The Essay That Wasn't, Part III
(Continued from Part II)
Make an effort to be more thorough in your observations
Buffy: You want to stay alive, you have to spot and identify a nest on sight. Look around, all of you. Look for signs that just last night maybe a dozen, two dozen vampires were right where we're standing. Go ahead. (Potential, 7.12)
Expertise cannot exist in a vacuum. The emphasis on location and interacting with tools and the environment is a key attribute of the epistemology of practice. The physical setting, or if one prefers, situated nature of knowing is often discussed by authors when describing mastery or expertise in a given domain. Researchers have found that deep technical knowledge enables experts to recognize when occurrences, patterns, or artifacts are anomalous, and therefore identify potentially informative "clues" to the underlying cause of observed problems or symptoms. But this skill is necessarily situation-specific: to discover a clue means to pick out as noteworthy some aspect of the specific setting that is not obvious to everyone.
Thus persons who possess extensive knowledge are able to enact knowing that reflects a certain degree of accomplishment or skill, based on their ability to distinguish cues from the physical and social environment. Some authors identify this level of skill and knowledge, this “ability to draw distinctions” (Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001) as a crucial determinant of expertise. The novice, on the other hand, is unable to draw such distinctions between what is meaningful and what is not. A medical intern may overlook combinations of symptoms that are immediately meaningful to an experienced physician, or arrive at the wrong conclusions by failing to take certain crucial factors into account. Furthermore, the contextual nature of cues make them difficult to explain without reference to a specific set of circumstances. The expert may not be able to state in advance everything that she looks for when making a diagnosis, but she is able to recognize it when she sees it.
The quote above is from a scene in which Buffy is trying to pass on some of her expertise to a new generation of potential slayers. Notice that she does not even try to provide a comprehensive list of the kinds of signs the girls should look for; if asked, she might even have trouble naming them. (As it turns out, the crypt the group is examining contains a vampire, so the trainees do not need to have very fine observational skills to realize they are, indeed, in a lair.)
In addition to possessing knowledge/knowing and being able to distinguish important contextual cues, an expert must also be able to rapidly identify gaps in the available information that need to be filled before taking action.
Giles: Here we go, we've been researching the, uh, mayor's forthcoming ascension.
Oz: It's pretty riveting stuff.
Buffy: What do we know?
Xander: What don't we know? Tell her, Giles.
Giles: Based upon the supposed date, graduation day, and the mayor being impervious to harm, I've cross referenced-
Xander: He's a cross-referencing fool.
Giles: And I've eliminated several possibilities. It's not the ritual flaying of the demon Azarath nor the, uh... I don't know what's going to happen.
Oz: That was kind of an anti-climax. (Earshot, 3.18)
Reasoning from a position of ignorance, or understanding both what is not known and what is necessary in order to fill the gap, is a skill needed in order to rapidly reframe volatile contexts for decision making. This skill is also an essential element of what I am calling expertise.
The optimum situation is a combination of knowledge/knowing, and an awareness of what is not known and how it may be obtained. Indeed, as described earlier, one of the essential components of expertise is the ability to tacitly distinguish features of the landscape and “know” subsidiarily. This ability might be referred to as the “Silver Blaze effect,” after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1894 short story (often confused with the 1902 gothic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles). In “Silver Blaze,” the clue that allowed Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery was noticing that the family dog did not bark to signal the presence of an intruder. Sherlock noticed the lack of barking, and deduced that the culprit was someone known to the dog.
The literature shows that experts, like the inimitable Mr. Holmes, will notice things that nonexperts will not, including things that are missing (Klein, 1998). If it were simply a matter of “knowing what to look for,” then it would be possible to prepare an explicit procedure to guide information gathering efforts. Knowing what not to look for encompasses too vast a range of possibilities for even experts to express, nor are they able to fully explain how they read a situation. Attempts to render explicit these complex ways of understanding have been unsuccessful.
On more than one occasion Buffy demonstrates her ability to draw distinctions, proving that her expertise exceeds even what her scholarly Watcher Giles is able to offer. In the early episode The Pack (1.06), Buffy notices changes in her friend Xander’s behavior and immediately suspects supernatural foul play. Giles downplays her suspicions as insignificant:
Giles: Xander's taken to teasing the less fortunate?
