Sarah Gee TC 6

We are told about the Little League World Series team with 11 and 12 year olds from Curacao and how they made it into the semifinals 6 times in 8 years. Their ignition came from the two homers hit by a rookie from their own Island named Andruw Jones. The question "Why that island and not Aruba?" is posed. the answer came in the answer that Andruw gave the island something to rally around that gave them sustained ignition. This point is best illustrated by the picture Coyle gives us of a typical Curacao practice. From a young age kids get to watch the amazing feat that Andruw accomplished and they are constantly surrounded by the environment that show the progress and steps necessary to succeed. These are their visual cues that translate to this could be you. Coyle tells how Michelangelo would have been surrounded by so many marvelous works of art by all of the great artists of his day and in his country, which may have greatly influenced his own masterpieces. Then we learn about verbal cues from the Z-boys and their coach. Their coach mostly sat back and enjoyed the practicing he was seeing every once in a while helping them talk through a difficult stunt or telling them somebody did that stunt weeks ago or telling their much older opponents that they were going to lose miserably up next to these boys. these were all verbal cues that helped them all stay motivated to try new things and practice them deeply. but we are cautioned as to not over praise or praise the wrong things at the end of the chapter. There was a study done about kids who were tested and were told when receiving their test that they were either smart or that they worked really hard. They were tested three times and the second time they were tested the majority of the effort kids did better than the smart kids. the third time they were tested they were given the option to choose a harder test or an easy test. Most of the efforts picked the hard test and said that they enjoyed doing it and the smarts picked the easy and didn't enjoy it because they seemed less smart to their peers.
Key Concepts:
Too much praise is a bad thing.
There are so many ways so find motivation.
Sustained ignition is what gets true results.
Key Words:
Sustained ignition
Visual cues (can include body language)
Verbal cues/ Motivational language
Connections:
How was I ignited? I don't even remember what first ignited me but I feel like this book has given me a greater appreciation for practice, mistakes, for teachers and for a lot of other things that makes me want to work more effectively.