Design is the application of intent – the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident.
— Robert L. Peters
More on the way of the world as seen through books… I finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Incredibly interesting read… but the last section is one that really stuck out. THe premise of the book is that people that truly excel had more than tenacity and skill… they had a special opportunity presented to them that they took advantage of. We saw last week (in this and this-and this new one you might find interesting) that you already have this opportunity to jump in on the digital publishing revolution. You are at the place to be a huge player in the new design world of a paperless society. So you have the special opportunity. You have the tools available to you that many schools don’t. But throughout the book there were also 2 important concepts that you should be aware of:
1. The 10,000 hour theory- IT takes 10,000 hours to truly excel at something. This reminds me of a story I heard about a world-renown violinist:
“A famous violinist was approached by a woman who gushed, ‘Oh, dear, you’re amazing!!! I’d give my life to play like you do.’ The violinist responded simply, ‘Madam, I did. When you were playing with your classmates I was practicing. When you had birthday parties I was learning new songs. When you were on vacation I was practicing scales. I did give my life to play the way I do.’”
10,000 hours is 3 hours a day (20 hours a week) for 10 years. That’s what it takes to become truly amazing… like a pro athlete, a Bill Gates, a rock star, a world famous actor. If you want to stand apart from everyone else, you have to do something that stands apart from everyone else… you have to commit to your plan of action and your course. Research shows that there is no evidence of “Natural Talent.” Talent is a myth. All there is are people with incredible passion who dedicate themselves to a single purpose and never stop. That’s what it takes. Any of you can be whatever you want if you start right now completely dedicating yourselves to something and don’t quit. You WILL be rewarded for your investment.
2. Cultural Impact on Individuals. It is important to note how cultural ideas and norms affect the individual. One example was how Asian cultures tend to be more successful than others. This was traced back to the practice of rice farming in asian cultures where the work needed to be a successful rice farmer was incredibly more demanding than most other agricultural crops worldwide. So instead of having a saying like a particular Russian saying”we plant and god brings the crops,” Asian cultures have sayings like “the man who wakes up before sunrise 360 days a year will make his family wealthy.” Can you see the difference? One says just plant and it’s up to God if you’re successful. The other says work hard, don’t quit, and you’ll be successful. The typical American will spend 3 minutes on a problem they can’t solve. The typical asian will spend 20 minutes on a problem he can’t solve… Which do you think will have a better chance of figuring it out??? I’ll bet you guessed right, the one that works almost 700% harder! Even if the two people have exactly equal intellect and life experiences, one has a 700% better chance of stumbling on to the right track just by sticking to it!
The bottom line is that people are better because they don’t quit. Some students just last week told me from their chairs in the front of the room while I was still lecturing on logo design that they couldn’t come up with a good logo and had no good ideas of a logo for their initials. I hadn’t even given the assignment yet, and some students actually told me they couldn’t do it before even having the assignment given to them. They quit before they even started! They hadn’t sketched a single mark on a sheet of paper and already told me that they “had bad initials” or “didn’t have any good ideas left.” Wow. You guys have got to start before you quit. If you want to know why people lose and fail, it’s for this attitude. “It’s too hard.” “I don’t get it.” “I’m not creative.” “I need help.” What you need is to try harder and work before you quit. I’m not sure how to put this, but being a non-starter is the ultimate loser in any game… you don’t even get participation points! They lose before they even start. They can’t be called quitters because a quitter has to quit something they’re doing… At least they gave it a shot and tried. Don’t give up on yourself. Try. There is no such thing as failure, there is only quitting too soon.
We have been talking about the Design Process this year and how important it is. CLICK THIS LINK and read about the design process. Make sure you understand it! The process is the secret to success. There is no such thing as losing, only quitting- when it comes to design. This process will teach you how to keep going. What to do and how to do it. Most good designers plan even longer than they work. When I create a logo, I spend 3 hours or so designing, thinking, experimenting, refining, etc… And maybe an hour actually creating on the computer. Same with web design or a page layout… I’ll spend 2-4 times the amount of time planning and then a short time implementing. It’s easy to implement a good plan! It’s all done for you! No extra work of spending time designing something on Illustrator that will never work. I already have the idea drawn and I just copy myself from paper to pixel. THAT is why I’m better than most of you and definitely faster. It’s because I’ve planned it out so well.
And, by this time in my life, I definitely have about 5,000 -6,000 hours of design in (but well over 10,000 hours of teaching and designing lessons!)
So for today’s quest, I expect you to read the design process page, and then write a story- or even better, ILLUSTRATE the design process using images or even by cartoons showing someone solving a problem, illustrating each step of the process. (for example, a caveman figuring out how to move a rock). I want this done on paper!!! Draw me a cartoon illustrating all the points of the design process!!!You can also opt to create a visual representation of the process in logo/symbol form. The highest score on this quest will go to good ideas, NOT to good drawings! I’m not grading artistic talent, I’m grading THOUGHT PROCESSES!!
See the image at the top of this post??? I want to replace it with student work that describes the design process in illustrations, the illustrations can be either abstract or concrete. (examples of what I mean by illustrating a process can be found here, here and here) (WORTH 10XP)
Today’s journal entry should be your reflections on what you think about the concept of not giving up and how that affects success… How often do you give up? What is the primary reason people give up? What do you think about the idea that the people that win are the ones that don’t quit so fast? Do you take responsibility for your own failures or do you blame it on fate, talent, skill, education, status, unfairness, etc??? (Worth 5XP)
Update 9/8- When you’re done, start working on SCENARIO 1.01! Learn about the Elements and Principles. The assignment says to create this on the computer right now, but I’ll go in to change it to a paper based project. Research the E&P’s and define and demosntrate them on a paper folded into fourths. (Worth 10XP)
Electricians in today working on the lab. That kind of throws us off but keeps the fires (yes, outsiders, literal fires) from sparking in the lab. Crazy that this relatively new school and amazing lab has such issues, but problem will be solved by next Tuesday. I’ve marked the quests with green XP values, but that will not happen for long. YOU ARE EXPECTED TO READ THE BLOG AND FOLLOW WHAT IT SAYS. Read, comprehend, and move on. I write it, you just have to read it… that was our deal.
