First lookm up on you tube Malcolm Gladwell is a popular current author who rece
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Question
First lookm up on you tube Malcolm Gladwell is a popular current author who recently wrote a book called Outliers.
In his book, he claims that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that before someone becomes an expert at something, they must put in 10,000 hours of practice. Gladwell bases this claim primarily on the work of the psychologist Anders Ericsson.
Your assignment is to write two paragraphs, one supporting Malcolm’s 10,000 hour rule, and one critically arguing against Malcolm’s 10,000 hour rule. Remember to use research, reason, examples, and a healthy amount of skepticism.
To help you get started you may want to check out the video where Malcolm summarizes his book and the 10,000 hour rule on CNN.
Explanation / Answer
Malcolm's research about 10,000 hour rule is based on extensive research from a variety of fields. The 10,000 hour figure seems reasonable if we think of things like becoming an expert in playing guitar. It provides an answer to a usual question - 'how much practice do I need more?'. In order words, this research provides justification to the patience in practicing something to be an expert. One can benchmark about how much practice one needs more. Further, Malcolm mentions that his book should be seen as a community help book. He advocates setting the institutions that can allow such long training/practice without pre-maturely judging people for their performance. This is highly needed in our society nowadays. It has become an usual practice to judge performances pre-maturely and make a decision based on that, which I think needs to change. People need time to be an expert and they should be allowed to take time to practice and be an expert. This research provides excellenct criticism to the system of 'closing doors' based on pre-matured judgement.
However, the research also seems to generalize a lot of things. First of all, when do you call a person an expert? What is the definition of an expert? Is getting something done is counted as expert behavior or can something be ever done with complete perfection by an 'expert'? For example, A newborn baby can suck milk from his mother's breast, is it an expert behavior? Well, the purpose has been fulfilled, the baby got what it needed. It didn't practice for 10000 hours to learn/become an expert at that! How is that explained by this research? Another point of criticism is that - It somehow reduces the confidence of people who are still in the process of becoming an expert. For example, I have been typing on a computer from the last 8 years. To become an expert at typing I should type for at least 10 years (i.e. 10000 hours). Does this mean I should not have confidence in my typing skills?
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