"It tells us that our notion that it is the best and the brightest who effortlessly rise to the top is much too simplistic" (Gladwell 30).
The introduction of the book introduces what the author and many other scientists call "outliers", those who seem to be separate from the norm. The very first example is an Italian village in Pennsylvania whose health records seem to be twice as good as the rest of America, with no explanation except for deep familial and community bonds. This book is trying to convey that the reasoning for success, no matter what kind, is always related to something never obvious, with what people think right now being too close-minded to truly see it. His next example discusses Canadian hockey, and its top-league players. While Gladwell does give credit to their success for their hard work and dedication to the sport, he states that there is a reason for the ranking of each player and who has the most potential. Showing a list of birthdays, he points out that the best players were born in January, then the next best in February, and so on. Afterwards, he reveals that the cutoff date for the league to find its players is January 1st, which gives the players born earlier an advantage, as they reach the age requirement faster and can train for a few months more. He insists that there is more to being successful than the amount of effort and dedication put into something, with inherent factors that are out of human control being a large contributor.
For me, this reading was certainly interesting, considering that I've encountered successful people around my age everyday. It really does make me wonder what kind of advantages we are born with compared to one another, since we have similar living situations. However, in the sophomore class, there isn't this pattern of birthdays dictating the ranking, so if this book's message can apply to all aspects of success, there must be another underlying factor. I can definitely find this applying at the much earlier level, where any time of development and learning can be beneficial, even if it is a month or so. At the kindergarten level, the school year also starts around the fall, so children born closer after the date would have the advantage in more time spent in preparation. That time spent before kindergarten can go on to affect our performance in high school, because of how crucial development is at that point. This makes birthdays an inherent advantage for some to have over others, which in some situations, can be seen as unfairness. Thinking about it, it would be very difficult to fix this problem, as it would require a year-long class where students would enter as soon as they hit a certain age. Reading this has made me wonder exactly what other kinds of advantages there are that may not have been pointed out or realized before.
I decided to start reading this book at a tennis game while I had downtime, then finished the rest at home decently late at night. I have trouble making time for dedicated reading during the weekday, and it seems that I will have to do my reading on the weekends to fit it into my schedule. I am enjoying this book much more than other nonfiction texts, simply because the information is conveyed as individual stories or 'parables', rather than a long stream of information that might seem very boring. As it is easy to follow because of this format, I don't really find a need to use an unique reading strategy, but simply reading in a quiet place has been effective. For the summative project, I feel that there were some good points made in this first section, and other similar ones will appear along the way. Overall though, this book has made me think about life, which is great to me when it comes to nonfiction.
The introduction of the book introduces what the author and many other scientists call "outliers", those who seem to be separate from the norm. The very first example is an Italian village in Pennsylvania whose health records seem to be twice as good as the rest of America, with no explanation except for deep familial and community bonds. This book is trying to convey that the reasoning for success, no matter what kind, is always related to something never obvious, with what people think right now being too close-minded to truly see it. His next example discusses Canadian hockey, and its top-league players. While Gladwell does give credit to their success for their hard work and dedication to the sport, he states that there is a reason for the ranking of each player and who has the most potential. Showing a list of birthdays, he points out that the best players were born in January, then the next best in February, and so on. Afterwards, he reveals that the cutoff date for the league to find its players is January 1st, which gives the players born earlier an advantage, as they reach the age requirement faster and can train for a few months more. He insists that there is more to being successful than the amount of effort and dedication put into something, with inherent factors that are out of human control being a large contributor.
For me, this reading was certainly interesting, considering that I've encountered successful people around my age everyday. It really does make me wonder what kind of advantages we are born with compared to one another, since we have similar living situations. However, in the sophomore class, there isn't this pattern of birthdays dictating the ranking, so if this book's message can apply to all aspects of success, there must be another underlying factor. I can definitely find this applying at the much earlier level, where any time of development and learning can be beneficial, even if it is a month or so. At the kindergarten level, the school year also starts around the fall, so children born closer after the date would have the advantage in more time spent in preparation. That time spent before kindergarten can go on to affect our performance in high school, because of how crucial development is at that point. This makes birthdays an inherent advantage for some to have over others, which in some situations, can be seen as unfairness. Thinking about it, it would be very difficult to fix this problem, as it would require a year-long class where students would enter as soon as they hit a certain age. Reading this has made me wonder exactly what other kinds of advantages there are that may not have been pointed out or realized before.
I decided to start reading this book at a tennis game while I had downtime, then finished the rest at home decently late at night. I have trouble making time for dedicated reading during the weekday, and it seems that I will have to do my reading on the weekends to fit it into my schedule. I am enjoying this book much more than other nonfiction texts, simply because the information is conveyed as individual stories or 'parables', rather than a long stream of information that might seem very boring. As it is easy to follow because of this format, I don't really find a need to use an unique reading strategy, but simply reading in a quiet place has been effective. For the summative project, I feel that there were some good points made in this first section, and other similar ones will appear along the way. Overall though, this book has made me think about life, which is great to me when it comes to nonfiction.