It’s been a while since I listened to the comment that 10,000 hours of practice led to mastery. I was always a bit of a skeptic – mostly because I had practiced with handgun and rifle, became a decent shot, but never good enough for the little red badge that reads distinguished. Practice did help – but I never made it into the elite group.
https://x.com/ihtesham2005/status/2053103815482859767?s=20 provided the article that showed where 10,000 hours works and where it fails. When I was teaching, the 10,000 hour threshold was presented as a fact – and it turns out that is a fact that only works under very specific situations.
The article, by Intesham Ali, explains the answer to the question most of us didn’t ask: There are two types of environments for mastery. Chess is a ‘kind’ environment, while the real world 2generally classifies as ‘wicked.’
The description of these two environments is taken from https://driverlesscrocodile.com/books-and-recommendations/david-epstein-on-kind-and-wicked-learning-environments/ “These are terms used by psychologist Robin Hogarth, and what a “kind” learning environment is, is one where patterns recur, ideally a situation is constrained – so a chessboard with very rigid rules and a literal board is very constrained – and importantly, every time you do something you get feedback that is totally obvious, all the information is available, the feedback is quick, and it is 100% accurate. And this is chess, and this is golf: you do something, all the information is available, you see the consequences, the consequences are completely immediate and accurate, and you adjust accordingly. And in these kinds of “kind” learning environments, if you’re cognitively engaged you get better just by doing the activity.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are “wicked” learning environments. And this is a spectrum from “kind” to “wicked”. In “wicked” learning environments often some information is hidden. Even when it isn’t, feedback may be delayed, it may be infrequent, it may be nonexistent, or it maybe partly accurate or inaccurate in many of the cases. So the most wicked learning environments will reinforce the wrong types of behaviour.”
Simply enough, 10,000 hours work under ‘kind’ learning environments – in ‘wicked’ learning environments, the feedback doesn’t reinforce mastery. And Real World 101 is learned in a ‘wicked’ learning environment.
From what I read, Artificial Intelligence will likely dominate the ‘kind’ learning environments, where the rules are clear, feedback is quick and reliable, and the data is available for review. In a “wicked” environment that AI research may not be nearly as competitive with human researchers. My world has not provided immediate, reliable feedback, and, like the difference between ‘kind’ and ‘wicked’ learning environments, rules can change due to conditions like humidity and temperature.
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