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> kids aren't motivated to do boring math drills, because they don't see why it matters to their life (the real answer is: it does not, they are not wrong). Mo

> kids aren't motivated to do boring math drills, because they don't see why it matters to their life (the real answer is: it does not, they are not wrong). Most kid athletes are also not self-motivated to run laps, or do boring repetitive drills, when they know from experience that these activities help them win games within the next few months. Usually need a coach to force them to do them. Same for young music players. Practicing scales endlessly does make you a better musician. But they won't do it till forced. The primary reason kids don't like running laps or playing scales or doing math drills is because they are boring.

nsagent 2y ago
Reminds me of a recent podcast with Staša Gejo [1], a top competition climber. She basically says the same thing. At times she hated being told to do drills growing up, but really valued that later because as a kid she sometimes didn't feel like doing the hard work necessary for the outcomes she desired. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hg4jPdMnPyE&t=995 https://youtube.com/watch?v=hg4jPdMnPyE&t=995
seabass-labrax 2y ago
> Practicing scales endlessly does make you a better musician. But they won't do it till forced. The value of such exercises, or any other drill-based curriculum, must be measured with its opportunity cost. If you practise scales for an hour a day, you can indeed reliably expect to be better at your musical instrument, but it could very well be that the same hour spent on improving another skill (sight-reading, articulation etc.) would make you considerably better still at your instrument. I think it might be more generally useful to say that, in order to develop well-rounded competency in a given field, one should expect to sometimes have to perform boring drills.