Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 'Outliers', anyone reading it??

Meh, I wanted to stay as far away from that book as possible after I read that he thought the reason for Asian kids' success is that their parents farmed rice paddies.

I just started reading it, and have been skipping through and reading a few pages here and there until I get a chance to read the whole thing.

I liked this: "The middle-class parents talked things through with their children, reasoning with them. They didn't just issue commands. They expected their children to talk back to them, to negotiate, to question adults in positions of authority" and "The heavily scheduled middle-class child is exposed to a constantly shifting set of experiences. She learns teamwork and how to cope in highly structured settings. She is taught how to interact comfortably with adults, and to speak up when she needs to."

I read that part while I was at my son's four hour long rehearsal. My son and the rest of his children's musical theatre group will be performing at a downtown New Years Eve celebration. I was wondering if it was all worth it, listening to the teacher yelling at the kids and telling them that she had made every one of them cry at some point and she could do it again if they didn't look professional. The third time they ran through the show, my son's voice cracked as he sang a solo part and without thinking, he smiled and looked at me. She yelled that it was not funny. They are not supposed to break character. She yelled a lot at the 5 year old who got tired and cranky after only two hours of non-stop rehearsing with no breaks.

But I realize that he and most of the other kids have learned to deal with the yelling and are able to calmly express their needs and are able to negotiate with her while looking her straight in the eye. They have learned to "talk back" without being disrespectful and I think this is a valuable skill.

I read it before Christmas. Lina, I was uncomfortable reading the last part of the book too. I was suprised he went there.

The stereotypical "all asians are good at math" combined with an explanation that it's pure ethnocentric behavior over any natural inclination towards aptitude was a little strange,,,,,,IMO.

After I read it I was all: "NO he di int...."

I did enjoy the book until about halfway through. I would describe it as intellectual pop culture lite.


I enjoyed reading Blink and The Tipping Point much more. Ultimately I prefer Steven Levitt's writing style a little more for this "genre" of book, Freakonomics was much more research driven.

I found Outliers to be interesting but too anecdotal for my taste.

I saw this too and found it interesting, especially since my son does not have an IQ score and the educational psychologist who tested him several years ago only gave us an estimate of what he might score on an IQ test based on his score on the WIAT. "A mature scientist with an adult IQ of 130 is as likely to win a Nobel Prize as is one whose IQ is 180."

I think the neurosurgeon who wrote Gifted Hands did not have an extremely high IQ but it was certainly high enough. I think his work ethic, social skills, and outside the box thinking, and natural ability enabled him to outperform some people who might have had higher IQ scores.

I agree, Lori. I kind of think the book belabored the point, though.

I listened to the entire book on CD.

I grew up on a Tobacco farm and picked fruit as a teenager.

I agree with his thesis about the work ethic and independent streak that arises out of intensive agriculture. Dr Victor Hanson has argued the same thing in his book "Fields without Dreams" as has Wendell Berry in "The Unsettling of America."

My wife's maternal Grandfather is a retired professional cowboy. His answer for any setback is, "You just gotta get tougher." or "From can to can't" which sums it all up.

Most people who do not live on a production farm have absolutely no idea what it takes to be successful at it. The amount of sheer work with all the unavoidable issues such as equipment breakdown, dangerous situations, weather, crazy neighbors, uncontrollable costs and crop prices, have no peer in other types of ventures other than a technology startup.

When kids grow up in this cultural outlook, they accept the long hours required to be successful at something with no complaining and parents expect hard work from their kids. Its nothing to get up at 5am and go until 10 pm and then do it all again the next day.

One of my brothers took over the farm. He gets up at 5am, does his pushups and situps and goes for a run, then does his chores. Once, he broke his ankle very badly, got it set in a cast, then he went back to work, hoe-ing the tobacco.

I know some home schooled kids who work on hay farms in the summer and work at night picking up hay from sunset to dawn for 25 cents a bale, sleep, then study in the afternoon. Some will earn $20,000 in a summer. These kids go right to Law School from the farm.

