Chapter 2

I found Chapter 2 really interesting, although it makes me feel as though I am not actually an expert in any area.
In the discussion of experts differential configuration of memory through "chunking" I found myself thinking of an example from my own experiences, actually playing cards. In the past few years I have learned to and played quite a bit of cribbage. In the textbook, when the author discusses chess masters ability to avoid thinking through every possible strategy and instead only thinking through superior strategies it reminded me of playing cribbage with friends of mine who have been playing for years. While I think about every possible combination when discarding cards to the crib (hopefully someone plays cribbage and therefore this makes sense to them), my friends who are "expert" cribbage players can quickly discard because they look at the chunks or sets of cards and are able to just think quickly through the best strategies. I think it's fascinating to see the process of the quicker retrieval of recalling chunks of information in place.
As I read through the chapter, despite the comments of the Third International Math and Science Survey, I found myself recognizing a lot of these desired aspects of expertise in the Everyday Mathematics program which I have used in the last two years teaching in Brooklyn. Everyday Math, for those who are not familiar, is a different kind of math program because rather than do one unit on time and then a separate unit on money, Everyday math uses a variety of different mediums to work through an overall chapter concept. In this way, Everyday math focuses not on just the surface idea or means to solve a problem, but on the "big idea", the overall concept. Additionally, Everyday math applies to the idea of conditionalized knowledge as students are expected to know key words to help them problem solve, and not just memorize how to solve certain types of questions that appear in one unit of the book. Throughout the book similar types of questions are presented for students to apply to different big ideas so as to avoid surface memorization and encourage making connections between a variety of bigger concepts.
The textbook's explanation of why experts aren't always the best teachers was a bit of a comfort, and in my experiences in some of my undergraduate courses I have definitely seen this explanation played out by some professors (no offense to our present professors). I also think an essential idea for teachers to take away from this is the importance of metacognitive skills, both for ourselves and our students. I feel the only true way to teach metacognitive skills is by example, students need to know their teacher doesn't know everything either and that we as teachers, just as they as students, are always working towards learning more information and better ways to accomplish tasks.
Along these lines, I would love to take the information from this chapter and apply it in a classroom by having my students become "virtuosos" constantly adapting and looking at the bigger ideas. However, there is a pessimistic part of me that thinks that truly making our students experts in any area is an impossibility in today's schools. While as a teacher I could certainly choose a topic that I felt merited the amount of time that my students would need to develop expertise, inherently this will mean that other areas would have to be neglected. While this may be fine with me because I know in the long run the students' understanding of the greater concept will allow them to more easily pick up this other information, I know that the administration (at least at the school I worked at) would not allow me that freedom. There are standards and curriculum content that must be met, so when in the reality of our educational system do we have time to make our students experts?