The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups.
All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot —albeit a perfect one—to get an “A”.
Grading time rolled along, and a curious fact emerged.
The works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection. And in the end, had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
— Art and Fear: Chapter 3
You didn't expect the twist in the tale, did you?
You didn't expect the people involved in quantity to get better, did you?
And yet we've seen it time and time again in Psychotactics courses. The ones who do exceedingly well, aren't necessarily the most brilliant. Or even the most hardworking.
They're just people who understand momentum.
Who understand that the brain learns through layers.
That if you add to what you learned yesterday, your brain will be a little smarter.
And then you add a lot of layers, and what you get is a really talented brain.
Personal Experience: When we started out Psychotactics we had only five pages online. And we kept adding page after page. Now you do the math. If you add only 20 pages a month for 12 months, how many pages do you get? And then do the same addition (or multiplication over six years). Yup, that 6 x 240 🙂
One page at a time.
So what are you going to do?
Build a quality pot? Or make pots in quantity?
Great story! It sure brings home the point that you shouldn’t waste excessive time obsessing about the details. It’s more important to just do it!
@Shama: Oh I can imagine. I started out playing badminton three-four months ago. I couldn’t even hit the shuttle over the net. Four months later, I’ve gone from “useless” to “C” grade–and qualified to “B” grade.
“A” grade isn’t far away 🙂
Years ago Karl Popper coined a slogan — “We should make mistakes as fast as possible.” Perfectionism belongs to the ethos of grammar school and college where 100% is considered desirable. Knowledge grows through correction of error. (See K. Popper “Criticism and the growth of knowledge.)
Learning to make something and making something well are not the same thing. If you ask 2 learned potters to do the same thing as in your story, you will get entirely different results. Making 10 pots in one hour will produce 10 crappy pots. Making 1 pot in an hour will produce 1 very nice pot.
Also, there is a talent and intelligence to factor in. An idiot with shaky hands will never reproduce a decent work of art compared to an intelligent person with agile hands (given the same environment and time frames).
Um, your post has lots of points, so let’s take them one at a time.
1) Two potters getting different results:
Yes, that’s true. Two potters will get different results. But are we comparing the potters? No we’re not. We’re simply talking about moving forward. Of improvement. Most of us are very stuck on becoming Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. We can’t wrap our heads around improvement. If we improve by 5% or 10% in our own skills, we’ve improved. We don’t need to become a Michael Jordan.
And yes, based on the abilities, the two potters will make different pots. And of varying quality.
This is true, but only if you take one hour into consideration. If the same two potters worked over a month, for instance, the learning for the potter who made more pots would be better than the person who simply focused on one pot.
This is because to make 100 pots, you’d have to make a lot of mistakes. And the brain learns over time, and not immediately. In fact, the brain needs time to work things out. Which is where dreaming and time out comes into play.
In an hour, the person who makes one pot will certainly come out on top. In a month, the person who makes 100 pots will come out on top.
Yes there is. If we are on the same page as regards to talent and intelligence. These are two big words that requires a lot of explanation.
You may find some of the posts here (over 35 of them) on the Myth of Talent at http://www.brainaudit.com/blog
Smoke pot, not make pot…
Welllll, that’s a unique view 🙂
The key to all this is “learning” part.
If you read outliers and talent is overrated then you’ll know what i’m talking about. The difference is between practicing a particular skills and having instant feedback (the pot looks awful etc)
So in this example, the person doing the 100 pot won’t necessarily be successful. He must be really engaged in practicing a particular skill in pot making..maybe how to make the shape symmetrical and then practice a lot on that…each time learning from feedbacks.
This is a very new science so I might be wrong too 🙂
Good article sean
I have read both the books already.
The feedback definitely helps. That’s not the point.
But even the act of sheer momentum makes a big difference.
Look at the cartoons on this blog. I’ve been drawing cartoons for about 20 years.
And yet see the difference in the cartoons in November and those in February of 2009.
I didn’t take any classes, didn’t get any feedback, and yet the brain is able to take an old brain map and create a whole new brain map.
I was surprised at the improvement, when I wasn’t even trying to improve.
And of course, you can see the improvement for yourself.
So yes, momentum alone has made the change.
But you must also remember that momentum alone is not working.
As we do stuff, our brain layers new information every day (and night) and though we may never get any direct feedback, we still are improving our ability.
And if you simply get on a bicycle and pedal away–without any feedback–your brain will resolve the balance issue over a few days/weeks.
Will feedback make the process faster? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the person giving the feedback. And how they give it. And when they give it.
So yes, it’s pretty complex.
The science is not new. The science of learning is old.
We’ve just avoided issues like momentum, and put all our faith in talent. Which is the biggest problem of all.
🙂
Yay!! When I finally get into pottery I’ll make mass quantities as fast as I can. And I will be good!