Talent: practice, opportunity, interest?

Yesterday my granddaughter spent the day here and I decided she needed some new form of entertainment. We have read the same books hundreds of times (and will read them hundreds more I am sure) done the same puzzles, watched Sesame Street, dressed and undressed Judy the doll, over and over and over. I wasn't sure she would be interested or ready for something a little challenging, but on a hunch I got out a bag of wooden beads and stiffened the end of a piece of cotton string with tape and got her started stringing beads. She needed very little help or instruction. Perhaps she has done this before. I was interested in her concentration, the way she picked out all the red beads from the mixed assortment and her patience for the task.

I remember doing things like this as a child. Learning to use my hands for detailed work. I learned to embroider and weave potholders. I spent countless hours laying on my stomach on the livingroom floor drawing. I think it has so much to do with the things I do now and the relative degree of skill with which I am able to do them.

I recently read the book, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. A fascinating book that deals with patterns in the lives of people who are high achievers—they are not what you might expect. And I found support for things I have long suspected. Is talent something you are born with, or something you develop? Gladwell says,

"The question is this: is there such a thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role of preparation seems to play."

He goes on to talk about the 10,000 hour rule that says that you achieve mastery of something by practicing it for 10,000 hours. That includes a musical instrument, a sport, a thorough knowledge of a subject. Opportunity plays a big part, of course. He talks about how Bill Gates went to a school, as a child, that had a program in computer programming at a time when it was such a new subject that no other schools had such programs. And then there is interest. Not everyone who went to that school achieved what Bill Gates did. He developed an early interest, had the opportunity and put in the hours of practice necessary to master his subject.

While I have clearly not mastered my skills in drawing, for example, I draw better than most people. I credit those childhood hours of drawing, and classes and years of practice, not that it is something I was born knowing how to do.

It pleases me to see that Sofia, at the age of 2.5 has sufficient interest to work at stringing beads. I am happy to offer her the opportunity to do it. If she continues to practice she will develop hand skills that will be useful throughout her life. But the most important thing is that she had fun and was excited to show her Mom her beads and we didn't have to read Clifford the Big Red Dog yet one more time.