The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

I just read that review of Accelerated Expertise. I didn't know which link to click in all of this comment thread so I just picked that one at random, and -- wow -- that was one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. Thanks for posting!

I see people talking past each other here and I suspect it has to do with the level of achievement one is picturing.

Many smart (and talented) people work really hard at chess with good methods for many years and don’t become grandmasters. Talent must play a role. On the other hand, probably anyone can become much, much better than the average person on the street.

So people saying talent matters, and people saying deliberate practice alone can ensure success, can both be correct for slightly different measures of success.

As the article says, the very top levels of any prestigious competitive field have people with both talent and good training methods. Talent can separate people at the very top. That doesn’t mean that becoming very good is out of reach for less talented people.

I've actually tried to frame my Computer Science instruction style based on my martial art experiences (BB Aikido, Purple BJJ). How I view it is that CS and MA share many properties in different environments. Both require a need for understanding technical skills (for loop or an arm bar), areas where to apply these skills (simulations or triangle->arm bar transition), and finally have an element of "problem-solving" (real world coding or sparring).

Most of the issues I see with Deliberate Practice criticism are the 10k hours rule and limitations in training "problem solving". 10,000 hours is obviously an arbitrary number, but signals the importance of time on task. With regard to training problem solving, I don't think we really have a solid "here is how you train it", but instead that we focus on training patterns so we can identify opportune times to apply them. THAT is where I can see DP being useful, since the goal moves from problem solving to lower level Bloom levels (Remembering/Applying those Patterns).

Oh I totally agree. My only point would be, I think older people tend to over-estimate coef1 and under-estimate coef3. In other words, since aging has an effect on speed of skill acquisition, people over 30 might be more likely to blame that for the fact that their struggling and give up on something they could pick up quite decently with a bit more practice.

Also, when you talk about "related practice at an earlier age", I also think this is nothing to scoff at. As I have gotten older I've often found that a very real route to solving novel problems is to figure out how to apply something tangentially related that I already know.

> That anyone, given enough determination, can become good at any skill.

That "given enough determination" part is glossed over a bit too easily. Plus, even if it's just an approximation, people radically underestimate how much 10k hours of practice is.

I've learned a wide range of skills throughout my life so far, to various levels of proficiency. One or two things I've been able to achieve what I feel most others would considers an expert level, and have learned a very large number of things ranging from beginner to intermediate.

Anecdotally the confirmation I've found about 10,000 hours is that my area of expertise is something that for years I thought I was naturally bad at. But I got tremendously interested in it, and began studying and practice literally every day for years, and to this day continue to practice and study this area.

As far as beginner/intermediate skills, two typically talent based things I've been able to teach myself are life drawing and juggling. I have awful hand eye coordination, and still learned enough juggling to impress people at parties when the occasion comes up. My hand writing is illegible, I also have awful fine motor skills and I've still been able to create surprisingly realistic sketches.

Of course I'll never be an expert at these things because I'm just not interested enough in them to get anywhere near the 10,000 hour mark. Four ball juggling will likely remain my threshold indefinitely.

The number of things I've gained proficiency in that I had a prior belief and initial experience that they were impossible for me to do is just to high for me to throw out the wisdom of deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice might be hard to define, but at the very least it means "practice that is not easy". In order to do something every day with a reasonably high frustration/failure rate means that you have to have an incredible drive to continue. Most people I've known simply can't endure finishing a day of work to go sit down and struggle with something for 1/2 hour a day. If you want 10k hours you have to do this without cessation, and no end in sight. In my experience no amount of will power can force this to happen either. You can force yourself past the beginner and into the intermediate stage, but expertise can only come from an insatiable drive.

It's also important to realize that expert and world famous are not the same thing. There are many true experts in guitar who are unknown, 10k hours doesn't get you to being John Frusciante.