Outliers and Schools... What are the Implications?

I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success, a fascinating exploration of what factors truly lead to success. This book studies exactly what creates success for any individual person. Gladwell uses the term “outlier” to describe men and women who do things out of the ordinary. These are folks who are really at the top of their game or the best in their chosen field, hence they enjoy success. Furthermore, he debunks the notions that people are “born into greatness” or there’s such a thing as a “self-made man.” Rather, all of us have an advantage in one particular area, and good old-fashioned effort and hard work make the difference.

Interestingly enough, Gladwell asks the following question in the book: How much practice do you have to have before you’re really great at something? Through fairly detailed research, he comes up with the answer which he calls the “10,000 Hour Rule” which is this: For you to become truly outstanding at any cognitively complex task, you have to commit 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to it. Outliers have lived up to the 10,000 hours and probably then some…

The book gives examples from throughout history of famous outliers. For example, Mozart began playing the keyboard and violin at age 3, and started composing at age 6, easily working on his 10,000 hours by creating over 400 concertos before age 12. The Beatles amassed roughly 10,000 hours of live performances in Liverpool, England and Hamburg, Germany when they were still honing their craft between 1960 and 1964. Bill Gates, as a geeky, awkward adolescent, had the opportunity to practice computer programming (his passion from age 12 on) for about 10,000 hours in the elite Seattle prep school he attended from 1968 to 1973. When all of these individuals were presented with the opportunity to follow a passion and improve, they put forth the effort and practiced with a vengeance. Gladwell's point about these outliers having sufficient opportunities to meet these 10,000 hours is well-taken. Imagine if all students could have opportunities such as Gates', where a student could follow a passion to the highest degree in a highly personalized learning environment!

A second major area Gladwell delves into is the relationship between achievement and culture as he aims to untangle long-standing puzzles about success and nationality.

"One of the puzzles that educators have thought about for years is why is it that kids from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and China vastly outperform their American or Western counterparts in math," Gladwell writes. "They score substantially better than American kids do."

Gladwell states that Asian children might be inheriting a particular cultural legacy from their parents and their society that was helping them succeed in math — and he says he found the answer in the agricultural tradition of rice farming.

"Rice farming lays out a cultural pattern that works beautifully when it comes to math," Gladwell hypothesizes. "Rice farming is the most labor-intensive form of agriculture known to man. It is also the most cognitively demanding form of agriculture … There is a direct correlation between effort and reward. You get exactly out of your rice paddy what you put into it."

While American students often say math skills are innate, Asian students more frequently attribute success in math to hard work. This was confirmed in a 2008 study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania who dug deeper when looking at the TIMSS (Trends In Mathematics and Science Study) results for 4th grade students in the US and Singapore. They found that when students were interviewed after taking the TIMSS test, both the American and Singapore kids thought the problems were challenging, but there was a stark difference in attitude. Many of the American fourth graders got frustrated with many of the problems and gave up after a relatively short period of time. In contrast, the kids from Singapore had a “can-do” attitude, where they firmly believed that if they gave it their best effort, they would be successful! From this attitude, they would try numerous approaches to a problem until they had success. The UPenn researchers found that it is in the Singapore culture- and most of Asia on a whole- to instill in children starting as toddlers this mindset of strong, consistent effort.

With findings such as these, it is little wonder that so many of the major whole-school reform initiatives (such as the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning or the network of KIPP Academy charter schools) stress organizing for effort as their philosophical underpinnings. I can honestly say that after 20 years as a teacher and principal, effort does determine ability- and everyone can achieve at high levels.

However, do we have systems and structures in place where effort is consistently rewarded? Do our instructional practices recognize that achievement of standards is a process, and effort is a key component? Do assessments that are given to kids reflect this? Food for thought...