Update 9/9- Done with the above? NICE! If you’ve done all your work well you’ve earned 25XP! Pretty sure you’ll level up at 100 XP from novice to apprentice (still figuring out the points)! So when you’re done, I’d like you to move on to PROJECT 1.02- experimenting with the Elements of line. This will be worth 15XP if done correctly… and we’ll talk about how to qualify your points next week. (I’m figuring out how to make it easier.) I know we are short on computers because of the electrical work going on in the lab… so if you want, you can do the assignment on paper- folding the paper instead of using the rulers to make the divisions on the page.
I don’t give up often, if a situation ever does occur that I give up, it’s because whatever im giving up on has become so overwhelming that I have to quit because it would seem that it would be more beneficial to me to not continue. In my opinion most people give up because something is to difficult and they no longer wish to try. I agree with the statement that “people that win are the ones that don’t quit so fast”. People that refuse to give up on something no matter how difficult it is, are the ones that will excel at it. Especially if you are a firm believer of the 10,000 hour rule.
I hardly give up on stuff. The primary reason people give up is because they are either lazy or they live in fear of failure. I believe in the idea that winners don’t quit so fast. I don’t always take responsibility on my own failures, unfortunately.
Ahh… but you’re ahead of your peers by recognizing it! The unfortunate thing would be if you blamed your history, race, money, luck, or anything else! Accepting responsibility for your failures, EVEN WHEN ELEMENTS ARE NOT YOUR FAULT is the key to ending up in the winners’ circle.
Ya this is a good entry but sadly I have nothing to debate, we seem to be in total agreement(for once). The only comment I have is that the Asian vs American thing was a huge generalization, I think and hope that there are plenty of Americans willing to spend more then 3 minutes working through a problem.
Unfortunately, the asian vs american thing is not a huge generalization… it’s the result of a study. Actually, borne out in multiple studies… I’ll try to get the stats for it in the original articles. My experience is that Successful americans spend more than 3 minutes- but look around you in school. In class, has there ever even been 5 minutes of silence after a teacher asks a hard question? I’ll bet within 30 seconds the teachers make it easier by rephrasing the question or attacking from another side, or guiding the students by modeling the questions that should be asked. Therefore, students think that 30 seconds to 3 minutes is a HUGE time frame to just be stumped. But in actuality, it’s a norm.
“In class, has there ever even been 5 minutes of silence after a teacher asks a hard question? I’ll bet within 30 seconds the teachers make it easier by rephrasing the question or attacking from another side.” – This is too true. It makes me itch when a teacher can see the frustration in our(students) faces, and decides to just tell the class the process/answer rather then giving us the time to think it through. Honestly, if we (the students) were given the time to work it out on our own, then we would learn better because the whole, “30 seconds – You know it or you don’t before I tell you,” isn’t very effective with teaching. Also, that alone is what is killing the average person’s ability to have critical thinking. Teachers don’t allow students to express their ideas, and at the same time, they don’t give them the time to THINK of anything before they continue. There are PLENTY of people out there, whose mental power is going to waste because they aren’t being exposed to an open environment where they have to figure out the steps, and solve an issue within the problem, just to find an answer.
It’s not just in school though. In the real world, adults are becoming reliant on others and technology to solve their problems, therefore impeding their ability to be resourceful, and think critically for themselves.
Isn’t that what will help us find solutions to ANY problem? Just simply learning how to THINK for ourselves? I mean, anyone can make a quick general assumption, but how often will someone really THINK about possibilities, processes, AND consequences?
I agree with numbers 1 and 2 completely. When a skill is in high demand, you have to work on the said skill for people to want your services(Fishing, playing a certain sport, ect.). Spending free time developing said skills will lead to your skills to be the most wanted. The combination of the two would lead to you becoming a master of the art.
Welcome to the blog, McPoyle!
I try not to give up on every chance i get. however if the project it self is too overwhelming for me alone i try and ask some help from friends.most people give up when they are afraid of failing,but the one’s that don’t give up have something to drive them to do better even if it seems difficult.
Castillo- Asking friends for input is part of the process… it just should happen after you’ve given yourself some time to think on your own. But never feel like collaborating is quitting!! It’s the thing that helps you move forward faster! Like the song says, “I get by with a little help from my friends…” Just don’t cheat yourself by leaning on others before it’s time… but leaning on others is definitely part of the design process. Researching is “asking” what others have discovered already!
Brandon, that’s an interesting seque into the concepts I learned in the book Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. It talked about how there was a ton of resistance to kids learning reading and writing because it would let them stop remembering things and using their brains. Sound familiar to the technology argument? I don’t think technology has to be a limiting factor for anyone, but the bottom line is that most people try to make things easier on themselves. The only way to grow is to make things harder on yourself and continue to challenge yourself.
The biggest problem with everyone is that they quit too early, and everyone quits at different parts of the process… Most “advanced” students stop too early in the brainstorming process and don’t come up with a great idea before they start working. Others stop too early in the research and investigation stage and don’t really learn what they need to do to implement their plan. Others stop too early in the modeling step and don’t work on the quality of the work.
It’s pretty easy to tell WHERE in the problem solving process people give up based on their final designs. But in my experience, it’s 80% of the time in the brainstorming process… they simply give up thinking of different ideas to find the best one and then work really hard on a really average idea. No way to ever take that to greatness- no matter how hard you work.