What's interesting about this chapter is the relationship to a verse in the Bible and how Robert Merton, a sociologist, explains that, "It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success[...] Success is the result of what sociologists like to call "accumulative advantage"" (Gladwell, 2008, Pg. 30). The success found in hockey players specifically had the advantage due to their birth date and cut off dates of league recruitments. These same standards fall under anything that has a cutoff, for example school. Students born earlier in the year, have had more development time and more exposure to learning.
Gladwell continues to explain how the amount of time matters as well. To reach mastery level, to be really good, you have to reach 10,000 hours of practice and experience. The examples given are of Bill Joy and how he came to be the "Edison of the Internet" due to "a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage[...]Achievement is talent plus preparation" (Pg. 37-38); The Beatles and their opportunity to play in Hamburg gave them 8 hours of stage time, 7 days a week, for a total experience of 1,200 live performances before they were "successful" in 1964 (Pg. 50); and Bill Gates, who grew up having access to computer time and programming for nearly seven consecutive years before he "dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own software company[...]He was way past ten thousand hours" (Pg. 54). However, I really wonder where this number came from. Why 10,000 hours and does quality of what is done in that time get quantified? I would assume then, practice, practice, practice, as anyone could have guessed, will get you closer to achievement according to one's own standards.
Bill Joy and the Techonomy Philosophy
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The Beatles in Hamburg Pictures and Audio Background
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Bill Gates TED Talk About Improving Teachers
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In the next couple of chapters, Gladwell tells us what's "The Trouble with Geniuses." He introduces the concept of a threshold. Where, yes IQ has a significant part of one's success, however, after surpassing a certain level other variants come into play. Chris Langan vs. Robert Oppenheimer exemplifies how two exceptional individuals with high IQ proved success depended on their "practical intelligence," their personality. Oppenheimer, who "headed the American effort to develop the nuclear bomb during World War II" (Pg. 97) was a "successful" physicist. Langan became a married man with an IQ of 195 who lived on a horse farm working on a project that he may not ever publish. Support from family, teachers, and community play such a great roll in one's development.
Gladwell ends the first part of his book with reference to Joe Flom, the partner in a law firm in Manhattan, NY. What Gladwell really wanted to emphasizes is the influences outside of Flom's intelligence, personality and ambition, including his Jewish background, the demographic luck, and the garment industry and its meaningful work (Pg. 119). Going through the stories of others, Gladwell displays how "autonomy, complexity, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work[...]is meaningful. Being a teacher is meaningful" (Pg. 150). I wish it was all so simple in finding happiness from hard work. From a teacher's perspective, the work we put ourselves through sometimes don't match this type of "meaningful" because we don't see immediate affects in all our students. We still see students slipping through the cracks because there is only so much we can do to help with the resources available.
Essentially, what did I learn? According to Malcolm Gladwell, the "Outlier" is someone who has the advantage because of a number of specific opportunities that enhance one's own talent and abilities more so than others. Their birthdate and how it relates to deadlines associated in the areas of their interest, and how it relates to the culture of where and when they were born is a factor. Furthermore, it depends on the people around them, especially their parents, their teachings, their cultures and traditions. It depends on how wealthy their families are and the type of work and discipline they go through. It also, depends on the resources and the time to accumulate experience in a specific field. These are some of the items that need to be considered in regarding one's achievements. When we think of technology and what the future holds, we need to think of how we can produce more "successful" people. Family support, student individualized learning, practice time, community involvement, and funding is required now to foster students to grow up prepared to do great things with what the technology age will offer them.
References:
Gates, Bill. (2013, May 8). Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback. TED. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Ub0SMxZQo
Gladwell, Malcolm. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group.
Hill, Richard. (2008, August 4). The Beatles - A Taste of Honey (Live in Hamburg). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQH7Xa4A-os
techonomyllc. (2010, November 2). Techonomy LLC: The Philosophy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzMM6ELKko