I just checked my NPR newsfeed on Google Reader. What is posted there is usually fascinating and almost always interesting. NPR seems to find the quirky news of the nation and world, whereas the other major, network newsfeeds dwell on the minutiae of the famous and infamous. I can live without listening to the regurgitation of last night's Oscar Award ceremony over and over.
As I scrolled through the NPR science feed, I came upon one that featured the science of habit formation. As a teacher, this is a topic that was drilled home to me on many occasions, either in SIP day (School-Improvement) sessions, back-to-school staff rah-rah assemblies or graduate courses. As a band director, this topic would have (and did, as I read the article) elicited a "duh".
A book, titled The Power of Habit, has been written by one Charles Duhigg (last name much to close to the word for that-which-I-cannot-remember-the-name-of - duhicky). In his book, Duhigg explores cutting-edge research into the neuroscience of habit formation.
This is not news to me, or any other music teacher - vocal or instrumental - worth his or her salt. We band directors have always known how to form a musical habit - good or bad. It is an eight-letter word that I discussed daily in my bandroom: PRACTICE. True, you can practice incorrectly and by doing so you form incorrect electrical impulse pathways from your fingers to your brain. If a person (student) is not careful with practice, the time is spent "de-proving" instead of improving. By practicing a passage (or any skill, for that matter) correctly, electrical impulse pathways are formed that will help to guarantee accuracy of performance.
PRACTICE: It is a highly underrated use of time for many students, whether they are musicians, athletes, thespians, culinarians (yes, it is a word), poets, young, old or anywhere inbetween. As far as I am concerned, about the only skill I can think of that may or may not benefit from practice is math. In my world you either get it or you don't........and I didn't. Therefore all of the time I spent working math problems in most grades, including integrated geometry as a junior in high school, was a flat-out waste of time. No amount of practicing in the world was going to help me with math. As a matter of fact, all of those math problems that I got wrong acted only as negative practice, creating negative electrical impulse pathways to my brain.
This explains a lot. Mr. Duhigg should give me a call.
Ancora imparo
