I have recently been reading the new book by the author of Blink. In it the author argues that 10,000 hours of practice in one skill before early adulthood is necessary for world-class mastery of that skill. That is, name the best athlete, the best artist, the best musician – the best at any human endeavor that requires focus, practice, and skill – then (he argues) that person likely had 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 20.  (10,000 hours of practice after adulthood evidently is not adequate in the author’s mind.)

All of the figures he uses in his case studies came of age in the era before video games, the internet, and smart phones. (I have just been watching Frontline about the effects of technology and multitasking and doing a lot of nodding in agreement.) Mind, there have always been distractions and reasons not to apply oneself ... and there is something a bit abnormal in putting so much - into just one thing - so young. However, now I am worried: if the author is even half right where will our next generation of highly accomplished cultural figures come from? If you put 10,000 hours into a video game or online chatting or email (I have done some of all three and can speak somewhat to their charms) what have you learned that is portable – that is eternal? That will contribute to human civilization in 1,000 years?

(This is what I get for studying the humanities.)

I remember when I entered High School, one teacher gave us A Talk on how we should not be talking so much on the telephone, on putting off social activities in favor of our studies, on turning off the radio and studying in a quiet room with a bright light, a clean desk, and a hard straight-backed chair (rather than on a made bed or in an easy chair in the living room.) High School was the big leagues, the foundation of our future, and deserved a new care and seriousness &c.
 
I think teachers have always fought to make teenagers (and all students) apply themselves with due diligence but the skill of learning how to do one thing at a time has served me well. (Indeed there are entire contemplative traditions devoted to this as a science.) I do not think that skill will ever go out of fashion, and I think the ability to think about (and write or design or build or enact) complex things, at length, continuously, over a long period of time also will never go out of fashion.

I remember being a teenager and thinking I could do two things at once – and the discovery that, no, when I only did one thing with all my attention I truly did better at whatever I meant to do (with practice) — and it truly got easier. Unlike the thought in the technology-saturated schools profiled on Frontline, I think kids have no trouble learning to do five things at once (or to do a little bit of five different things and think they are doing each competently – it is easy to lie to ourselves (see the Mythbusters episode of cell phones and driving)) – but I wish to teach them to do one thing at a time. They may forget all of the Four Noble Truths, all of the Five Pillars of Islam, the name of every character in the Bhagavad Gita, and the names of any of the four Gospels ... and they may (by some miracle) live in a world where no knowledge of any religion is necessary ... but if they can do one thing, in one sitting, for a minimum of two or three continuous, undistracted hours at a time (especially as part of the same endeavor carried over weeks and years) then I have done the least of my job.

(On Frontline one of the proponents of new technology argued that books have been the way we did things (replacing the oral culture of memorization and reciting) 'for a couple of centuries'.  I winced for his teachers:  try tens of centuries.  (A bit longer (in the West) if you mean writing as primarily as governmental record keeping, a bit shorter if you mean writing as a transmitter of religion, culture, and literature.  For most of that time oral and visual culture did most of the heavy lifting:  universal literacy is a very recent innovation.  As someone who spends most of her time trying to trace the history of people who could not write (or were not important enough for bigwigs to write about) I worry our new digital era will be just as ephemeral as the old oral culture often was.  What modern microserfs blog may be just as gone in 2,000 years as the opinions, ideas, and dreams of the Emperor Augustus' unlettered slaves.  I don't like that:  preserved, decipherable writing is too important to history.)

-Kushana, who, after watching Frontline, has a great wish to read a moderately long book in one sitting.  Or I have not memorized a poem in a long time ... perhaps I should begin to work on one.  I have had - for years - a list that I have meant to memorize ....