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practicing. Since committing mistakes is important to the learning process, How to practise for something that can actually get you killed? (p. 20). Edwin Links pilot training device created to simulate flights was the answer to that problem. This way, the pilots trained a lot before flying in dangerous conditions. He also tells the story of a soccer coach named Simon Clifford that went to Brazil to find out what made the soccer players so skilled, after researching, he finds out what he believes to be the reason: Futsal, which is a soccer game played in a court instead of a grass field, and because the place is smaller, it has less players. Coyle uses this situation to prove the idea of deep practice but he contradicts himself a few times while doing that. In his words, Teenage players at Brazilian soccer academies log twenty hours per week, compared with five hours per week for their British counterparts(p. 25). That means that young players practice harder, not deeper and just this fact could be enough to explain why the Brazilians soccer team has been having better results. Another technical problem that can be detected in Coyles text is that he doesnt mention where did he get some information from, like in when he says that one of the reasons Brazil is successful in soccer are the 40% of the desperately poor (p.15). This data seems to be wrong; Brazils extreme poverty rate (as he might be suggesting when he says desperately poor) is 4,8%, according to PNUD (United Nations Development Programme). Coyles idea of deep practice is interesting but he makes looks like its some kind of revolutionary theory, which can be noticed in the way he uses exaggerated expressions like Everest-size (p.11). When we think about the main claim, its possible to realize that is kind of obvious that if you have a more intense experience, that well make you learn faster than if you had a more lasting but less deep experience. Thorough this point, at least this first chapter of doesnt show a very new argument, it just has a new terminology.
References
http://www.pnud.org.br/ODM1.aspx http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/noticias/2010/07/100714_pobreza_multidimensional_indic e_rw.shtml http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=465