Friday, September 22, 2006
Existential Friday: adult learning
A new-to-hockey player has joined one of our scrimmage groups, and boy, is he bad. He slowly glides up and down, always facing forward, with his feet angled, looking as though he will fall over any second. Occasionally, he whacks at the puck, but most he's just taking up space.
My intial reaction -- contempt -- gave me pause. Okay, I was a bit better than that when I started playing hockey two-plus years ago, but not much. I felt like a remote controlled robot with slow response time to the signals. Yet this guy made me feel a bit like I imagine front-line combat veterans feel when the green replacements come into the line. They call all of them "meat," rather than using their names: "why bother to learn their names? They're just gonna get killed in a few days anyhow."
I faught back these rather discreditable feelings and realized, that from a rational point of view, it will be better for everyone the faster he improves. Then he'll have more fun, and he won't detract from the game quite so much. So I learned his name -- Geoffrey -- and I've started giving him friendly pointers. He's already improved.
The other day Geoffrey said, "I wish I'd taken up hockey when I was, like, 5 or 6." This is something I've thought myself. The idea is that we'd have mastered the sport by now -- or achieved as much mastery as we would ever get.
But that's the wrong way to look at things. Had we learned the game as little kids, and peaked, say, in our 20s, we'd be on the down-side now. We wouldn't be having nearly as much fun, watching our own skills decline. Instead, what we now have is the joy of learning -- something often (usually?) reserved for children and young people -- as we see our own steady, gradual improvement.
Adult learning is a beautiful thing. Adults learn most things more slowly than kids, so adult learning may in some sense be less efficient. But as an adult, I've been more disciplined about practice and -- related to that -- more aware of the satisfactions of learning.
Probably, I will never reach the level of mastery of this game I could have reached if I'd started as a kid. But who knows? Kid's motivations to acquire skills are so mixed up, a tangle of their own like for the activity and their desire to fulfill their parents wishes. Maybe I'd have given up hockey as a 16 year old, as I did baseball and music.
And what is so great about mastery anyway? It's not the same as satisfaction which, like happiness, can elude even the gifted, or the rich. At the end of the day, mastery is just another experience, and a fleeting one at that, one that usually ends with the sense of losing it. Is it a better experience than learning?
My intial reaction -- contempt -- gave me pause. Okay, I was a bit better than that when I started playing hockey two-plus years ago, but not much. I felt like a remote controlled robot with slow response time to the signals. Yet this guy made me feel a bit like I imagine front-line combat veterans feel when the green replacements come into the line. They call all of them "meat," rather than using their names: "why bother to learn their names? They're just gonna get killed in a few days anyhow."
I faught back these rather discreditable feelings and realized, that from a rational point of view, it will be better for everyone the faster he improves. Then he'll have more fun, and he won't detract from the game quite so much. So I learned his name -- Geoffrey -- and I've started giving him friendly pointers. He's already improved.
The other day Geoffrey said, "I wish I'd taken up hockey when I was, like, 5 or 6." This is something I've thought myself. The idea is that we'd have mastered the sport by now -- or achieved as much mastery as we would ever get.
But that's the wrong way to look at things. Had we learned the game as little kids, and peaked, say, in our 20s, we'd be on the down-side now. We wouldn't be having nearly as much fun, watching our own skills decline. Instead, what we now have is the joy of learning -- something often (usually?) reserved for children and young people -- as we see our own steady, gradual improvement.
Adult learning is a beautiful thing. Adults learn most things more slowly than kids, so adult learning may in some sense be less efficient. But as an adult, I've been more disciplined about practice and -- related to that -- more aware of the satisfactions of learning.
Probably, I will never reach the level of mastery of this game I could have reached if I'd started as a kid. But who knows? Kid's motivations to acquire skills are so mixed up, a tangle of their own like for the activity and their desire to fulfill their parents wishes. Maybe I'd have given up hockey as a 16 year old, as I did baseball and music.
And what is so great about mastery anyway? It's not the same as satisfaction which, like happiness, can elude even the gifted, or the rich. At the end of the day, mastery is just another experience, and a fleeting one at that, one that usually ends with the sense of losing it. Is it a better experience than learning?
Comments:
<< Home
You're completely right, of course, but I do sometimes envy the people who have that ease in skating and puck handling that comes from having done it for decades.
"They" now say that learning new things in middle to later age helps prevent or delay the symptoms of the dementia aging diseases such as Alzheimer's. It actually does not prevent the disease, but the "test case" for this was an elderly man who only lost his memory in the last few months of life, but had brain lesions that had taken years to get there. The doctors decided that his constant learning of new skills kept his memory intact despite the disease.
However, "they" recommend learning things like a musical instrument, arts or crafts, rather than hockey *grin*. And you can train the muscles in later life, too. However, you need about 10,000 hours to become a "master" at something - which works out to 40 hours/week for 5 years. (that's a lot of time spent praciting the piano). (that little factoid is from a study of Julliard students comparing the "world class" musicians to the lesser musicians, and it boiled down to how much time was spent practicing - and that's the number of hours for the world class group)
And Brock20, glass cutting isn't as difficult as you may think - I find it easier than working with wood. But it is important to have the proper tools and to wear hand protection (like heavy duty gloves).
---
akjin - the new low carb diet that's all the fad with djini.
Post a Comment
However, "they" recommend learning things like a musical instrument, arts or crafts, rather than hockey *grin*. And you can train the muscles in later life, too. However, you need about 10,000 hours to become a "master" at something - which works out to 40 hours/week for 5 years. (that's a lot of time spent praciting the piano). (that little factoid is from a study of Julliard students comparing the "world class" musicians to the lesser musicians, and it boiled down to how much time was spent practicing - and that's the number of hours for the world class group)
And Brock20, glass cutting isn't as difficult as you may think - I find it easier than working with wood. But it is important to have the proper tools and to wear hand protection (like heavy duty gloves).
---
akjin - the new low carb diet that's all the fad with djini.
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
