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You cherry-picked my post to make a point that counters something that I did not mean to say.

I was saying that the way many males think is not necessarily a disadvantage for many things, including playing the piano very well.

I was not saying that men have an ADVANTAGE over women. There are several women pianists who are among my favorites, one being Argerich. That said, from everything I have read Argerich might have fallen into the "ADD" label had she chosen a different career. The very things that are strengths are often labeled as weaknesses. That was my main point, not male vs. female.

No argument from me, but that was never my point.

Again, you are turning this into male vs. female. You can continue this if you like, but please not with me. It it is not my point. I have no "dog in this fight".

Yuja Wang, not Wong, who is also one of my favorite.

I agree with your points. But I'm not sure why you are making them to me. <confused>

I will try to resurrect a few thoughts from the article I read unfortunately too long ago.

The idea (I think) (just continue inserting parenthetical caveats) (except keystring of course! <g>) is that a certain amount of dedication to piano, or baseball, or anthing else, makes cost/benefit sense. An hour a day, say, will yield benefits in terms of skill development, self discipline, fun, feelings of accomplishment, etc. You'd just waste that hour watching reality TV anyway. Well, I wouldn't, I'd read a book. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. But I digress.

But that level of committment will never get you close to performance levels. Mastery requires a singleminded obsession that borders on autism, and requires significant sacrifice in most other areas of life.

Of those who do so, only a tiny percent really succeed. You have two factors: likelihood of success, and return on investment IF you succeed. (the world's best quarterback is paid pretty well; the world's best dart thrower not. Piano is closer to darts. )

So from a cost/benefit analysis, it makes little sense to put in effort when likelihood of success is low and payback is also low.

Vastly oversimplified, the theory is that girls are smart enough to make that calculation while boys are not, particularly if the activity seems to be a game or hobby.

Ok, that is an hypothesis. It is not the same thing as knowing that women made such a decision, and for such a reason. In fact, I don't think that was the case.

Your cost/benefit may have a different application however. Did parents and teachers bother to invest in girls?

That's not a simple question at all, is it? Even aside from cultural and generational biases.

I have only girls, so I don't know personally. On the surface it wouldn't have made a difference to me.

But, how many fathers spend hour after hour playing catch with their boys? Probably most. How many spend hours playing piano duets with their girls?

And there's an interaction. Boys will nag their fathers to come out and play ball. Girls, not so much. I always encouraged my girls to do various activities, sports and others, but when they resisted I didn't push it. Guess I'm not a tiger dad.

In sports, boys understand the need to perfect skills away from practice, even those who are just dabblers. I think that's a kind of collective mindset that's passed on. I've seen far less of that happen with girls. Maybe that's getting better. When Ronda beat Liz via armbar Saturday, you know there were thousands of hours of gym time for both.

I just want to clarify a few things. Michael99, I am thinking specifically about one of my students who happens to have severe ADHD and this is not something I have 'suspected' this is something that his parents told me about when I started teaching him. I just wanted to get the ball rolling in terms of what other teachers have found to be effective, so I could try new things. I'd like to develop this boys ability in technique and reading music but it is difficult to get him to sit down for more than a few minutes. I have worked with this though - I have broken up the lesson into chunks and not all the work as at the piano, I get him to tap, conduct and clap rhythms. We play rhythm games too and he is fascinated with the metronome so I let him use it - he doesn't use it correctly, lately it has been more of a thing to set the tempo, not a bad start to using the metronome though.

I find that he doesn't like to try new things. He told me that he hates challenges because he never succeeds in them. This has become a challenge for me (HA!)... but I have found that he likes trying out new games, he just hates challenges, so I reword things and dress them up into games.

The longer I have been teaching him, the more I feel like I am growing as a teacher. I am relatively young, I haven't finished my undergraduate degree in music (yet) but the more weeks and months that go by, and the more advice I get from parents, teachers, psychologists, teachers aides, books, articles, etc... the more things I find to apply to my teaching. I can deal with tantrums a lot better these days.

AimeeO thanks for your insight, it was truly interesting to read. And I agree with Currawong, it was truly enlightening.

Marco M, I know that they are not stupid. This boy did an IQ test in one of his assessments and he did score very high. I find that with students in general - it helps to say things like "How could you make that better? Where do you think you can fix that?" rather than "That was wrong. Do it again." Asking them questions gets them to think... Bleeping the word wrong out completely is also wrong to me, sometimes it is easier to be simple, particularly when you are dealing with young children "was that right or wrong?" but every student is different.

I do want to also implement a few things. I wanted to employ some music therapy techniques into my teaching. There is a link with ADHD and anxiety, and so in very angsty/angry moments, I have time out time ... I intend to play soothing music during time out time. It's a work in progress, haven't tried it yet.

