📘 Part 3: Talents and Abilities

This episode's vocabulary

Natural Talent (noun phrase) – An ability you are born with. → Some people may have a natural talent for music or dance.

Predisposition (noun) – A tendency toward something. → Children might have a predisposition to excel in certain areas.

Focus (noun) – Concentration on a task. → Without focus, natural talent may not develop.

Formula One Driver (noun phrase) – A professional racing driver. → Being a natural-born Formula One driver is unlikely.

Invest (verb) – To put time or effort into something. → Investing time in lessons helps develop talent.

Practise (verb) – Repeatedly do something to improve. → Practise is essential to developing skill.

Detriment (noun) – Harm or damage. → Overtraining can be to the detriment of a child’s wellbeing.

Feasible (adjective) – Possible to do easily or conveniently. → It should be feasible for schools to support talent development.

Obscure (adjective) – Not well-known or common. → Schools might struggle to support obscure talents.

Niche (adjective) – Suitable for a specialized group. → Niche talents are harder for schools to support.

Wherewithal (noun) – Means or resources needed. → Without the wherewithal, parents cannot help develop talent.

Encourage (verb) – Give support or confidence. → Teachers and coaches encourage students to practise effectively.

Repetition (noun) – Doing something multiple times to improve. → Repetition is necessary for mastering a skill.

Feedback (noun) – Information on performance. → Good feedback helps students improve further.

Self-Awareness (noun) – Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. → Self-awareness helps guide talent development.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Do you think everyone is born with a natural talent?

Rory: They might have a natural predisposition or a general predisposition towards something like music or dance, since sound and movement pervade just about everything we do. But I'm not sure it gets more specific than that, without more focus. I mean, how could you be a natural-born Formula One driver? That doesn't make any sense.

Maria: How important is it for children to discover their talents at an early age?

Rory: I imagine the earlier you start, the more time you have to get good at something and invest time in lessons and practise. Yes, that is, assuming it all aligns with someone having a decent life and not going completely overboard with training to the detriment of everything else, if it's going to head in that direction at a young age, it seems better to wait, or you could ruin your life.

Maria: Should schools help students find and improve their natural talents?

Rory: Well, in as much as it's practical and feasible, yes. Schools tend to have limited budgets, so they might not be able to cater to more obscure and niche talents as fully as one might like. But if it's something that everyone can benefit from and the measures are cost-effective, it should be fine. I know that's a bit sad, since ideally everyone should be able to grow and develop in their own way, but it's important to be realistic about these things.

Maria: Do parents play a bigger role than teachers in developing a child's talent?

Rory: I'm not sure. The obvious answer seems like yes, because they spend more time with children, theoretically. But that's not the only factor at play here. We need to think about how interested parents are in their children, and if they have the means to help them develop. You could have the best parents in the world, but if you don't have the wherewithal to develop then you're not going to go very far in all likelihood, are you?

Maria: How can people be encouraged to develop their talents?

Rory: Well, the simple answer is through practise, but of course there's more to it than that. You need effective practise, so it's actually got to push you in the right direction, and you need sufficient practise that gives you enough time and repetition, and good feedback to build further too. There are lots of ways to do that. It could be with a teacher, or a coach, or by yourself, with good attention to detail and self-awareness.

Discussion

Maria: Yay, dear listener, if the topic of natural talents is a bit strange for you, so go online and Google it, or steal our ideas. But I think it's interesting to read about talents, natural talents, how to develop them. What's a talent? Are we born with certain talents? Is everyone talented or not? Rory, do you consider yourself talented?

Rory: No, not naturally. I'm a product of my upbringing as much as anyone else is. So, I don't think that people are naturally good at specific things, like being a teacher, or a specific job, or a specific activity. You might be more inclined in a specific direction, but that's about as close as you get. You need to work on it as well.

Maria: I agree with you, yeah. I don't think I'm talented in anything. I wish I was a genius musician, for example, or a genius painter, but doing one thing, but doing it in a genius kind of way, like Mozart.

Rory: Well, even Mozart didn't start out that way.

Maria: No, no, no. Mozart started off just like Mozart. He wrote his first piece at six, Rory. Six or four. Whoa, what was he four? Mozart?

Rory: When you look at studies of what Mozart's early works were like, most people that are experts in the field agree they weren't particularly great. They were just, it's just child writing symphonies, to be honest. So it's good that a child can do that.But the real, like, really good original work doesn't happen until much later. Which makes sense, because of course you have to grow and develop and your brain has to expand in order for you to be able to do that. So it's cool when people start off showing an interest in things early, but they need to be encouraged in the right direction.