When I was in college, there were some very bright kids from Eastern Europe who were brilliant. But, I buried them with my work ethic. I studied 12 hours a day six days a week and did every single problem in the book - staying up every night past midnight. Then I went back and redid every problem before the final. I owned the finals.

My DW kept track of her hours when she was in college. If she put in 10 hours of studying a week per class, then she got an A.

I work with Chinese immigrants. They put a lot of pressure on their kids. They go to school during the day, then study 4 hours every night, then go to school on the weekends, too. That works out to about 80 hours of school/studying per week. They just bury the smarter kids by being totally prepared.

Bottom line - sure, you are smart, and can figure it out, but by being prepared, you KNOW it when you see it, saving you time when the test or issue arises.

The Germans have a word for it - Fingerspitzengefuhl - but this applies in all areas of knowledge - you are so totally prepared that you can instantly assess something new. I think the Zen term is Satori.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl

Ah farming...the only business where you buy retail and sell wholesale...(I grew up on one, too.) Or as an old custom-combining partner of my dad's used to say, "98% of farming is fixing things..." (imagine it in an Oklahoma twang...)

I always enjoy your posts, Austin! In re: Fingerspitzengefuehl, do you know the book "Old Books, Rare Friends" by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern? They were two of the grandes dames of the antiquarian book business after the war (Rostenberg specialised in the printers of Strasbourg and Stern was an Alcott scholar)--they go on about Fingerspitzengefuehl at some length, in a book of great charm.

peace
minnie

I haven't gotten very far in the book, but the idea of 10,000 hours to mastery sparked my idea of parenting. DS12 did the math, and we figured if I was doing 'on the job' parenting training 20 hours a day when he was first born, then I hit my first 10,000 hours when he was a year and a quater old. (aproximatly)

We gave DH credit for 20 hours a week, and calculated that DH hit his matery level when DS was 10 year old.

...just when I was starting to suspect that female socalization was better suited to the parenting role, along comes a much better explaination.

I can't wait to share this with my cousin who just finished her first year as an adoptive mom of toddler boys.

Now I'm curious to see if you think that parenting is similar enough to violin playing to make the comparison valid, and how many hours y'all rate yourselves having spent parenting, and how many you assign your significant others.

Wry Smiles,
Grinity

My DH stayed home for the first month full-time and for 2 weeks half-time when each of our two boys were born. I nursed and cuddled the baby and took the night shift, and he changed diapers and cuddled and let me sleep during the day. Then when #2 was born, we tag-teamed to make sure that DS#1 still got mommy time and I still got some sleep.

I sing the praises of the Family and Medical Leave Act to anyone who will listen!

Not to mention singing the praises of his company. He came back to a promotion after child #2 was born, so he didn't get penalized at all. (Granted, he was still accessible if they needed him, and he had gotten all his projects set before he took off.) It was telling that many of the upper-level managers commented to him that they wished they had had that option when their kids were small and that they were 100% behind his choice to take time off. So nice!

Anyway, the upshot is that DH got his parental certification a lot earlier than most non-SAH dads. We were both quite confident in his ability to parent without my hovering over him, and that carried over even after he had gone back to work. He was and still is a very hands-on dad. In fact, he's getting the kids to bed right now while I play!

I love my husband! Not to brag, but I married really, really well!

Grinity, I think it's easier to master the violin than it is to master the art of parenting. :0 There are basically a fixed number of notes to be played on that violin, but just when you think you have that child figured out, he changes!

Austin, that was a well written post on the benefits of growing up in an agrarian culture. As most of the longer term posters know, we raise beef cattle and I work as a programmer/analyst in town. People are so far removed from agriculture about the only thing they know of it is stories relayed from several generations removed, or maybe from watching 'Green Acres'. They are shocked to find one piece of equipment can rival what they paid for their house. They are surprised we don't have a flock of chickens, a handful of milk cows, or that we visit the symphony more than the average office worker.