This article was first published on Jun 22, 2013 under Dr. Chow’s\u00a0moniker of “Plantcloner” in Focus Malaysia. The title of the published article was “Gaining expertise through learning”. However, I feel that my original title, pitched to the editor is a better representation of what I \u00a0wanted to say: Experts are made, but geniuses are born!<\/em><\/p>\n Every parent’s dream is for his\/her offsprings to be experts of some measure. This is especially true among Asians and Malaysian parents are of no exception. I know of plenty a \u201ctiger mum\u201d and \u201clion father\u201d. \u00a0The social norm is for parents to push their children to read medicine, dentistry, engineering, pharmacy, law etc. etc. at universities. Often the interest of the young high school graduate is ignored. \u201cMum \/ dad knows best\u201d seems to be the favourite answer, when challenged by their respective offsprings. \u00a0However, the reality is, not all young learners turn out to be experts in studying and many would disappoint their parents. There is an old Chinese saying, \u201cH\u00e1ng h\u00e1ng ch\u016b zhu\u00e0ng yu\u00e1n\u201d (\u884c\u884c\u51fa\u72b6\u5143) which literally means experts \/ masters \/ maestros are found \u00a0in every profession. It seems that most parents have not registered this.<\/p>\n So what is the key difference between two experts, one a genius and the other an \u201cordinary\u201d person in any profession or field of work?<\/p>\n I think both the genius and the ordinary person have to learn a lot in their field before they could attain \u201cexpert status\u201d. It is just \u00a0that the amount of time needed by the ordinary person to learn to be an expert may be a bit longer than the genius.<\/p>\n Malcolm Gladwell in his book, \u201cOutlier\u201d cited research which showed that experts usually require at least 10,000 hours of learning where continuous improvements during this period have to occur for them to attain \u201cexpert\u201d status. The 10,000 hours figure is not absolute, but I think 10 – 20% either way is the norm. \u00a0There are lots of examples on expertise attained through learning.<\/p>\n When I was diagnosed with having 2 large stones in my left kidney in 2013, my trust placed upon \u00a0my urologist was not formed by the many testamurs that hang on his clinic\u2019s wall. It was because \u00a0he told me that he had done over 1,500 times the procedure which he wanted to perform on me, with only 5% having complications. Let us calculate the hours of working (and learning, as each patient\u2019s case was different) for this urologist. A \u201cnormal\u201d procedure takes about 2 hours in the operating theatre. Add in 4 hours of various preoperative and postoperative diagnosis and consultation sessions, thus each case needs about 6 hours of the urologist\u2019s time. 1,500 procedures entail at least 9,000 hours of working and learning by the urologist. I am glad I did this quick calculation and my urologist did a good job on me. Of course the fact that he holds two F.R.C.Ss (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) gave me added confidence in his ability. But the two F.R.C.Ss were not included in my calculation!<\/p>\n Let us look at another profession. Your favourite \u201cchar koay teow\u201d or fried noodles hawker. If he picks up his trade working as a fried noodles stall\u2019s assistant, how long will he take to be an expert fried noodles hawker?<\/p>\n Assuming that he has already picked up the basics in frying noodles and is ready to set up his own stall. \u00a0If he works \u00a08 hours per day for 6 days a week, it would have taken him just about 4 years to clock in 10,000 hours to be an expert \u201cchar koay teow\u201d hawker. That is assuming that he gets feedback from his clients and keeps on improving. Of course, if he did not learn enough in the first place and his fried noodles taste like rubber bands with seasoning there is no question of him attaining the \u201cexpert\u201d status! His business would probably have folded within a short while.<\/p>\n So what about my own experience in attaining my expertise?<\/p>\n My master\u2019s and doctoral studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland took me 5 years to complete. \u00a0At 40 hours a week of laboratory work and studies and 50 working weeks per year, in theory, when I completed my doctoral studies, I had clocked in about 10,000 hours. I should have been an expert in my field as a fresh PhD holder.<\/p>\n But I am no genius, in fact it took me another year, working in the National University of Singapore’s research laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher before I dared to hold my head up a little among experts in my field. Later, when I got a job as a commercial laboratory\u2019s research scientist, \u00a0I had to re-learn a lot of my trade in this profit-driven establishment. My biggest culture shock was having to scale up my work from research laboratory to production scale. It was another year of learning before I \u201cgraduated\u201d as a commercial scientist. So it took me at least 14,000 hours of learning to be an expert in my field of commercial plant tissue culture.<\/p>\n Thus geniuses are born, but experts are made. The two are not synonymous. It does not \u00a0matter if you are a genius or not, to be an expert, you need to put in a lot of hard work and perseverance. You need to have the attitude to learn and improve and do so continually.<\/p>\n Anyone can be an expert. You need not be a Nobel Prize winner to be one. You just have to be very good at what your are doing and keep on learning and improving. We have experts in every field of work: electricians, air-conditioning technicians, pest-control technicians, auto mechanics, plumbers, writers, teachers, bankers, managers etc. etc. and of course those in the \u201cin\u201d professional fields like doctors, dentists, engineers, lawyers and \u00a0scientists.<\/p>\n The only difference between experts in a field and the \u201cso-so\u201d practitioners is the fact that experts have conditioned themselves to continuously learn about developments, new technologies, market demand, regulatory environment etc.. about their \u00a0field. Thus Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and lifelong learning (LL) are two inescapable commitments that professional bodies have levied on their members. All self respecting experts of any field that worth their \u00a0salt will tell you how much of CPD or LL they have committed to each year.<\/p>\n So the next time a child tells you that when she\/he grows up she\/he wants to be a baker, a plumber, an electrician or a \u201cchar koay teow\u201d hawker, do not belittle him\/her or the job. Instead, you should tell him\/her more about the job, the industry, and the work involved in that industry. Plumbers and electricians are some of the richest trade professionals in the West!<\/p>\n Remember, \u00a0there is an expert in every field and anyone can be an expert.<\/p>\n Footnote<\/i><\/b>: Plantcloner declares that he has never been a \u201clion dad\u201d, though he exerted a lot of influence on his son, the young learner \u00a0has chosen his major for his college studies independently.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anyone can be an expert.\u00a0You need not be a Nobel Prize winner to be one. You just have to be very good at what your are doing and keep on learning and improving. We have experts in every field of work: electricians, air-conditioning technicians, pest-control technicians, auto mechanics, plumbers, writers, teachers, bankers, managers etc.\u00a0The only difference between experts in a field and the \u201cso-so\u201d practitioners is that experts have conditioned themselves to continuously learn about their \u00a0field.\u00a0Remember, \u00a0there is an expert in every field and anyone can be an expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,53,73,149,172,271],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","tag-10000-hours","tag-career","tag-choice-of-studies","tag-experts","tag-geniuses","tag-malcolm-gladwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/learning\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/CYN-Focus-Experts-Jun2013.png\")
<\/p>\nParents’ aspiration for their offspring – realistic?<\/h3>\n
Any difference between genius and experts?<\/h3>\n
Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice?<\/h3>\n
Experts and the fried noodles hawker<\/h3>\n
Plantcloner’s own experience<\/h3>\n
Geniuses are born, but experts are made<\/h3>\n
Give the kid a chance!<\/h3>\n