During the process of writing my book “How Teachers Can Save Teachers”, I was thinking about the role of so-called “experts.” I wondered what being an expert meant, so I started looking into it. I have a tendency to overanalyze things, and this is yet another example of how I do that. Anyway, I stumbled on Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. In his book, Gladwell asserts that becoming an expert at anything takes 10,000 hours. What talents or natural abilities a person possesses doesn’t matter; practice can make you an expert.
That got me thinking about my career in education. I wondered whether I could be considered an expert teacher. What I found kind of surprised me. First of all, I truly had no idea how many hours I have spent teaching, so I tried to figure it out. I wanted to be very conservative with my numbers, so I used what I believe to be the absolute minimum number of days and hours I spent teaching.
23 years × 160 days × 5 hours per day = 18,400 hours teaching
This is the somewhat surprising part. According to Gladwell, I am technically an expert teacher. The reality is that I know I am just somewhere in the average range. I am hopefully on the above average side of the spectrum, but I am definitely not an expert.
I struggle with Gladwell’s assertion that practice is all it takes to become an expert. If that is the case, I want to know how many of the experts have practiced their strategy, technique, or theory for 10,000 hours. When a person shows me the 10,000 hours of practice, I am more likely to trust them. Moreover, I know that I am not an expert even though I have practiced for more than 10,000 hours. That led me to conclude that much more goes into being an expert than just practice. I believe experts have the following traits:
- Persistence
- Self reflection
- Leadership qualities
- Outstanding communication skills
- Wide array of life experiences
- Well-read
- Acceptance of some degree of risk
The field of education has a lot of experts. Guess what? Most of them are in classrooms across America. I have witnessed firsthand how expert teachers operate. What I have not witnessed are the men and women who presented at professional development sessions exhibiting these traits. I have heard them speak about their solution to whatever our problem was, but I have no idea whether they practice what they preach. I have no idea what type of teachers they were or whether they were even in a classroom.
Relationships matter! I didn’t have a relationship with these experts, so I am less likely to trust them. You do have the ability to build relationships with your colleagues whom you admire and respect. Engage in conversations with them. Socialize with them. Surround yourself with the people who make you better, and you will be on the path to maximizing your potential.
Your task this week: Meet with a teacher in your building that you respect and believe does an outstanding job teaching students. Have a conversation with them about their philosophies, how they form relationships with students, and strategies for areas where you want to improve. You have experts right in your building. You just have to seek them out.
