistently creates objects or ideas of sheer brilliance in great flashes of inspiration or skill, or someone who works doggedly at something, making multiple mistakes and iterations to eventually arrive at a successful outcome? Presumably the former. But who fits the bill? Nobody, absolutely no one.

Everything of substance which we use, read, see or listen to, which has been wrought by the hand of woman or man, either sits firmly atop a mountain of forgotten or concealed failures, or has been encircled and elevated by culture and history to such a degree that it is invested with an almost sacred aura. 


But what about Mozart you may ask? Well, if he'd stood before he crawled, or ran before he walked (metaphorically that is!) I would probably have to agree with you, but that doesn't appear to have been the case.


Certainly there have been, and continue to be, individuals with prodigious talents, but it is only through the deft concealment of support, determination, hard work, frustration and a plethora of failures, that anyone might be seen to be a genius. And it is thus that there appear to be no contemporary geniuses despite the fact that by all probability, there should be significantly more than ever.
 History has a canny knack of casting a soft veil over the many toils and disappointments in the lives of our heroes and in so doing it gently polishes their lustrous portraits whilst our own more contemporary representations either sit in dusky corners or reveal their countenances in high-definition with every lurid pixel an embarrassing imperfection.

“The myth of the artistic genius serves to de-socialise the production of art, to disguise the facts of privilege and convention which regulate access to training and advancement. A product of a classed and gender-divided society, this idea of the artist is a veil for the inequalities which sustain its elites.” – Griselda Pollock

But this is great news - not because the idea of genius has turned out to be a fabrication and a delusion, but because now the peak of the mountain is clearer for us all to see and since it’s a mountain of our own making, it should be even easier to climb. So, let's just make sure that each failure is a genuine and dogged attempt to succeed. Then fail, fail, fail again.

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -Thomas Alva Edison

Sgurr a' Bhealaich Dheirg (Rocky Peak of the Red Pass) © J.Hamlyn

Refrences:

Griselda Pollock in R. Parker & G. Pollock (1987). "Framing Feminism". pp. 84-85

Gleick, J (1992). Genius, The life and science of Richard Feynman. New York: Vintage Books.

Imaginary Boundaries blog (specifically this post).

Designing Minds by Edward A. Wasserman, Mark S. Blumberg

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/87448006?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;badge=0&amp;color=ff9933" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/87448006">The Long Game Part 2: the missing chapter</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/delvetv">Delve</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Motivation

I’m due to be part of an interview panel tomorrow and as a way to standardise the interview process and increase fairness, a number of fixed questions have been prepared by a member of the so called “Human Resources” department. Presumably as a consequence of this standardisation process some of the questions have become very generic and uninspiring. One of them asks the interviewees to give an example of when they motivated others - yawn! But perhaps the quality of the question is of small importance – the point of questions after all, is to elicit answers and inspiring answers can arise from even the most impoverished questions.

It stands to reason that, amongst other things, teachers are in the business of motivating students. Without motivation there’s little impetus to do anything, so clearly it’s important to be motivated and if this motivation can be instilled by teachers, all the better. But how hard is this really - because it seems to me that motivating people is actually one of the most fundamental forms of social action? Surely simply by caring and showing that we care, so long as these sentiments are welcome, we motivate people to reciprocate – to care too and to act on this caring. There is nothing new in this and it’s certainly not a particularly unique skill. Yes, some people have an ability to motivate people to a much greater degree than others and yes, it’s good to leave students feeling positive about their work and aspirations, but ultimately motivation has to come from within - to be self-motivation, especially if it is to be enduring and useful to students. This is why motivating others should only be a by-product of the work that teachers do with students rather than being an end in itself - we’re not life-coaches after all, much as it might sometimes feel as though we are. If we focus too much of our attention on motivation we risk loosing the particularity and specificity of what we have to offer and we’ll also tend to dilute or avoid altogether the more challenging or daunting lessons which are so important for the maturing artist.