Ok, so there is a birthday trend among the best hockey players. So what? What is Gladwell's main point, and what are the larger implications of such a trend? Think about how Gladwell's ideas about success have affected your life or will affect your future.
I think what Gladwell is trying to say is that there in more to being successful. Most people assume that they were successful because of individual merit. People think that if they work hard and have the will to succeed they will. As Gladwell points out there are other factors that come into play. I must say I really do find it interesting, but maturity level really does go a long way. Back home, people always leave their children back a year for sports. I graduated with a numerous amount of kids that were almost a year older than me. That one year makes the kid bigger, faster, and stronger on the field, it almost makes it too easy. From an academic standpoint, I would imagine one year maturation difference of the brain goes a long way. It also takes a mental toll as well, a kid who is doing better than most due to maturation will have the mindset to continue to succeed. He/she would assume that he/she is better via intelligence or athletics whatever the situation may be and continue to shine on. By the time the others catch up it's too late because that other person is always one step ahead. But i feel like it isn't all about maturation and i do think if someone has the will, passion, and drive they will also see just as good results.
ReplyDeleteI think Gladwell is trying to get across the point that despite our American love of the idea of a self made man, there are a number of environmental and social factors that go into the success of an individual. I think she would agree with the sentiment that the will to succeed alone can only go so far.
ReplyDeleteA person who was born closer to a cut off date for school or some sport is at a disadvantage to a person who was born further away from that date and had the time to physically or mentally mature. It should come as no surprise that a person who has more muscle mass and knows how to use it has an advantage over an individual who doesn’t. It only makes sense that in the wild, an animal that is slower and weaker is more likely to die off than a healthy and robust one.
The issue lies in the fact that we aren’t in the wild and these cut off dates and things like them are things that are essentially arbitrary. We impose them on ourselves and because of this unnecessary restriction, many people, or children more specifically for this chapter, are at a disadvantage from the get go. Beyond this starting point, many of these initial elite are treated in such a way as to better groom their talents and abilities while the rest are looked down upon if not entirely forgotten altogether. I get the impression that Gladwell sees this effect as something that snowballs throughout the lives of individuals and consequently throughout all aspects of our society.
Looking back I can see where this kind of thing could have been in play. Coming from one of the regional campuses, I get the impression sometimes that while I am here on the main campus I am seen as almost a second rate citizen by professors and students alike. Many professors are less reluctant to help me merely because they would rather be focusing their time on someone who is a more traditional or ideal student. I was never a bad student and I didn’t start on the main campus because I couldn’t get in. I have an “A” average and I went to the regional campus because I was offered a full ride there with a local scholarship. However even now that it has nearly been a year since I took a class on the southern campus, I can still feel the effects of the stigma of going there. Even though I am an above average student and am pretty willful, it makes a big difference when the cards are stacked against you.
Gladwell's main point is that is that success is not only controlled by your individual determination and hard work. Other factors contribute to success that are not even considered. Where, when and who you grow up with have a bigger impact on success than your own abilities. This means that young children will be left behind even if they are relatively of the same intelligence or physical ability yet are separated by a half year. Some children could become defeated and give up on trying just because they are getting passed up by peers that are a little bit older than themselves. I believe this to be true for any application where human development can occur. Take for example the music scene. You are not going to make it big in the country genre if you live in downtown Cleveland or Detroit. I think really what Gladwell is trying to get across is the way we as humans try to nurture a developing mind could be flawed.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed this trend early on in my life. In elementary school I had a best friend that was one year older than me but in the same grade. He was, for the most part, one year ahead of me in every single skill, in talent and in intelligence. I knew at a young age that being more developed will give you an advantage but I took it as a challenge. I worked twice as hard to get to where my elementary school friend was. I did not feel cheated or stupid for not being able to keep up. I would say that age doesn't really affect me now or will it in the future. It just means I will have to step up to be better and successful.
