English Composition I: Achieving Expertise

15 May 2014

Delving the wellspring of talent
We all have known gifted people: classmates, colleagues, workmates, or, most usually
and indirectly, renowned sportspeople or scientists. In such cases, we, average
people, usually think that they have a gift, a talent. Paradoxically, we accept it naturally
and stoically as whether this talent it is conferred as a birth gift, without questioning if
there might be another factor that can nurture talent besides background or genes. But
author Daniel Coyle asked himself this question in 2006 and he spent one year and a
half travelling around the world looking for an answer. Coyles book The talent Code,
published in 2009, is the outcome of this quest, where the author introduce us a new
concept, coined by himself: deep practice.
Daniel Coyles strategy is quite simple and direct. He realised that across the world
there are disseminated very specific places spots where the talent is concentrated:
tiny places that produce Everest-size amounts of talent (p.11). So he travelled to 9 of
these places and gathered firsthand information that would let him identify which
factors are relevant for prospering talent. And he got shocked by his findings. Although
he doesnt mention it explicitly, probably he was expecting some conventional way to
explain this kind of concentrated talent (p.14), but he found out a surprising and
unexpected pattern when talented people are training or practicing. A shared pattern
among all the places he visited:
For that half of the time, (...): everything moved faster and more fluently than in
everyday life. (...) During the other half I witnessed something very different:
moments of slow, fitful struggle. (p.12)
Daniel Coyle named this kind of training "deep practice" (p.16), which can be defined
as a methodological training that nudge you just beyond the edge of the comfort zone
for mastering a skill (Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted
ways operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes makes you
smarter, p.18). However, he is not rejecting that there would be other elements
involved in the route of success or skill mastering. As he wants to point out his concept
of deep practice, he barely mentions those elements, but there they are, suggesting he
will delve into them in later chapters: "being a prodigy" (p.11), "a combination of genes
and nature" (p.14), "good pilots are born, not made" (p.20). And also: "environment and
nurture" (p.14), climate, passion, and poverty (p.15, p.28). In fact, in the latter case,
he expressly mentions that the other factors so often cited really do matter (p.28).
The author details several, sort of, arguments and evidences to support his claim that
deep practice makes the real difference, but they are not strong enough to push aside
or deny the classic talent is born, not made argument, and even they may reinforce it:
wouldnt be deep practice the method used intuitively by talented people, so both
talent and deep practice are required? On the other hand, some of the evidences are
just anecdotes (the soccer player Brazilian boy, Meet Brunio; or the young singer,
Meet Jennie, p.13), more intended to forge an emotional link with the reader than to
prove something. However, since this is the first chapter, all those arguments might be
just broad brushstrokes that will be dig into afterwards. The most relevant evidences
are the stories of the futebol de salao (p.24-29) and the Links unusual device (p.20-
24). Two scenes completely different: the one focused on physical and coordination
skills; the other, on concentration and mental skills. As if Coyle wanted to point out the
versatility and wide scope of deep practice. However, although an interesting story, the
Links story doesnt entirely fit into his model: it is more about learning (how to read and
interpret the gauges lectures) that about training (how to master a skill or technique).
As a means to give credibility and prestige to his researches, Daniel Coyle also
mentions some academic references. Firstly, Robert Borjk, chair of psychology at
UCAL and an expert on memory and learning (We think of effortless performance as
desirable, but its really a terrible way to learn, p.18), inviting the reader to take a little
memory quiz originally conceived by Dr. Borjk (p.16). Additionally, Coyle makes use of
the concept scaffolding, introduced by Dr. Borjk, to frame it as the basis of deep
practice:
The more we generate impulses, () the more scaffolding we build. The more
scaffolding we build, the faster we learn. When youre practicing deeply ()
Your small efforts produce big, lasting results. (p.19)
Secondly, Coyles includes Dr. Borjks reference to the experiment conducted by
psychologist Henry Roediger at Washington University of St. Louis on two groups of
students that had to study the same history text, and where the group that carried out
more tests yielded better results despite they studied much less (Theyd studied one-
fourth as much yet learned far more, p.19). However, the relationship between Dr.
Bjork and Roedigers experiments and Coyles observations is not so straightforward
and a little forced, because they were more meant to evaluate and improve learning
and mental processes than to nudge and improve physical skills, which it is the goal of
Coyles deep practice so far.
Since the first sentence, Daniel Coyle is seeking the readers involvement. Not just by
using a dynamic and easy-to-read writing style, but also by an intensive use of the
second person, as if he was addressing the reader (experiences where youre forced
to slow down, () as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, p.18),
raising questions that thrill them (how do you get good at something when making a
mistake has a decent chance of killing you?, p.20), or quizzing them (the previously
mentioned memory exercise on p.16). Throughout the text, he also tries to captivate
emotionally the reader, with a first reference to his family when he decided to begin his
investigation (() to explain it to my wife and four young kids, p.12) and later, when
exposing some of the evidences, by using a flourish or tender language (the one
already mentioned Meet Brunio () Meet Jennie, p.16; or Links plane appeared as
a ghost, materializing only a few feet above the runway, kissed down with a perfect
landing, p.23).
In conclusion, the first chapter of the Daniel Coyles book provides a first glimpse of his
main argument, the deep practice, although he doesnt support it with well-founded or
clearly related evidences, but just some promising brushstrokes. Besides, Coyle builds
up through this chapter the involvement and emotional captivity of the reader, probably
as the means to encourage further reading. Nevertheless, the content and the
underlying promise of supplementary deep practice digging are intriguing enough to
give a chance to the subsequent chapters, with the hope that these inconsistencies will
be clarified and a deeper insight of what it is deep practice will be provided.


Works cited
Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. New
York, Bantam (2009). (Extract from Chapter 1 The Sweet Spot)