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A review by clarks_dad
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Robert Pool, K. Anders Ericsson
5.0
A wonderfully readable book on the science behind expert performance. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea of the 10,000 hour rule in his book [b:Outliers: The Story of Success|3228917|Outliers The Story of Success|Malcolm Gladwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344266315s/3228917.jpg|3364437], but the notion that innate talent is bullshit comes from the work of Anders Ericsson, who clarifies and adds nuance to the 10,000 hour rule.
This book is filled with examples of expert performers and their training regimens as well as some generally applicable rules for those who want to systematically and programmatically increase their performance in anything from language speaking to digit memorization. It can get a little repetitive at times, but I found myself reading this over the course of a few months, so the iterative examples really came in handy. The basic idea is that practice should be engaging and require all of your attention. Change and improvement comes from incremental changes and improvements to small parts of what ultimately goes into an expert performance. For example, if you wish to become a better swimmer, you don't just swim for 10,000 hours. Every training session should involve a specific focus: improving your turn, working on your start, improving your stroke (even as minutely as how you place your fingers)—receiving some feedback, either from watching yourself or from having an expert performer watch and coach you, and trying again. All practice should be difficult and at the edge of your ability. Rinse and repeat. It's simple, but the mythologizing behind the idea of genius and natural talent has in many ways prevented discourse like this. It's given an excuse and an out to those who give up too easily or for the wrong reasons and it's prevented people from pursuing fields and hobbies that they might otherwise have been good at.
Ericsson provides hope to the layman. The path is arduous, but he's demystified pretty thoroughly what it takes to be good at anything. I'm assigning this as mandatory reading for my AVID class this coming year and I'm changing my teaching practice to skill-based learning in response. I'll have to update this review at the end of the next school year to see how it works out in practice.
This book is filled with examples of expert performers and their training regimens as well as some generally applicable rules for those who want to systematically and programmatically increase their performance in anything from language speaking to digit memorization. It can get a little repetitive at times, but I found myself reading this over the course of a few months, so the iterative examples really came in handy. The basic idea is that practice should be engaging and require all of your attention. Change and improvement comes from incremental changes and improvements to small parts of what ultimately goes into an expert performance. For example, if you wish to become a better swimmer, you don't just swim for 10,000 hours. Every training session should involve a specific focus: improving your turn, working on your start, improving your stroke (even as minutely as how you place your fingers)—receiving some feedback, either from watching yourself or from having an expert performer watch and coach you, and trying again. All practice should be difficult and at the edge of your ability. Rinse and repeat. It's simple, but the mythologizing behind the idea of genius and natural talent has in many ways prevented discourse like this. It's given an excuse and an out to those who give up too easily or for the wrong reasons and it's prevented people from pursuing fields and hobbies that they might otherwise have been good at.
Ericsson provides hope to the layman. The path is arduous, but he's demystified pretty thoroughly what it takes to be good at anything. I'm assigning this as mandatory reading for my AVID class this coming year and I'm changing my teaching practice to skill-based learning in response. I'll have to update this review at the end of the next school year to see how it works out in practice.