Just a point of information, which you may know already.

"Time out" is the shortened version of two different concepts, and to be effective you need to be aware of the difference.

"Time out from reinforcement" and "time out from stimulation" are not the same thing. Time out from reinforcement is the more commonly used in most settings, but for an ADHD person it may need to be the other. If so, you'll need to be very alert. What is soothing to you may be stimulating to them, and increase the behavior you didn't want.

I've never seen the pop psychology articles make this distinction, but anyone who works in the field knows.

To be able to see ideas in context, do you work in the field?

By the way, I don't work in the field either - I'm a trained teacher with some training in LD's but on a psychologist - but I agree with what you wrote. "Soothing music" can drive some people bonkers because their needs are indeed opposite. I know someone who needs fast, rhythmic music (which drives me insane) and finds it calming.

No, I don't work in the field.

I worked 4 years in corrections, 8 years in mental hospitals, and a year part time in a college counseling center, and completed the coursework but not dissertation for a graduate degree in Clinical Psychology (Univ of Wisconsin). My first undergrad degree, from Notre Dame, was in Psychology.

Then I changed my mind, retrained, and have been a mechanical engineer the past 22 years.

Does that help with the context?

If I live long enough, I'm thinking about a third career. Haven't decided what yet.

And no, I don't think I'm ADHD myself, but I probably have some features.

I'm pretty sure I would have been diagnosed as Asperger's when I was a child, but that didn't really hit the news until 1981, way too late for me.

Yes, it does actually. We get people who have read books, people who philosophize, and then people who have some kind of practical experience with or without training. So knowing what kind of background someone is coming from does help to weigh the words. Thank you.

I do.

In practice, either the surface of either timeout procedure looks very similar. The big difference is what is happening in the minds of the adults in the environment.

Timeout from stimulation: Adults believe that the child is overstimulated and things will improve if the level of stimulation is decreased. The child is moved from an environment of greater stimulation to an environment of lesser stimulation by either moving the child or altering the environment. Adults expect improvement as soon as the level of stimulation becomes optimal.

Timeout from positive reinforcement: Adults believe that all behavior is maintained by reinforcement. Removing a child from sources of reinforcement will result in a decrease in the rate, frequency, or intensity of the behavior that immediately preceded the reinforcement. In this case, the adults must be keeping a record of the kid's behavior, because if the behavior does not change, it is not an effective procedure.

Either way, if a kid is goofing off in class, dropping his materials and poking his neighbor, an adult may ask him to move to the hall. Depending on the adult's frame of mind this could be either kind of timeout described above, or it could be that the adult is annoyed and wants a break from the kid for a while and doesn't expect any improvement in behavior.

It may not be obvious, but if the adult allows himself to become annoyed, or allows himself to show it, the interaction will normally become reinforcing even if the procedures seem to be followed correctly. You have to be calm an neutral to make these work, and if you aren't, fake it 'till you make it.

Actually, I wonder if sometimes stating the feeling rather than hiding or faking it might be better. When someone in a position of authority is wonderfully calm on the surface but seething underneath, it creates a spooky atmosphere. Hypersensitive individuals in particular will pick up on that, and I guess that young people would be more sensitive (?).

My preference would be to explain how to not have the inappropriate feeling in the first place.

But the resistance to this approach is enormous. People LOVE to be irritated, annoyed, or angry. It is very reinforcing.

If you can't do either (remove the feeling or hide it perfectly) then perhaps working with special needs kids is not for you.

Feelings exist. It is important to be aware of your feelings. "Not having feelings" is unrealistic. But being aware of them and dealing with/working with them is another option. Re: people "loving" to be irritated, angry etc. - that is the adrenaline factor which makes anger a drug for some people. That is not what I'm talking about. In any case, having worked as a trained teacher in the area of learning disabilities, I don't have to wonder whether it is "for me". Irritation actually did not go into it. Correction: irritation at some of the stupidity these kids were exposed to in the name of education did sometimes come in.

I don't agree. Take responsibility for them.



Yes.

If you don't agree that feelings exist, then how can you say people should take responsibility for what doesn't exist? There must be a misunderstanding.

I don't agree that feelings exist as an external entity over which we have no control.

Feelings are actions that we perform, and can choose not to perform.

"a feeling came over me, and I had to do XXX, it wasn't my fault." That's a common way of avoiding responsibility.

"She made me so angry!" Nope. You chose to get mad at her actions, and could have chosen not to.

At what point did I talk about control?

I do not see feelings as actions. It is very possible to feel things without acting on them. You can feel sad without crying. You can feel angry yet not throw things.

Gee, that's not nice.