Hard work.
No one wants to do it, but it’s crucial to survival in this world.
Many people may label themselves as hardworking--it’s a quality LinkedIn has on their website as a selectable attribute for your profile.
But what does that necessarily mean? According to Gladwell, in the case of Bill Joy, the Beatles, and other successful people--”10,000 hours” (47) is approximately how long it takes to get “good” at something.
That’s a lot of hours. But it makes sense.
I took piano lessons for 11 years. Let’s approximate how many hours I’ve spent doing that. Considering I had one 30 minute-45 lesson per week with the exception of holidays, etc. let’s just say everything evened out to approximately an hour per week. I had about 48 lessons per year for 11 years (528 hours), not including the 4 hours per week spent practicing (2288 hours). Plus, extra practice (220 hours) and recital prep (352 hours), hours studying music theory (264 hours), transposing music (100 hours), and seven years of actually teaching students 2 hours per week (1448 hours).
528+220+2288+352+264+100+728+420 =4900 hours. So, I’m not even halfway there to 10,000 hours.
But considering I had to attend school and had other responsibilities and activities and jobs, etc. I think I did fairly well!
When I look at teaching--I’ll need 10,000 hours to actually “get good” at it. Considering I had over 600 hours of AVID tutoring experience, 1448 hours of piano teaching experience, and approximately 3292 hours of student teaching, substitute teaching, and other teacher tasks (grading, emails, meetings, etc.), I am only about 5340 hours into reaching the 10,000 hours of experience in the teaching world (and AVID tutoring is not full teaching--it certainly helped me gain invaluable skills and experience working with high school students though). So, only a little under 5000 hours to go!
But one thing is clear--experience is definitely a factor in increasing one’s abilities.
And, as Gladwell points out, our experiences and circumstances affect our opportunities.
Take, for example, my piano teaching experience. If I had not been bad at math when I was younger, I would never have been enrolled in piano lessons. And If my piano instructor did not have to leave for New York to get a recording contract when I was 15, I would not have taught the two kids on the block. Then, if I did not teach them, I would never have gotten the piano instructor job at the YMCA, which would have not allowed me to get more clients outside, which includes a current student and her brother.
Or, look at where I am in the CSUSM program now. I applied to be an AVID tutor because I had gotten turned down from the 33 jobs I had applied for at hte age of 18. I would not have gotten the job--or even known about it--if I had not made an appointment at the MiraCosta Career Center for resume help and job search assistance. Then I would not have had the 5 years of experience tutoring and been inspired to teach and encouraged to go into the program. So, as I see it, and as Professor McGonagall would say it was all a result of:
No one wants to do it, but it’s crucial to survival in this world.
Many people may label themselves as hardworking--it’s a quality LinkedIn has on their website as a selectable attribute for your profile.
But what does that necessarily mean? According to Gladwell, in the case of Bill Joy, the Beatles, and other successful people--”10,000 hours” (47) is approximately how long it takes to get “good” at something.
That’s a lot of hours. But it makes sense.
I took piano lessons for 11 years. Let’s approximate how many hours I’ve spent doing that. Considering I had one 30 minute-45 lesson per week with the exception of holidays, etc. let’s just say everything evened out to approximately an hour per week. I had about 48 lessons per year for 11 years (528 hours), not including the 4 hours per week spent practicing (2288 hours). Plus, extra practice (220 hours) and recital prep (352 hours), hours studying music theory (264 hours), transposing music (100 hours), and seven years of actually teaching students 2 hours per week (1448 hours).
528+220+2288+352+264+100+728+420 =4900 hours. So, I’m not even halfway there to 10,000 hours.
But considering I had to attend school and had other responsibilities and activities and jobs, etc. I think I did fairly well!
When I look at teaching--I’ll need 10,000 hours to actually “get good” at it. Considering I had over 600 hours of AVID tutoring experience, 1448 hours of piano teaching experience, and approximately 3292 hours of student teaching, substitute teaching, and other teacher tasks (grading, emails, meetings, etc.), I am only about 5340 hours into reaching the 10,000 hours of experience in the teaching world (and AVID tutoring is not full teaching--it certainly helped me gain invaluable skills and experience working with high school students though). So, only a little under 5000 hours to go!
But one thing is clear--experience is definitely a factor in increasing one’s abilities.
And, as Gladwell points out, our experiences and circumstances affect our opportunities.
Take, for example, my piano teaching experience. If I had not been bad at math when I was younger, I would never have been enrolled in piano lessons. And If my piano instructor did not have to leave for New York to get a recording contract when I was 15, I would not have taught the two kids on the block. Then, if I did not teach them, I would never have gotten the piano instructor job at the YMCA, which would have not allowed me to get more clients outside, which includes a current student and her brother.
Or, look at where I am in the CSUSM program now. I applied to be an AVID tutor because I had gotten turned down from the 33 jobs I had applied for at hte age of 18. I would not have gotten the job--or even known about it--if I had not made an appointment at the MiraCosta Career Center for resume help and job search assistance. Then I would not have had the 5 years of experience tutoring and been inspired to teach and encouraged to go into the program. So, as I see it, and as Professor McGonagall would say it was all a result of:
So here's to sheer dumb luck!