If tutors really do reliably produce two-sigma learning gains, then why aren't most top achievers the product of tutors? Yes, they're expensive, but perhaps "only" 2-3x private school; there are a lot of wealthy parents. Diminishing returns for high achievers?
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Interestingly, most (all?) top achievers in athletics and conservatory music are tutored. Why is this not true of most fields? Is it that music/athletics have so much more tacit knowledge? Or by contrast is so much more legible, so that a tutor/coach can be much more effective?
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If anything it’d seem LESS legible so the tutor has outsized impact compared to topics that can effectively be learned via books/content by highly motivated learners
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Right, definitely. I meant legibility in the sense that Ericsson describes: easy to assess; clear standards of achievement; tight feedback loops available; focused practice techniques available; etc
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Ah
In that sense: sports, music, dancing all embodied and taught with instant feedback and correction and competed for at high level seem to fit the bill
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Also feels like there’s something in their about the lineage/personal connection with the tutor
“I flew to Turkmenistan to learn under X” is much less common outside of those realms