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by openknot
1584 days ago
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>I like to use the phrase "practice makes permanent" - not "practice make perfect", cause every instructor disagrees, and not "perfect practice makes perfect" because perfection is subjective and a fool's errand. In a nutshell, whatever you do in practice will be what you do in application. This is a great view. To add to this from a learner's perspective, though I'm not a professional educator (thanks for sharing your perspective as one): I've found that the ideas about worrying about "perfect practice" to be intimidating, especially as I've struggled with a 'perfectionist' tendency that causes procrastination and hesitation to attempt any practice at all. People are wary of learning something wrong, then having to re-learn it, but I think that's a far better problem than delaying or avoiding learning something at all (with quality instruction, it's unlikely one can practice too far from the ideal; and even if that happens, it's not the end of the world. When attempting to learn, I try to remember the following quote from a webpage shared on HN a while back [0]: "Stay calm. Remember, you can’t become worse off than when you started." [0] https://devjac.dev/posts/2021-05-29-my-personal-creed-of-emp... |
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Yup! I refer to this an "analysis paralysis" (a lot of my terms I'm stealing from martial arts). In essence, I freak out trying to fix my car because there are so many parts and I don't want to get it wrong, so I just... "don't". This is why we pay professionals the big bucks, but from a learning perspective, I think its what causes many people to abandon attempting something. They are scared to mess up, end up messing up, and leave due to feeling like a failure.
If, on the other hand, you can have an environment that supports experimentation and failure, and provides feedback on that failure, there will be less chance for abandoning the skill. This can be orchestrated through a combination of practice and a positive social network within the skill (peer mentors, growth mindset instructors, etc.). While persistence/perseverance/grit is still being researched, I think the social aspect can help strengthen it as well because you have a vested interest in succeeding and helping peers succeed.
"Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something" ~Jake the Dog