"Surpassing Ourselves" by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia

This is an inquiry into the nature of expertise. It is a carefully crafted academic study. However, you could use it as a self-help book if you wanted to become an expert. Beware! It is not easy and this book promises no short cuts.

The characteristics of expertise are:

• That it is effortful: “If ease and naturalness are the criteria, then ... fish are expert swimmers and Olympic breaststrokers are not" (p 4). “Many experts ... are active, striving people. They work long hours, usually at something they consider to be quite difficult, and they tend to set standards for themselves and others that are always at least slightly beyond reach. When at liberty to do so, one of the first things they will admit is that they are deplorable ignorant.” (p 34) “A distinguishing characteristic of the most creative people in many fields is the sheer volume of their productivity.” (p 124)
• It may involve specialization but it is not just specialization. 
• It probably involves formal knowledge but it certainly involves informal knowledge. This is the sort of impressionistic knowledge, often based on formal knowledge, which is displayed in 'connoiseurship': "Connoisseurs are experts who possess highly developed impressionistic knowledge of whatever their speciality entails.” (p 55)
• Fundamentally experts "choose to address the problems of their field at the upper limit of the complexity they can handle” (p 20). And they develop from novices to their position of expertise by "progressive problem solving" (passim); that is by never resting on their laurels but instead always “seeking out more difficult problems” (p 93) or “tackling more complex representations of recurrent problems” (p 94). "They work at the edge of their competence ... Working at the edge of competence is risky and taxing, but it yields two great benefits. It results in superior accomplishments ... and it leads to further growth as competence advances” (p 98). “Experts, we propose, tackle problems that increase their expertise, whereas non-experts tend to tackle problems for which they do not have to extend themselves.” (p 78). Non-experts seek to proceduralise their knowledge: “These processes of proceduralization continue until the originally problem-fraught activity becomes, as is said, ‘automatic’. Automaticity is the great freer of mental resources, but it is obtained at a cost. The cost is loss of conscious access. It becomes difficult to modify a well-practiced procedure.” (p 89) But the aim is to develop “performance that is ‘good enough’.” (p 91) After all, imost subcultures, as one learns “life becomes less problematic and learning tapers off ... the process of expertise is deviant.” (p 105) Experts seek continual improvement. The early ability to proceduralise provides “mental resources available to re-invest ... in the pursuit of new goals.” (p 79 -80)
• This can result in the "experience of sustained pleasure" known as "flow" (p 103). “Flow ... requires a nice balance between ability and challenge. If challenge exceeds ability, the result is anxiety and frustration rather than flow. If ability exceeds challenge, the result is boredom. Combined with the inevitable effect of learning, this means that repetition of the same activity will eventually cease to produce the flow experience. It will get too easy. Something must be done to increase the level of challenge so as to bring it into harmony with the increasing level of ability.” (p 102)

But “if the process of expertise is so addictively enjoyable ... why doesn't everyone practice it and thus become an expert? Flow is much harder to achieve in some situations than others ... In many highly routinized jobs it is difficult to perceive problems. ... [In] work situations in which people perceive problems as insoluble ... anxiety is the dominant experience” (p 103 - 104). The sorts of environments in which expertise can be developed include:

• Competitive sports in which as one improves one challenges others to improve which in turn challenges oneself to improve further. This is a bit like the dog eat cat aspect of natural selection results in evolution.
• Science in which each scientist continually builds on the work of others in a partly competitive but essentially cooperative endeavour. “People outside the academic world who are aware of the amount of effort academicians put into journal articles are sometimes amazed or even outraged to learn that the journals do not pay their contributors anything.” (p 206) The motives involved in those who contribute include “desire for recognition and respect from the people one regards as peers ... desire to have impact ... and desire to participate in significant discourse.” (p 207)
• Arts in which each artist puts their work out there and therefore is encouraged by comparing their work with others; this is quite similar to the way in which science works.

