Teaching tennis has me thinking about learning. Why do we need so much practice to excel at a skill set, using Gladwell's 10,000 hours as a baseline? I ran into this four level schema and it reminded me of something a magician said once about learning a trick. So I'm adapting.
1. Unconscious Incompetence (Hour 1: We don’t know we don't know the trick. We think anyone can do it.)
2. Conscious Incompetence (Hour 2: We realize we don't know the trick; we don't know we can learn it.)
[I think there is a level missing here: Unconscious Incompetence: Hour 100: We realize we don't know the trick; we think we an learn it.)
3. [Self] Conscious Competence (Hour 1,000: We know the trick but it still takes a lot of thought and effort.)
[Another level missing: Other Conscious Competence: Hour 5,000: We know the trick well, but we see others know it better.)
4. Unconscious Competence (Hour 10,000: We can do the trick without thought or effort. And nobody does it better. Magic.)
I once roomed with a magician and it's true. When they are good, you can know how the trick is done and still marvel that they can do it.
Link: Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