I believe that Gladwell's main point is that the people who have success in life didn't necessarily do it on their own. If you happen to be successful it is because society gave you a small advantage to begin with. The example of the hockey players shows that those who were born in the early months of the year had an unfair advantage from a very young age over people born in the second half of the calender year. This small advantage stayed with them the rest of their lives as they gained more experience and became better players. People who have success usually do so because of an advantage he or she has over other people. Gladwell points out that we should organize children in sports and in the classroom depending on what month they were born and let the best people emerge from each group. This would equal the playing field and not give someone with an early birthday an advantage.
ReplyDeleteGladwell's theory has already had an affect on my life. When I was younger I tried out for an all-start team in soccer. The age group you were put in to was based on what year you were born in and since I happen to be born in December I was one of the youngest kids in the group. I was competing against kids that were almost an entire year older than me and the typical cut off dates for other soccer leagues was usually August 1st. I was at a disadvantage and I ended up not making the team. After reading The statement by Gladwell it would be very interesting if I could go back and look at the month that the players who made the team were born in.
After reading Gladwell's essay entitled "Outliers," it is apparent to me that this trend- called The Mathew Effect is responsible for the success of many individuals and has affected my life personally. Gladwell's point is simply that those who are born into a disadvantaged age category may have to compete with individuals up to 11 months and 29 days older then themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe major implications of the Mathew Effect are that by categorizing age in this manner one effectively writes-off the overwhelming majority of talent just because age and maturity are confused with academic and physical ability. The main point here being that if a new system was implicated all ages and ability would be utilized more efficiently.
Gladwell's ideas about success have impacted my own life in many ways. First and foremost in soccer I was always the youngest being born in December. I was placed with older youth and thus was behind in physical and mental ability. Because of this disadvantage, I worked harder than ever but despite this could not help the fact that most individuals were both taller and faster than me. I did pretty good for myself but have always raised the question... "If I had been born a few days later in January, would I have dominated the field?"
At this point it is hard to know for sure what results would have transpired but one this is for sure; if Gladwell's ideas are correct, I may have just gone further.
Gladwell's article brings to light many interesting questions about the meaning of success, and the factors that contribute to it. By referencing the story of two of the best teams in the Canadian Hockey League, Gladwell points out that all the A-players are the oldest in their bracket, and therefore, the biggest, strongest, and most developed. The same theory, known as the Matthew Effect, can be applied to education, in which (generally) older students are placed in more advanced classes, where they are more prone to succeed than the younger students in less advanced classes. Gladwell concludes by proposing a restructuring of our athletic and educational systems, in which all athletes and students are given the equal opportunity to "succeed" by creating two divisions of classes according to age.
ReplyDeleteGladwell's point is not simply that there is a trend of early month birthdays amongst hockey players, but that the people with these birthdays are arbitrarily *selected* to be the best players. He uses this as an attention grabbing example of a trend that can be extended to nearly anything with a specific age requirement. People with incomprehensibly high levels of skill do not achieve such heights through passion and determination alone, but with help from our seemingly random choice of birth deadlines for various sports, activities, and even levels of education. People close to these deadlines unfairly obtain an instantaneous advantage over their peers by being the most developed in their supposed "age group".
ReplyDeleteI will admit that I am likely a product of this age biasing. I was always among the older students in my grades, and according to Gladwell, was placed in advanced learning environments because of this fact. Honestly, I'm not the least bit resentful about this. My relatively early maturation got me into a lot of things I'm currently infatuated with, and I enjoy those obsessions just fine. If I hadn't been in advanced math, I likely would have never gotten or have been motivated to obtain my present numerical abilities. If I didn't have those, I sure as hell couldn't be an astrophysicist. So thanks, parents, for having sex earlier. I really appreciate it.
