We’ve All Got Talent!
Grow your own myelin
A few weeks ago I was chatting at the stables with my friend Harriet, of The Horse Course, and exchanging notes about books we had just read. I thought she might enjoy Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and she recommended I read The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.
Harriet told me that Coyle’s book was about why hotspots of talent emerge — like in Florence during the Renaissance, or footballers in Brazil — and I would find it useful. I was about to start my new job setting up a new business for TES training teachers online. This book seemed like it might help, so I instantly downloaded it on to Kindle.
What I found was a highly readable fascinating insight into what makes us great at things.
It starts with neuroscience and the way that myelin wraps itself around our neural pathways. Myelin is like flexible broadband that grows where more capacity is needed to carry brain traffic quicker. This magic stuff grows the more it is needed, and so rewards repetition and practice.
For an awful stage I thought that maybe the hard core traditionalists were right, and that rote learning worked after all. Happily the reader then discovers the merits of deep practice, which is thoughtful, particular and engaged. And that engagement was down to ignition, to an inspirational moment or leader or coach.
Coyle’s discussion of coaching reinforced for me the extent to which there is more to be done to develop the skills of teachers as coaches learning. I am a big fan of Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy’s “A Rich Seam”, which argues that we need to move from teachers just delivering content (so that learners absorb as much as they can then recall in tests), to learning coaches within collaborative learning partnerships.
Crucially the coach is probably not the inspirational leader. The coach is the person who observes, who has experience and knowledge, who knows when to praise and when to push, who is direct and clear. These are the people we need guiding our learners, motivating them, drilling them and stretching them.
And like all the other talents discussed in the book, great coaching can be nurtured.
What if teachers could progress in their careers in other ways than school leadership. We need great leaders but we also need great teacher coaches. We currently combine the leadership of schools with the leadership of teaching. But is the inspirational leader with the big ego, also the right person to coach teachers to continually develop their practice?
Jim Knight writes in a personal capacity. He is MD, Online Learning at TES and a visiting professor at the London Knowledge Lab of the Institute of Education. He is a former UK schools minister and member of the House of Lords