Buffy: Uh-huh.
Giles: And, there's been a noticeable change in both clothing and demeanor?
Buffy: Yes.
Giles: And, well, otherwise all his spare time is spent lounging about with imbeciles.
Buffy: It's bad, isn't it?
Giles: It's devastating. He's turned into a sixteen-year-old boy. Course, you'll have to kill him.
Giles continues to insist that Xander is simply exhibiting a "natural teen behavior pattern," while Buffy is irritated at his attempts to "Scully" her. It soon emerges that Xander has indeed been possessed by the spirit of a hyena, and Buffy is proven correct.
In Doomed (4.11) an earthquake sends Buffy to Giles in a panic, certain that it is a sign of impending badness. Her Watcher reminds her that earthquakes are far from unheard of in southern California, and suggests that perhaps she has simply been traumatized since her (temporary) death a few years before was preceded by an earthquake (Prophecy Girl, 1.12). Earlier in the fourth season, Buffy’s misgivings about her college roommate are also vindicated when it is eventually revealed that the girl is actually a soul-sucking demon from another dimension (Living Conditions, 4.02). Buffy is able to see--and gives weight to--signs that her less expert companions fail to notice or consider important.
Once the necessary signals have been noticed and interpreted, the expert then needs to decide upon an appropriate course of action.
And that, for the time being at least, is all she wrote. Oh, she has an outline, and select quotes and bits and pieces already tacked together, but the actual writing... well. Like I said, it's been a long time, and it's all still sitting there in unfinished form. It's the kind of thing that resides in that in-between space where it's not really of great interest to fans or people interested in the topic addressed (in this case, expertise). I started out trying to make it accessible to non-fans, with all the explanations that I wouldn't normally give in this context, but I think having no clear idea of who would want to read it plays a big part in its stalled status.
At least now I can add it to memories, so that when the topic comes up--as it has a few times, of late--I can just point. Because I am supremely lazy... too lazy, even, to finish The Essay That Wasn't.
Make an effort to be more thorough in your observations
Buffy: You want to stay alive, you have to spot and identify a nest on sight. Look around, all of you. Look for signs that just last night maybe a dozen, two dozen vampires were right where we're standing. Go ahead. (Potential, 7.12)
Expertise cannot exist in a vacuum. The emphasis on location and interacting with tools and the environment is a key attribute of the epistemology of practice. The physical setting, or if one prefers, situated nature of knowing is often discussed by authors when describing mastery or expertise in a given domain. Researchers have found that deep technical knowledge enables experts to recognize when occurrences, patterns, or artifacts are anomalous, and therefore identify potentially informative "clues" to the underlying cause of observed problems or symptoms. But this skill is necessarily situation-specific: to discover a clue means to pick out as noteworthy some aspect of the specific setting that is not obvious to everyone.
Thus persons who possess extensive knowledge are able to enact knowing that reflects a certain degree of accomplishment or skill, based on their ability to distinguish cues from the physical and social environment. Some authors identify this level of skill and knowledge, this “ability to draw distinctions” (Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001) as a crucial determinant of expertise. The novice, on the other hand, is unable to draw such distinctions between what is meaningful and what is not. A medical intern may overlook combinations of symptoms that are immediately meaningful to an experienced physician, or arrive at the wrong conclusions by failing to take certain crucial factors into account. Furthermore, the contextual nature of cues make them difficult to explain without reference to a specific set of circumstances. The expert may not be able to state in advance everything that she looks for when making a diagnosis, but she is able to recognize it when she sees it.
The quote above is from a scene in which Buffy is trying to pass on some of her expertise to a new generation of potential slayers. Notice that she does not even try to provide a comprehensive list of the kinds of signs the girls should look for; if asked, she might even have trouble naming them. (As it turns out, the crypt the group is examining contains a vampire, so the trainees do not need to have very fine observational skills to realize they are, indeed, in a lair.)
In addition to possessing knowledge/knowing and being able to distinguish important contextual cues, an expert must also be able to rapidly identify gaps in the available information that need to be filled before taking action.