I don't understand hockey all that much, but I did manage to understand Gladwell's point: that our society has come to identify success with the "rags-to-riches" story where hard work and passion enable people to rise to a better social status. However, Gladwell has an interesting point about how success is affected by age within many aspects of our lives. I had never considered success to be the result of an environmental condition: I presumed that there were motivated people and unmotivated people. Gladwell put it into perspective. Because I was born closer to the beginning of the year, I was treated differently than say, my cousin, who was born at the end of October. I received special attention, got to enter into gifted reading and math classes, while she was put into regular rotation. My grades have always been higher than hers, my extracurricular achievements more abundant. I also got into a University, whereas she went to a community college (with the monetary help of her parents, while I have paid for mine on my own) and barely graduated with any kind of degree. I thought it was laziness on her part. Now, I feel like our system cheated her out of a quality education. I guess I know who I'm calling tonight and giving an apology...
ReplyDeleteGladwell's article shed light on a few very interesting aspects of how we as a society not only describe success but also how we go about creating it. I believe Gladwell's main point is simply; we mold a select group towards success, while leaving others out of the loop. This term "the Mathew Effect" can be applied to many of our societies "institutions." However, I find that its most important application is with our societies' education system. Gladwell highlights that even in our own education systems the Mathew Effect is largely at play. Older students are often mistakenly grouped into "gifted" categories not because they are excelling academically, but because they are older than other and thus more mature. Not only does this categorization give the "gifted" a faulty sense of entitlement, but it also hurts the academic integrity of those who weren't labeled as "gifted." Their education must now take a backseat and a lower priority simply because they weren't old enough to make the cut, or atleast not mature enough. I find that the worst implication of such an effect is the waste of talent and knowledge experienced by those who were never given a chance to fully succeed. The people who could have done something great, but didn't because of a lack of attention will always haunt our minds in systems where the Mathew Effect is at large.
ReplyDeleteGladwell's chapter in "Outliers," brings many good points about success in our culture to the light. He uses a term known as accumulative advantage to describe this and I think he is exactly right. Accumulative advantage starts at a young age, usually before kids even have a chance to mature. At this point, the more talented, bigger, mature children are filtered out of their normal classroom or athletic activities and placed in programs that give them access to better coaching or teaching. When you separate children at this young of an age it doesn't give everyone the same chance at success. The older kids are only more successful because they have had several years of access to these vital resources by the time they have fully matured.
ReplyDeleteThe larger implications of this trend is that thousands of children are left in the dust as their slightly older counterparts are given the formula for success. This trend has affected me directly in previous years, especially in sports. I was held back in kindergarten to get the extra year of maturity and looking back on it, it was the best thing for me at the time. While it may have only been a year there is a lot of personal growth that goes on during that time of adolescence. I also was affected in sports. Until eighth grade I was always having to play on teams with the kids in the grade above me. I missed the birtday cut-off by less than a month but was still forced to play up. If I was not given the extra year of school to develop, who knows if I would even be here at school. I think Gladwell is exactly right with his view on success.
In Gladwell's article he questions what success really means and what who we consider to be successful and why. Most people like to think that people become successful because of hard work and dedication, however we have evidence that this is not always the case. Gladwell argues that in fact that these people are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow then to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. For example, how the older kids trying out for hockey teams are picked first because they are usually more developed physically than the younger kids, which leads to better training, more games and so on that inevitably makes them better hockey player in the long run. This also happens in education where "smarter" students get to go to better schools because of better grades, which allows them better teaching. This has probably affected my life somewhere in my schooling and will affect my life in getting a job outcome maybe if that smarter kid went to an ivy league school and gets the job before me. This will also affect my children in the future for sports, education and probably more.
ReplyDeleteGladwell uses the example of trends among hockey players’ birthday to support his main argument that the “self made man” is not entirely made by oneself. In Outliers, Gladwell suggests those who claim to have risen from nothing are actually mistaken, “People don’t rise from nothing” (p. 19). Where we were born, when we were born, who our parents are… all of these things influence what kind of person we will grow up to be and how successful we will be.
ReplyDeleteUsing the example of birthdays that Gladwell used, I look back to when I was growing up. My birthday is in July and in my town summer birthdays were sort of a gray area for choosing when to send your child to school. My parents decided that I had matured enough to go to kindergarten early, so they chose to enroll me when I was five, instead of waiting until I was six. Therefore, I was to graduate in 2008, instead of 2009. I never struggled in school, however had my parents made the choice to wait until I was six, my life could have been dramatically different. I would have had different friends, and perhaps I would’ve excelled more being one of the older students in my class.
