The English Teacher Blog
Fleetwood Mac and Meaningful Learning
Monday, June 29th by Carla
What does the history of the 70s rock band Fleetwood Mac have to do with the future of American education?
According to Malcolm Gladwell, at least 3 things. Gladwell, author of Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, gave the opening keynote address at the NECC conference Sunday night. He used the band as a case study in what he called “meaningful learning.”
Many people don’t know that Rumours, one of the best-selling albums of all time, was actually Fleetwood Mac’s 16th record. The band had been together 10 years by that time, long enough to complete an apprenticeship period and gain some maturity. They had seen good times and bad, had seen 16 members come and go. They kept working at their music, and finally they were successful.
Gladwell used that idea to illustrate his first point: “When it comes to learning, what you get is a simple function of what you put in.” A big indicator of future success is the willingness to sit still and focus on the task at hand. The belief that talent is more important than effort is, he said, “a terrible approach to learning.”
His second point focused on how people deal with failure. The first 14 albums, he said, were a rocky road for Fleetwood Mac. They indicate, however, that there are 2 ways to achieve success. In the first way, which he called “capitalization,” people become successful by building on their strengths. The second way, which he called “compensation,” is when people compensate for their weaknesses. Gladwell said that compensation is harder and it yields more failures, but when someone who compensates achieves success, it is a more powerful success.
Trying harder, he reiterated, is more important than innate ability. Compensation builds self-reliance. He encouraged the audience to have respect for the difficulties people overcome and wondered, “How can we create constructive disadvantages” in order to help students learn.
For his third point, Gladwell encouraged the audience not to confuse failing and learning.
During the early years of Fleetwood Mac, not only were they improving as a band, but they were also experimenting with different styles of music. They began as a blues band and tried a couple of other styles before they came to California and developed the sound that lead to their success. A lot of trial and error was involved, but it wasn’t wasted: they were learning. “Sometimes,” he said, “the struggle to learn is where the actual learning lies.”
He closed with a challenge to educators to use their energy, enthusiasm, and creativity to make learning meaningful for students everywhere.
http://www.enotes.com/blogs/english-...gful-learning/