ability to put theory into practice. It may be the case that, in effect, Self 2 can benefit from some technique, but only when that technique relates directly to something Self 2 has already learned through practice.
When she was younger, my daughter took gymnastics lessons at a training center in southern California that is, strangely enough, one of the best educational institutions I’ve ever seen. (Sadly, we’ve moved away from the area, or she would probably still be taking lessons there.) Some of the reasons why are identical with what I’ve said above: students spend most of their time performing skills, instructors keep discussions of technique to a minimum, and so on, with all of the same beneficial results. But there are a couple of other things about it that I think are worth noting as well.
The first is that in gymnastics, form is a major issue, and the instructor is generally the only one with the expertise on hand to judge form. This means that the instructor has to provide the feedback as well as the coaching, and in general when that is the case there is an enormous risk of mixing the two roles up. For example, if the coach wants to build a child’s confidence, there is a real temptation to tell her she executed a skill well even if she didn’t. What I find really interesting is that the instructors at my daughter’s gymnastics center never do that. Instead, they invariably give the kids straight feedback. That takes a lot of discipline, but the net result is that the kids, who can tell real feedback from fake at a very early age–are extremely motivated by the praise they get, because they know they earned it. To be a sympathetic coach while at the same time providing objective feedback is a serious skill that the instructors in my daughter’s gymnastics program somehow seemed to have gotten exactly right.
My other point is that gymnastics is notable because it consists of complex skills that seem to have an “all or nothing” quality to them. If you attempt a back flip, for example, you’d better complete it, or you risk breaking your neck. This makes it problematic to learn how to do such maneuvers in the first place. It turns out that the instructors have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to allow kids to practice partial or simplified versions of complex skills. These include the use of trampolines, ultra-bouncy floors, foam-rubber-filled pits, reduced-size apparatus, and so on. My personal favorite is their collection of large vinyl-covered foam rubber pillows, with which the instructors are especially ingenious. For example, if you want to learn to do a back somersault, you start by putting your hands over your head and bending backwards over a large, hexagonally shaped pillow, which your instructor rolls slightly at exactly the right moment to help you over. Vygotsky called such devices scaffolding—learning aids that allow students to attempt a skill that is otherwise beyond their ability. I think that is a pretty useful term. A lot of detailed thought that has gone into providing such scaffolding for gymnastics, and that has a lot to do with why that training is so successful. The reason this is so important is that it allows the gymnastics instructors, like the tennis and piano instructors I’ve talked about, to get learners right into performing real skills.
Some of the principles that can be abstracted out of the lessons we looked at are:
1. Be ambitious about what can be learned. Suzuki thought four year olds could play an instrument well. Gallwey thought beginners could hit solid tennis shots in their first lesson. By rejecting conventional wisdom about the limits of what could be done through training, they both made huge advances.
2. Allow students to learn by doing. All of my daughter’s lessons are centered on having the learner practice the skills in question. Everything else that happens, including coaching and presentation of information, is designed to support the learner’s activity.
3. De-emphasize “success” and “failure”. When learners get their egos too involved, they get in their own way. Power