Therefore an expert-developing environment is one "in which the conditions to which people must adapt change progressively as a result of the successes of other people in the environment.” (p 106) “One adapts to changes that keep raising the ante, by setting a higher standard of performance ... through adapting, one raises the ante for others.” (p 106). Importantly, this implies that one can see the work of others. “The norm is for expertise to be shared.” (p 227) Those who work in isolation, for example teachers in their individual classrooms, will therefore find it more difficult to develop expertise. The development of wikipedia, too late for this book, makes this point: by changing the environment one achieved a cooperative but challenging development of expertise. Perhaps it should be the norm for learners to share the essays they write or to always work on problems on some sort of class wiki.

Experts also challenge themselves. They take risks. “The process of expertise is inherently venturesome.” (p 141)“What distinguishes creative experts from the common herd is ... that they take bigger risks ... and through this experience they develop a kind of knowledge that increases their likelihood of success. This is what we will call knowledge of promisingness.” (p 125) Critique is a good way of developing promisingness, “discovering elements of promise in a composition and helping the student develop those into something.” (p 149) “People on an expert track of development are continually striving against limits of their competence. For beginners, this means striving against the limitations that insufficient prior knowledge places on their ability to learn. For experts, the problems of insufficient prior knowledge never go away, however. The expert track of development keeps rising toward levels of increasing complexity of performance and understanding. This means that present knowledge is always superficial, simplistic, and fragmented relative to the knowledge the expert is trying to achieve.” (p 175)

For experts, goals emerge. "You start out off with a general intent to understand or learn more about something, and as you pick up knowledge it becomes clearer what it is you are trying to understand and what kind of knowledge it is you are constructing.” (p 163 - 164)

Other interesting ideas:

• “Reinvestment involves both conserving resources, so as to have something to reinvest, and putting these resources back into the activity itself rather than dissipating them or directing them elsewhere.” (p 82)
• Experts learn patterns and this inevitably pushes them towards “deepening a rut that will eventually entrap them.” (p 109) but experts often avoid ruts for a longer than normal time because “tackling new problems has a rejuvenating effect ... old people who have started to shut down and vegetate can change dramatically by getting re-engaged in problem solving ... hormone levels and sperm count rise.” (p 110)
• “There are no experts who lack expert knowledge of their fields.” (p 44) 
• “People go through life trying to accomplish tasks and to understand things, using the existing skills and informal knowledge. From time to time these prove insufficient and people must resort to problem solving that draws on formal knowledge." (p 72)
• “Writers ... talk about how they go about the task of writing - how much revising they do, how they get from a vague notion to an actual draft, how they keep going.” (p 59)
• “The problem is not to explain originality. On close examination, practically everything we do from minute to minute is original. The problem is to explain how some people become expert at, so that they can fairly regularly, almost on demand, produce work that stands out from that of their peers.” (p 122)
• “Problem finding ... is part of virtually all real world problem solving. Real world problems are ...’ill-structured’, which means that one does not know in advance or knows only vaguely what would constitute a solution. In the course of problem solving the goal itself takes shape ... what one is after does not become fully specified until the task is finished. The goal ... emerges from the work itself.” (p 132)
• “Promisingness is the very thing that the student, because of inexperience, is least able to judge.” (p 135)
• “The requirements for developing creative expertise are deceptively simple: ... you must pursue creative goals and you must occasionally succeed ... an unbroken series of failures will not provide you with the knowledge of promisingness required for eventual success. For that reason, coaches or mentors can play a vital role in the early stages of a creative career, because they can start you along promising paths.” (p 147)
• “Students who are all trying hard to be good students may nevertheless be pursuing quite different goals - different notions of what it is to be a good student.” (p 160) 
• “In an expert subculture, the process of expertise is not exceptional. It is what people normally do.” (p 222)
• “We are trying to struggle along with the common law principle that you can do anything you want with what you happen to own or control, subject only to the constraints necessary to protect the rights of others. The potential consequences of actions taken by a giant petrochemical company, for instance, are too vast and long-range to be managed by such a feeble principle. Yet the only recognised alternative, central government planning, has failed so dramatically in Eastern Europe that the very idea survives only in remnants.” (p 223)

This is a beautifully written and thought-provoking book. August 2018; 247 pages

"Think like an artist" by Will Gompertz

This is a delightful little book. It is written in short chapters full of pithy aphorisms and delightful examples. Very readable!