Giles: Here we go, we've been researching the, uh, mayor's forthcoming ascension.
Oz: It's pretty riveting stuff.
Buffy: What do we know?
Xander: What don't we know? Tell her, Giles.
Giles: Based upon the supposed date, graduation day, and the mayor being impervious to harm, I've cross referenced-
Xander: He's a cross-referencing fool.
Giles: And I've eliminated several possibilities. It's not the ritual flaying of the demon Azarath nor the, uh... I don't know what's going to happen.
Oz: That was kind of an anti-climax. (Earshot, 3.18)
Reasoning from a position of ignorance, or understanding both what is not known and what is necessary in order to fill the gap, is a skill needed in order to rapidly reframe volatile contexts for decision making. This skill is also an essential element of what I am calling expertise.
The optimum situation is a combination of knowledge/knowing, and an awareness of what is not known and how it may be obtained. Indeed, as described earlier, one of the essential components of expertise is the ability to tacitly distinguish features of the landscape and “know” subsidiarily. This ability might be referred to as the “Silver Blaze effect,” after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1894 short story (often confused with the 1902 gothic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles). In “Silver Blaze,” the clue that allowed Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery was noticing that the family dog did not bark to signal the presence of an intruder. Sherlock noticed the lack of barking, and deduced that the culprit was someone known to the dog.
The literature shows that experts, like the inimitable Mr. Holmes, will notice things that nonexperts will not, including things that are missing (Klein, 1998). If it were simply a matter of “knowing what to look for,” then it would be possible to prepare an explicit procedure to guide information gathering efforts. Knowing what not to look for encompasses too vast a range of possibilities for even experts to express, nor are they able to fully explain how they read a situation. Attempts to render explicit these complex ways of understanding have been unsuccessful.
On more than one occasion Buffy demonstrates her ability to draw distinctions, proving that her expertise exceeds even what her scholarly Watcher Giles is able to offer. In the early episode The Pack (1.06), Buffy notices changes in her friend Xander’s behavior and immediately suspects supernatural foul play. Giles downplays her suspicions as insignificant:
Giles: Xander's taken to teasing the less fortunate?
Buffy: Uh-huh.
Giles: And, there's been a noticeable change in both clothing and demeanor?
Buffy: Yes.
Giles: And, well, otherwise all his spare time is spent lounging about with imbeciles.
Buffy: It's bad, isn't it?
Giles: It's devastating. He's turned into a sixteen-year-old boy. Course, you'll have to kill him.
Giles continues to insist that Xander is simply exhibiting a "natural teen behavior pattern," while Buffy is irritated at his attempts to "Scully" her. It soon emerges that Xander has indeed been possessed by the spirit of a hyena, and Buffy is proven correct.
In Doomed (4.11) an earthquake sends Buffy to Giles in a panic, certain that it is a sign of impending badness. Her Watcher reminds her that earthquakes are far from unheard of in southern California, and suggests that perhaps she has simply been traumatized since her (temporary) death a few years before was preceded by an earthquake (Prophecy Girl, 1.12). Earlier in the fourth season, Buffy’s misgivings about her college roommate are also vindicated when it is eventually revealed that the girl is actually a soul-sucking demon from another dimension (Living Conditions, 4.02). Buffy is able to see--and gives weight to--signs that her less expert companions fail to notice or consider important.
Once the necessary signals have been noticed and interpreted, the expert then needs to decide upon an appropriate course of action.
And that, for the time being at least, is all she wrote. Oh, she has an outline, and select quotes and bits and pieces already tacked together, but the actual writing... well. Like I said, it's been a long time, and it's all still sitting there in unfinished form. It's the kind of thing that resides in that in-between space where it's not really of great interest to fans or people interested in the topic addressed (in this case, expertise). I started out trying to make it accessible to non-fans, with all the explanations that I wouldn't normally give in this context, but I think having no clear idea of who would want to read it plays a big part in its stalled status.
At least now I can add it to memories, so that when the topic comes up--as it has a few times, of late--I can just point. Because I am supremely lazy... too lazy, even, to finish The Essay That Wasn't.