Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Mastery, a different take

I know a guy in his seventies, who played lead harp in the NY Philharmonic and he only learned to play in high school.

A friend, in her 40s, played violin in Eastern Europe and attended a conservatory and played in orchestras. Her daugher, 9, is now playing violin and the mother commented that to be good now, you have to master pieces in middle school that she learned in conservatory level.

When I was figure skating, triples were stil; unusual for world level competition, just becoming common. Now there are quads.

Mastery at anything is a moving target. When we went to a Young People's concert, I was reading the playbill and it talked about a joint venture the NY Philharmonic was doing in Shanghai to train musicians in China for orchestra. They figure there are at least 10 million quality piano players there. Think of the number and how you compete in a college application in 5-10 years with the talent pool being developed?

Maybe being a Tiger Mom is not the most attractive thing to others, but what are the options to give your kid options?

What is gifted anyway, since the pool is growing?

Yes, you can ask, Howler, is it the mother or the kid who is disciplined. But what are the other options?

What solutions do you have beside critical of the situation. It is like saying we needs jobs in this country. But a solution would be a better use of intercourse.

Mastery at anything is a moving target.

Not sure that I agree here-- but maybe not for the reason one might assume.

I associate the term "mastery" with a body of knowledge, a particular concept, a methodology, or a specific skill.

Mastery, in my definition would mean "Rachmaninoff 2nd" or "Mozart K331" rather than "piano."


I would consider the analogous term associated with "piano" to be "peak human performance." THAT does seem to be a moving target, yes.

But I see that as a pinnacle built upon the older versions of it-- so a generation ago, yes, those conservatory pieces were at a post-secondary level, and now my high schooler is studying them instead. Yes. Quads not triples. Yes.

Undergraduates in chemistry are doing research projects that I didn't tackle until I was a graduate student. Yes, again.

Things that used to happen in state-of-the-art research settings are being done in introductory teaching labs now, and some of them even in science classrooms in secondary enrichment environs.

But they aren't moving targets, I don't think. Isolating DNA hasn't shifted. We've shifted around it. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. Perhaps being a scientist makes me inherently comfortable with this construct. That's possible. What took Descartes and da Vinci years of grinding work takes my 13yo just a few hours or even minutes. Of course, she has modern tools available-- so I don't think that the exercise is entirely comparable-- just that she has the ability to go PAST their discoveries as a result of being able to master that work, and that knowing it, then she can use those tools to explore in new ways.

I have faith that my daughter will find her place in the world without a lot of pushing from us to be "the VERY best" at the things that we think are important. We can see the past and the present. Therefore, I can't prepare her for her life any more ably than SHE can, realistically. I don't know what she will "need" to know in twenty years, or what she'll regret having not done.

I do know that if I insist that she do things that she doesn't particularly feel driven to do, she will grow to resent and hate them... no matter how high her level "mastery" or "excellence" might be.

My question is more about the root causes of push-parenting overdrive. What resources are we all trying to "outcompete" for in the first place? Which of those are so scarce that we are terrified that our kids won't be able to "get theirs" among the crowd? What are we afraid of?

I'm not afraid for my child. She will find her way, and her intellect will make her pretty successful in anything she chooses as a passion to pursue.

That said, we have warned her that there are relatively few employment opportunities for studying philosophy or history in college as a major course of study-- and that this has been a very stable thing for the past half century or so. Choose wisely.

I don't believe that human beings are getting smarter. But there are more of us-- which means more and more PG people among us, if at the same rate as always. That seems like a very good thing, potentially, in light of the problems that the carrying capacity of the planet is likely to present us with in my DD's lifetime. LOL. But that's just me. I tend to take a non-competitive view of life in general. It's just the way I am.

I think you have the option to focus on giving your kid a decent childhood because it is short and precious, and remembering that your child's adult life will hopefully be long and happy, and that they are their own person. You are responsible for their childhood and helping them develop who they are. You are not responsible for planning out the rest of their life, college included. Maybe that will make the difference in college applications ten years from now. Maybe not. Who cares? When I talk to my aunts and uncles about their adult children the colleges they went to do not come up. They truly only care about their happiness, and no, their happiness does not seem to hinge on their degree or wealth.