Maria: There we go. While Mozart's first works were simple, they were considered perfect.

Rory: What does perfect mean when we talk about music?

Maria: I don't know.It's perfect.

Rory: Perfect what? Perfect reproductions of things? Like, you could copy a painting?

Maria: No, no, no. He composed them himself. At the age of 12, he composed his first opera. His symphony at the age of 13. It's crazy.

Rory: Yes. And I imagine, now, let's also think about Mozart and the circumstances that he grew up in. I don't think Mozart was just your average German person. I think he was in a pretty wealthy family.

Maria: Yeah, he was German.

Rory: Yes. But that's not about being German. It's more about the resources that you have access to. I think Mozart's family were relatively better off than other people alive at that time. You benefit from this as well. I imagine there were people living in Germany, working in mines, especially children around that period that did not have the same opportunities. So it's not to say that Mozart's not great. It's just saying he's also benefiting from an environment that helps with this as well.

Maria: Yeah, that's true.

Rory: Look at me standing up for social justice in the 18th century or whenever Mozart was alive.

Maria: Yeah, but you see, dear listener, it's interesting, right? And it's something like, it's useful for essays as well, for speaking, and just for your general life. And you can say that people might have a general predisposition towards something. Like a child is born and he starts being good at music or dancing or painting because the child is predisposed towards something, towards an activity because of his parents, grandparents.

Rory: Maybe there will be something in the brain that you're born with, who knows? But it needs to be given a chance to go in that direction. It's like when people say someone is a natural footballer, how that is making any sense at all I have no idea because football is not something that human beings naturally do. It just doesn't make sense. Perhaps in order to be a natural footballer, you need a pair of legs.

Maria: And rich parents. And you should know somebody in the football industry.

Rory: Well, not always. There are people. I think Lionel Messi grew up in relatively impoverished circumstances.

Maria: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Rory: The fact is, it's not just like this one special person was selected by the universe to do this particular thing. It would be lovely to believe that is true. But usually they are the beneficiaries of certain opportunities that other people do not have or did not have. But they still worked hard. Great. There is space for hard work. But it's not like this was just given to them from God or something like that.

Maria: And you can say that children should discover their talents at an early age, dear listener. At an early age, when they are young, right? And you can say that the earlier they start, the better. And if children start earlier, they have more time to get good at something. So they can invest time in lessons and in practise. So when you talk about talents, you talk about lessons and practise, practise, practise, practise. Like Olympic Games athletes, they practise like eight hours a day. And children should not go overboard with training. If you go overboard with training, you train too much. And that's detrimental for your health. That's negative for your health. Like at an early age, or you can say at a young age. And if children do nothing but training, they could ruin their life. You can say that at schools, all children should be able to grow and develop in their own way. So it doesn't matter what talents they have, but everyone should be able to grow and develop.

Rory: Well, in as much as that's possible.

Maria: Yeah, feasible. If something is feasible, it's doable. So it's quite easy to do something.

Rory: And if it's not feasible, then it's infeasible.

Maria: Yeah, like feasible, able to be made, done or achieved, like practical, workable. And you can also talk about schools' budgets. So usually schools have limited budgets, so they don't have enough money for this.

Rory: I feel like, though, that's a bit of an oxymoron. I mean, of course, the budget is limited. You can't have an unlimited budget. A budget is…

Maria: Yeah, always limited.

Rory: It's strictly planning and limiting things.

Maria: And you can say that parents play a bigger role than teachers, because parents spend more time with children, and a child's parents are usually more interested in their development. They love their children, right? So they help them to develop, they want them to develop. And people could be encouraged to develop their talents, to improve their talents. And you talk about practise, like you need effective practise.

Rory: And there are different kinds of practise. But it has to work. Practise is not just repeating the same thing over and over again.

Maria: It should be focused practise, and repetition, like enough time and repetition of the same movements, for example, the same things. And people could be encouraged by a person, a teacher, a trainer, a coach. And if you think about it, like every successful athlete has a coach. So a leader, a coach, a trainer, a teacher, with some good attention to detail and self-awareness. Yeah, like you can do it on your own, you can be encouraged by yourself. You can encourage yourself, but yeah, you need to be super self-aware and motivated.

Rory: Are you self-aware and motivated, Maria?

Maria: Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes. Yeah, like 50-50, you know. Yay! Thank you so much for listening. Hopefully we've motivated you to learn more about talents.And I wonder what you think of Mozart. Was he born a genius, or...

Rory: Was he born a genius, or am I correct?

Maria: Yes, exactly. Thank you so much. Sending love, hugs, and joy.

Rory: And talent. Bye.

Maria: Bye!

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