Have you wondered that Maybe people aren't really interested in mastery. Some do, ofcourse but most will be happy with learning just enough. Whenever I hear the word mastery, I am reminded of the Japanese documentary Jiro dreams of sushi. A Japanese sushi chef who is a master at sushi and that's what he has been doing for the last 40 years or so.
Only when one realizes the actual effort that needs to be done to achieve Mastery, most people back out. This is crazy, they say. Who has the time to practice 4 hours a day.
Masterclass doesn't sell mastery.
DuoLingo doesn't sell language learning.
It sells an aspirational hope that this new skill or language is just one course away. And that's comforting to us somehow. We are simple creatures after all.
BTW, I like the word mastery too much that I decided to start a company around it. Primerlabs(https://primerlabs.io). The goal is to create self paced courses that will allow anyone to truly self-learn difficult subject such as physics, mathematics, economics. We are focusing on CS currently but we will get there (hopefully).
Except a "master class" is usually only given to students that are already well into the introductory-- and often advanced-- stages of learning a craft. And that's not even getting into the structure of how such courses usually function & engage with the students.
People don't have to want to be "masters" in order to be interested in this sort of content, but calling them "master classes" rather waters down the definition quite a bit when someone with an interest but no experience in cinematography now goes around saying with smug pride, "I took a master class with Martin Scorsese".
Language changes and the meaning of words & phrases change, sure. But I guess what I don't like is the deliberate manipulation of language to co-opt it for marketing & profiting contrary to what the current use of the language actually means.
People also pay a lot of money just to have something to talk about. Saying "I started taking this course from {famous_person}" is a conversation starter.
I disagree - I think many people are in fact interested in mastery, but they’re unwilling to commit to mastering a given pursuit because it’s either not their true calling (as is the case with most jobs for most people), because they believe it’s not worth it (even if it might be), or because of external factors like money.
Our society often discourages pursuits that aren’t correlated with income. Practically, how much time can I truly spend on a craft if I need to make a living too? Some people can make what are essentially two full time jobs work, but most people have other needs that fall higher in the hierarchy that don’t allow that sort of dedication.
Or maybe growing up their parents discouraged them from committing to, say, the arts, precisely because of their concern for the uncertain economic future associated with that lifestyle.
I think people who manage to find a job that provides a sense of mastery and pays well are seriously lucky.
I think that’s a bit harsh of a description of duolingo. It definitely undersells the amount of work involved, but it absolutely does sell language learning. I’ve personally used it to that effect multiple times.
Only when one realizes the actual effort that needs to be done to achieve Mastery, most people back out. This is crazy, they say. Who has the time to practice 4 hours a day.
Masterclass doesn't sell mastery. DuoLingo doesn't sell language learning. It sells an aspirational hope that this new skill or language is just one course away. And that's comforting to us somehow. We are simple creatures after all.
BTW, I like the word mastery too much that I decided to start a company around it. Primerlabs(https://primerlabs.io). The goal is to create self paced courses that will allow anyone to truly self-learn difficult subject such as physics, mathematics, economics. We are focusing on CS currently but we will get there (hopefully).