Comments - Caitlin Clark's Not-So-Surprising Childhood
Haha I totally resonate with piano. I took lessons as a kid too, and I'm kicking myself for being so apathetic about it at the time. I can't remember if I read this in Range or something else someone else wrote, but it was the idea that a study found the first music teachers or high-achieving musicians, and they realized the teachers weren't exceptional in any way except that they got their students to enjoy the lessons. I read a book about different education systems, and I think it's Finland's pre-K that has no formal education, only play. Then in Kindergarten, their main priority is not learning to read or even student learning more broadly. Rather their main focus is the idea that students learn that learning is fun. I think of that constantly with my 7th graders. As a third year teacher, I just haven't figured out how to bring joy and rigor together yet. But rest assured I'll keep trying. (Sorry, a bit of a tangent.)
Anyway, your experience in that first year class honestly sounds like an anecdote right out of Range, specifically the "Learning, Fast and Slow" chapter. You cited a study there right that found that at a military school, students who got worse grades in their first year (and had harder teachers) did better the next year, right? It has me trying to think how I can encourage myself to do things like that now... reading War & Peace might be an example!
I finished The Anxious Generation, by the way. Very thought-provoking, and I'm sure you had even more thoughts having grown up as a latchkey kid. Thanks again for sharing that Q&A with your prof. The way she speaks about it, it sounds like specialization could be thought of as a collective trap just like early cell phone and social media adoption are, right? Maybe you've already written that somewhere, but I can't help but notice that no one ever seems to argue in favor of, say, AAU basketball.
Also, ditto for my coaches. They felt like role models or even parents at certain times, so I think I'll need more distance before I can sort out my feelings.
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