My high school was also very small. My brother Jake was a varsity football player all four years of high school, but because our school was hardly on the radar for recruiters, he never got recruited for a college team. On the other hand, one of Jake’s friends who attended a larger school did get recruited. My brother’s friend was no better than Jake, however, because he went to a larger school he got noticed.
Another example of this is legacies in fraternities and sororities. My roommate Rachael was a legacy for one of the sororities on campus, and she has even told me that she believes they only gave her a bid because she was a legacy. Rachael’s main reason for rushing was because her freshman year roommate Carrie had rushed the year before and loved it. Also, she knew it would make her grandmother, who was in the sorority, so happy and proud that she had rushed. Without her grandmother making her a legacy, and Carrie, Rachael probably would not have gotten involved in Greek Life.
Gladwell's essay was extremely intriguing to me. I think Gladwell visions success by those who are of luck. Success starts at a young age and is built just because your older than your peers. The hockey example Gladwell talks about was very intertaining to me. I know a lot of people that hold their children back in my home town just for athletics. Be older is a definate advantage in my mind, so I would agree with Gladwell in some aspect, but all people develope at different times. You have some people at a young age who are older but the smallest person in the class, and the biggest kid could be the youngest. I have seen this happen growing up. I think Gladwell does bring up a good arguement and it is definately something we should consider. Most kids do not like to fail, and if they dont make a team once, chances are they will not want to try out ever again. Gladwell's points and arguements are really strong and valid. The education idea, about the older peers being smarter and getting a better education, I would also have to agree with this. We had four validictorians in my class and three of them were the oldest kids in my class. I think Gladwell really brought some good points and attention to something we need to take care of right away. It is not far for younger peers to have a disadvantage just because they were not born eight months before.
ReplyDeleteI found Gladwells article really interesting. I have always believed what he is saying to be somewhat true, but the way that he laid out this article made the idea of academic advantage quite clear to me. Development of a child, or anyone really, surely depends on all external forces that effect that individuals life. It had been proven time and time again that high confidence and good training can make dramatic effects on the outcome of an individual. I completely agree with his argument, and even feel that some of my struggles could easily be tried to his theory. As I child I was horrible at reading. I went to tutors and got extra help in school, always somewhat behind the rest of my peers. I think the fact that I have always been self-conscious about my reading and writing abilities would certainly effect how I still feel about them to this day. I still dread reading aloud, and hate when others read anything that I have written. It’s odd to me, that a simple problem being so clear still hasn’t produced any productive solutions. I think that his idea of splitting people up into similar abilities could produce some really great results. I certainly think its at least worth a try.
ReplyDeleteI thought this article was particularly intriguing. The "Matthew Effect" is not something that I have ever thought of before. However, it makes perfectly good sense. If a child is bigger and stronger because he or she is older then there is no reason why the child would not advance in hockey. As Gladwell pointed out, this is not just true when it comes to hockey, but in academics as well. I think it is definitely true that if a child is placed in higher level classes at a very early age like 7 or 8 that they are much more likely to continue to feel that they are gifted and better at school than their other classmates. I like Denmark's policy. That there is no advanced classes until after the age of ten, when critical age gaps aren't as apparent. I think that the U.S. should possibly consider doing this as well. It would give children an equal chance to excel and "succeed. I think that Gladwell's main point here is that it's common belief that successful people did it out of merit, hard work, and determination. When in reality, there are countless factors that can determine whether or not a person feels that they have achieved success.
ReplyDeleteHer main point is that some players are advantaged because of their birthdays. They are more mature due to their birthday falling at a certain date, leading them to advance and get more opportunities than others with less advantageous birthdays.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfair. Players are selected through a broken system, and not purely on talent or ambition.
Maybe I won't get something because I'm too old or too young. Maybe someone hates people born in December. I will never be president because I didn't go to Yale. Etc.