Gompertz suggests that we can all learn to be creative if we do what artists do. He starts by pointing out that we are all artists because we all create. This gets lost a bit later on as he focuses on the art of painting. I think most of his points could be equally well made if he focused on scientists: scientists are "seriously curious", scientists are "tenacious grafters", scientists build their ideas on those of others, scientists are sceptics who constantly ask questions and so on. Perhaps all schools should be science schools.

Here are his rules: 

• Artists are enterprising
• “Artists are the CEO of their own businesses. They need to have an acute sensitivity for marketing and and implicit understanding of brand ... After all, they are in the business of supplying products have no real function or purpose.” (p 22) 
• Artists don’t fail
• “If at first you don't succeed, don't try exactly the same thing again. You won't succeed, again.” (p 43)
• “Artists appear glamorous and blessedly detached, but in reality they are tenacious grafters.” (p 43)
• “It can be difficult to get started. We can feel that we don't have permission to test our talents ... somehow we are unworthy.” (p 51)
• “Everyone thinks they are a bit of a fraud; you just have to get over it.” (p 53)
• Artists are seriously curious 
• “If necessity is the mother of invention, curiosity is the father.” (p 58)
• Artists steal
• Artists are sceptics
• “It is not simply about asking questions; they have to be the most revealing and pertinent questions.” (p 105)
• Artists think big picture and fine detail
• “Delivering the big picture while focusing on the small detail ... requires your mind to constantly go back and forth, one moment concerned with the minutiae, the next stepping away and seeing the broader context. Spend too much time on the fine detail and you will get lost. But if you only think about the big picture you won't create or connect to anything.” (p 119)
• Artists have a point of view
• “A point of view is not the same as a style. It is what you say, not the way you say it. And in the creativity game you're not really a player unless you have something to say.” (p 140)
• Artists are brave
• “Boldness is required to release ideas into the world, even though it can feel alien and arrogant. I mean, who do I think I am? Some kind of genius? Surely there are far more talented people than me out there?” (p 162)
• Artists pause for thought
• “When artists sit down in their chairs they switch personas. They stop being the creator and turn into a critic. ... Their hyper-critical eyes scrutinise the work for insincerity, sloppiness and technical mistakes.” (p 178)

He concludes that all schools should be art schools (having taught in state secondary comprehensives for 33 years I agree that he makes some extremely valid points about the factory style of education which seems utterly unsuited to the modern digital age but I think he underestimates the political inertia) and then reforms the economy so that we all have portfolio careers. Great stuff! 

More wonderful words of wisdom:

• “Artists, like a lot of us, fear being ‘found out’. But somehow they manage to summon up enough self-belief to overcome the self-doubt.” (p 12)
• “Artists don't seek permission to paint or write or act or sing; they just do it.” (p 12)
• “The very act of making and creating is deeply satisfying, life-affirming and rewarding.” (p 16)
• “Artists are no more courageous or noble or single-minded than the farmers who go to extreme lengths, in extreme weathers, to protect their herd.” (p 20)
• “I don't think there's a dignity issue in being a plumber. ... keeping water out of places you don't want it is a big deal.” (p 36)
• “Creativity isn't about making additions; it is about making subtractions. Ideas need honing, simplifying and focusing.” (p 96)
• “Piero [della Francesca] set himself the task of rethinking how the world should be represented in a painting, given the invention [by Brunelleschi] of mathematical perspective. ... He made the commitment to question everything afresh. All assumptions had to be challenged, starting with first principles.” (p 109)
• “Ernest Hemingway would sometimes spend hours on a single sentence. Not because he was attempting to write the perfect solitary line of text, but because he was trying to make that sentence successfully linked to the one preceding it and seamlessly lead on to the next - while also contributing something to the story.” (p 121)
• “Society puts enormous pressure on us to conform. It functions when we all adhere to agreed systems. We obediently drive our cars on a designated side of the road, use money as the accepted mode of exchange for goods or services received, and stand patiently in queues . It works. If we didn't respect these social conventions chaos would ensue and Society would collapse.” (p 169) 
• “Being employed can be a stifling and infantilizing experience, which is hardly conducive to creativity.” (p 198)