I totally agree with this. I think you have to decide what you are willing to sacrifice for achievement. Or at what point, what you have achieved is enough.

+1 for what Ellemenope and Kelly said. There are values and skills and experiences beyond parlor tricks. Being a good, flexible, interested and interesting person is a better goal.

Nice conversations, but it doesn't change the question or propose a solution about how colleges choose their incoming class from the masses with similar scores and grades. I don't think they will take a letter from Tallulah saying her kid is good, flexible, interested and interesting. All relative terms. And in 10 years, they may come up with a psyche test that determines your interested quotient.

And with those increasing numbers of people that account for more PG, there is also a bigger increase in numbers of average intelligence people that want solutions to provide them with jobs that allow them to have families and homes etc.

I govern my parenting by the goal that I want my kid to have choices. Not a path, but optional paths. What I see is that kids today have less choices when they grow up. Just like Howler mentioned philosophy or history not having the most stable employment outlooks. But this is my nature. I worked on Wall Street looking forward to what looked promising, what didn't.

And I think it is next to impossible, if you don't come from an immigrant family where kids are nurtured with a hunger to do better and have success, to push your kids and develop mastery in something they really don't want to do. I tried with piano, which is her best talent. But she didn't want to do the work. So now she just keeps the piano going. And focuses on dance, which she loves. Not so much the ballet, but she gets that ballet is the foundation for mastery in dance and she works at it. And in pushing for mastery, she is developing good work habits. Habits that translate into doing a little better at school. School is too easy and I noticed it was getting sloppy for a while. She had a social studies project on Chinese holidays that had to be done in computer lab. She did this amazing presentation with graphics and animation.

Maybe I am wrong with linking the two, but so far, reaching for mastery in something you like can translate across the board in motivation for excellence. I hope anyway.

I also completely agree with ellemenope.

I think too there are differences in professions. For example there are only so many spots in the world for a great pianist and there is a finite set of pieces to be played - plus a finite audience. That means that to have a career as a pianist you have to be beyond exceptional. You also have to really, really want it and be exceptionally single minded about it. And of course one of the things that separates truly great musicians from the *only* brilliant is musicality - that mysterious quality that turns beautiful playing into something sublime and is basically unteachable. One can tiger mom one's heart out, but it'll only get a child so far in this context.

In other areas of excellence this remains true to an extent, but to a much lesser degree. There is room for top scientists across a number of different fields, similarly while there might not be a career directly in philosophy or history it can be applied across disciplines. There will always be limitations in terms of numbers at the top of any field, but in disciplines beyond music and sport (which require techincal brialliance but where, ultimately, you're repeating the same thing in perhaps slightly different ways) - there is room for imperfection because that actually still contributes significantly to the knowledge base. Which to my mind opens up an infinite number of paths to a successful life - however that is defined.

Wren, I do get your point but then I think, why would you want your child to master the piano if she doesn't love the piano - (or insert any other category here) - so she can go on and be forced to continue to do something in a field that she doesn't love. I think you can encourage her to master something, but it should be something she is really excited about. Mastering something without having a passion for it is akin to taking a job at a fast food restaurant, yes, it provides a pay check, but how long can you really do it when you dread doing it every day.

I see too many people doing jobs that they dislike because they didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up or they changed their minds later on after they realized what the career path was actually all about (this even includes some doctor friends I have). Yet they can't change the course of their life (or at least they feel they can't) because they have too much invested and are living out their parents dream for their future, not their own. They had no passion for the profession that they picked, they just knew that they could master it.

I would rather let my child plan their own future, while I guide them and show them the options available. They can go to a state University or an Ivy League school (obviously, if they can get in) but wherever they go, it has to be their choice, not mine. I just want them to be passionate about what they do, so they can be happy doing what they worked so hard for.

I guess I consider my job is to make sure she has options available to her, not to paint her into a corner so she has to do what I want, instead of what her heart desires.

Fertility rates are generally continuing to drop.

If there's one thing that I'm certain of is that there are going to be a lot less Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, and Italians in the future, to name a few.

I've been really impressed with Russia's demographic recovery, though.

It could be worse.

I have neither passion nor mastery of my profession.