Who Needs a Coach?
Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you? That was the subheader of a fascinating 2011 article in the New Yorker penned by an enlightened surgeon. Atul Gawande noticed how his surgical skills had plateaued in a predictable, professionally accepted way. While he was coming to terms with this presumably inevitable fact of life, he also experienced how impactful even a single lesson with a tennis pro was in improving his game. Then he connected the dots: “Not long afterward, I watched Rafael Nadal play a tournament match on the Tennis Channel. The camera flashed to his coach, and the obvious struck me as interesting: even Rafael Nadal has a coach. Nearly every élite tennis player in the world does. Professional athletes use coaches to make sure they are as good as they can be. “But doctors don’t. I’d paid to have a kid just out of college look at…
The Hidden Value of a Tutor
We live in a golden age of self-directed education. Where motivated students once had to entomb themselves in libraries to drink from the font of knowledge, now those thirsty for learning merely need to plug into the web to uncover the secrets of the universe in text, audio, and video formats. Whether you want to know how to change a light switch, fold a cloth napkin into a swan, or solve systems of equations, you’ll have no problem finding free tutorials on that exact topic. Why, then, do we still have schools? While we all tend to get excited about unfettered access to free learning resources, we all still prize–and patronize–teachers, tutors, and coaches. Why pay premiums to attend superior high schools or colleges and dole out additional sums to educational, athletic, and artistic coaches when brand name schools offer free courses online? Obviously, we continue to prioritize live education…
How Academic Accountability Makes a Difference
Too many students think that academic success depends entirely on innate intelligence, that only the smartest can strive for the highest scores and grades. However, most teachers would tell a dramatically different story: you earn grades based not on what you are but what you do. A popular image of 10 Things That Require Zero Talent has been making the rounds online for years. This idea resonates with anyone who struggled under the misconception that achievement depended on entirely innate abilities. On the contrary, success results from doing lots of little things in the right way at the right time. For this reason, students who struggle in school may not be dealing with an inability to understand a subject. Most poor performance results from a lack of accountability. In order to succeed, students need to maintain accountability to themselves, their teachers, and their support systems. What does academic accountability look…