A remarkable book in which an enormous amount of insight is crammed into 200 small pages. April 2018; 201 pages

This is one of a selection of books I am reading to help me understand more about art. Others reviewed on this blog include:

• Seven Days in the Art World by Julia Thornton: a look at the institutions of the art world such as an auction, a fair, a magazine and the Biennale.
• Ways of seeing by John Berger which is particularly good at sexism in art
• How art made the world by Nigel Spivey  which proposes that art has changed the way we think and altered our civilisations
• The Judgement of Paris by Ross King which is about the rise of the Impressionists
• Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King which is particularly good about the techniques of oil painting
• The Story of Art by E F Gombrich, a fascinating historical tour through art

"Redirect" by Timothy D Wilson

This is a book about the social sciences. It starts off by giving a number of examples where treatments for social and educational ills have been implemented, sometimes at the cost of billions of dollars, without being subjected to careful scientific testing. It shows which of these treatments are ineffective or, worse, counter-productive; the author compares these to the blistering and blood-letting treatments of quack doctors which were either unpleasant and useless or dangerous.

Some of the treatments are:

• Critical Incidence Stress Debriefing which results in a higher incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder
• Self Help books which suggest that positive thinking will get you want you want (implying that "if you are poor, or if, God forbid, you contract a serious illness - well, it's your own damn fault")
• Bribing kids to read which might work for kids that don't read but actually turns kids who do read off reading
• Just say no to drugs or underage sex; a better way of preventing these is to encourage kids to volunteer
• Getting convicts to scare kids off crime which increases the chance that they will commit crime
• Diversity training

The author's panacea (OK so I was getting a little cynical by this time) for all these is to encourage people to rewrite their inner monologues so that they saw themselves as empowered.

He also emphasises the need for randomised control tests for all such programmes before the politicians spend vast amounts of money on them.

A very readable book which demolishes a lot of shibboleths. Not sure if his message on rescripting lives was quite as clear.

March 2015; 240 pages

"How Proust can change your life" by Alain de Botton

This is a quirky self-help book from the French philosopher. It is based on Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, a long-winded novel in seven volumes which is one of those 'works of genius' which very few people have actually read. I haven't. Yet.

De Botton's nine essays in this book include 'How to take your time' and 'How to read for yourself'; he bases each theme on Proust's life and work. For example, in 'How to suffer successfully' de Botton points out that Proust was a long-term invalid, perhaps a hypochondriac, who used his hyper-sensitivity to empathise with and understand his characters. We all suffer, says de Botton, we all have our little aches or disappointments, we all have moments of regret or loss. The secret is to be sufficiently sensitive to our suffering, not to let it incapacitate us but to use it to gain insight into our common humanity.

In 'How to open your eyes' de Botton describes how Proust uses an imaginary impressionist to show his narrator that you can see beauty in everyday modern objects as well as in traditional romantic things. De Botton  doesn't deny that some things may be ugly, or we may perceive some things as more beautiful than others but, he says. if we have preconceptions as to what is beautiful we will wear blinkers and our lives will be more limited than they need to be.

This is a beautiful little book with a lot of important philosophy. It also shows how Proust writer characters in depth (though at the expense of brevity!). I must read the master work sometime.

Alain de Botton has also written the brilliant Religion for Atheists.