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Someone was on TV when either Comaneci or Korbut did so well in the Olympics. He said the test they gave to the young gymnasts to determine whether the state should train them was very simple: They gave the kids a sheet with numbers scattered on it from 1 to whatever and asked them to connect the numbers from 1 to as high as they could go in the allotted time. One got much farther than all the others, and she got the training.

Motivation, folks.

Another anecdote:

I told this story on FR years ago.

An old friend of mine was a British guy who joined the American Marines and became a sergeant and fought in the Korean War. He had lots of different jobs afterward.

One was as a teacher in a boys’ school for kids with discipline problems. Without any other attempt at discipline, he simply ran them through military drills right in the classroom first thing in the morning.

They loved it.

And he had no problems with them for the rest of the day.

Many years go by, think calendar pages flipping wildly, and I am invited to attend a George W. Bush appearance at a charter school in Harlem. When the kids finally appear on stage (Bush had been upstairs meeting and greeting . . . the children!), they went through a little drill where different groups of them would step forward and say things like “We’re here to learn!” “My job is to learn!” and then step back into line.

I’m sure this simple “drill” at the start of every schoolday was part of what made this school a success. They can’t do prayer anymore so they do this and it works.