Here I am eating my sack lunch in the gym of a local independent school and I have been so inspired this morning that I am taking my lunch break to share. (And I know if I don't do it now, I will let it go for a month and then something else will come up.)I have been able to connect my flamenco experience directly to the talks I just heard by Sal Khan of Khan Academy, and Dr. Tae, physicist and avid skateboarder who uses skateboard examples to make his points about education. I have been able to do much the same with flamenco. Mindset, deliberate practice, and flow are the main concepts he touched upon to present ideal learning: Your mindset has to be one of growth, that admits talent is overrated (the title of a book he referenced and recommended) and anything can be achieved with work; your practice must be deliberate and focused on what you really need to improve because "feel good" practice doesn't actually improve your work; and you need to experience moments of complete focus when the work just happens almost in a time vacuum where you are deeply challenged but totally dedicated to the challenge and feel some sense of progress or success. These are all concepts fundamental to school and to doing art.
