Talent Is Overrated--Part Three

In Parts One and Two, we explored how providing all members of an organization--not just an elite few--with models of excellence followed by deliberate practice moves the entire school upward in achievement. We also discussed how we are able to push ourselves to greater levels of performance by continually examining how our instructional practices influence our students' achievement.

In Part Three, we need to identify exactly how we can improve our performance as educators, and by extension how we can help our students grow as learners.

Colvin states in his book Talent Is Overrated that, "the most important self-regulatory skill that top performers use during their work is self-observation."  Top performers in all fields--sports, business, industry, and education--never blame external forces for a lack of results, but look to themselves and how their methods/strategies/habits should change in the future for better results.

For example, let's say a teacher is compiling end-of-quarter grades for the new freshmen, and notices that students' performance is much lower for this group than last year's freshmen.  What separates a top performing teacher from a poor or mediocre teacher?

A low-performing teacher's self-speak (or worse yet, he/she says these things aloud in the lounge) includes statements such as:

• "If they'd just pay better attention during lecture..."
• "Well, they warned me this group has always been low achieving..."
• "Tomorrow I'm implementing more rules..."
• "I guess some of these kids will just take it again next year..."
• "What do I expect?  These kids' parents were the same when I had them in school..."

On the other hand, a top-performing teacher (or aide, or principal, or any other person who works with students) has a different voice, and says things to his/herself that focus not on the end product, but on identifying the weak points in the process that led to these results, then on specific methods to improve on those elements for next time:

• "These grades should be higher, and I notice that the boys performed better in labs than the girls.  How can I change my instruction to address this discrepancy?"
• "A lack of content vocabulary is probably the key to some of these low grades.  I should have spotted this earlier--this quarter I'll change my quizzes so I will know much more quickly how they're doing."
• "Formative assessments.  I need to monitor these students' ups and downs more closely, and the best way to do that is to change up the routine and create shorter, more frequent assessments so we keep our eye on the ball."

Notice that the low- to mediocre-performing educator is a blamer:  whatever goes wrong is due to factors beyond his/her control.  In their mind this provides an excuse to keep doing what they're doing (even though it's not working well) by identifying a scapegoat for less-than-desirable performance.

The high-performing educator, on the other hand, focuses improvement strategies where they belong:  on him/herself.  Not on outside factors beyond his/her control (poverty, student behaviors, parental influences, building policies), but instead focuses his/her efforts where the most rapid and substantial change can occur:  within his/her own practices and behaviors.