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Does Practice Make Perfect? A Guest Post by Vampirina at the Beach Author Anne Marie Pace
When I’m visiting schools as an author, I often ask kids what they practice. We build a long list easily. Whether it’s academic practice like math facts or spelling words, or after-school fun like dancing or tai kwon do, even kindergartners know that there are certain skills adults will want them to repeat until they become proficient—that is, they’ll be expected to practice. After all, practice makes perfect, right?
Some kids seem to understand practice intuitively, without much adult influence. From an early age, a friend spent her afternoons shooting free throws until her movements became fluid and her shots repeatedly hit the mark. No one told her to do it. She wanted it, she loved it, she did it. All that practice paid off when she signed to play basketball at a Big Ten university.
My character Vampirina exhibits a similar understanding. In revising the first Vampirina Ballerina book, I changed the first line from “If you wish to become a ballerina” to “if you are going to be a ballerina.” As I tell children when I visit their schools, wishes and dreams are important—if we don’t wish and dream, we can’t imagine our futures. So I didn’t change that line in order to devalue wishes. I changed it because Vampirina knows she must do more than wish; she needs to go after her dream with gusto. And there’s no getting around practice if you want to be a dancer. “Practice! Practice! PRACTICE!” she says emphatically.
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Me, I came to value practice in a different way—it was imposed upon me. I was ambivalent about piano lessons, but my mother was determined that I learn—so throughout my youth, practicing was a daily expectation, ticked off by a kitchen timer. Mostly I hated it. But through practice I grew from plinking out simple tunes in middle C position to playing Chopin waltzes. In spite of years of lessons, I’m no pianist. But that musical foundation provided what I needed to sing in a chamber group, which I do love. Furthermore, understanding that practice brings proficiency has served me well, whether I am learning to play the piano, make pie crust from scratch, or craft picture books.
I remain undecided about how hard a parent should push a child to practice. “Mom,” one of my daughters occasionally tells me, “if you had made me practice piano, I would actually be good by now.” I hear her. But what my daughter is good at are the things she chose to practice on her own. She can’t play Beethoven’s Für Elise, but she plays a mean game of rugby on an excellent college team. And that’s important, too. Ultimately, whether the motivation comes from within oneself or from without is perhaps less important than that the motivation exists.
Does practice makes perfect? I’m not a big believer in perfect. But practice certainly leads to proficiency and an appreciation for perseverance, a must for achieving satisfying outcomes. For Vampirina, that outcome is dancing (and in the new book, surfing!). What is that outcome for you?
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Vampirina says, “Practice, practice, practice!” We all need to practice sometimes. But how to best spend practice time? In working with kids, in parenting my own, and in practicing my own skills, I tend towards a moderate approach. Here are a few things I’ve found valuable:
Repetition: Practice IS repetition. Learn to recognize the sweet spot where skills can be built without practice overkill. A bit of frustration is normal and possibly even necessary for growth. Intense frustration means it’s time to switch gears.
Goal-setting. Since the repetition of practice can sometimes feel relentless, I’m a big fan of goal setting. You can set goals for time spent (practicing for fifteen minutes) or for accomplishments (memorizing that recital piece). Little goals work. “Someday you can play at Carnegie Hall” might work for some, but for many, it’s too far in the future. But “let’s practice this bit ten times” seems manageable. As Vampirina says, “It doesn’t matter if you take one giant leap or many tiny steps, as long as you are moving toward your goal.”
Break it down. Some skills can’t be mastered without first being broken into their constituent parts. In piano, for example, students often master the right hand and left hand separately, and then learn to play them together. Budding cooks learn to scramble eggs before they attempt custards.
Build it up. There are reasons ballet dancers learn pliés before pirouettes. New figure skaters learn to march on the ice before they attempt strokes and turns. Knitters learn to knit before they learn to purl and decrease. I wrote verse before I attempted rhyming picture books. Each step leads to the next.
Motivation. I’m not sure we can toss M&Ms to children every time they do something we find the tiniest bit laudable; but I also recognize that there are times when a modicum of external motivation can bring a bit of joy to the journey. M&Ms for kids, a cup of tea for me, your choice for you. Maybe a new book? Come to think of it, I’ll take the tea and the book.
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