Outliers

Key Takeaways

Kyle’s capture of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is unusual in the library: it is almost entirely his own reflection rather than quotation, and he says why — “usually, when I read books like this it’s more of a personal reflection. This book, however, made me think much more of my own children and the environment they grow up in.”

Three threads:

• Intelligence isn’t sufficient. On Chris Langan: he “had all the intelligence he could ever need” but “had to do everything alone. He didn’t know how” to navigate institutions — the book’s case that practical/social capital is the multiplier on raw ability.
• Hard work as an inherited expectation. The Chinese proverb Gladwell leans on — “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich” — plus the finding that students spent roughly 40% longer persisting on a problem. Kyle reads this as a claim about environment and expectation rather than innate ability.
• The tension with unschooling. Kyle explicitly sets this book against Dumbing Us Down: it is “great to say we should want less time in school and more time being taught,” but Outliers cuts the other way on time-on-task.

Filed as a parenting-and-environment book as much as a success book.

Connections

Books: Dumbing Us Down — Kyle reads the two directly against each other on schooling and time. Blink and The Tipping Point — same author, same method.

Concepts: Education · Alternative Education — where the schooling tension lands. Parenting — the lens Kyle says he read it through.

People: Malcolm Gladwell.

• Blink · David and Goliath — other Malcolm Gladwell books in Kyle’s library; together they represent his sustained engagement with Gladwell’s counter-intuitive social-science genre.
• 10,000 Hour Rule · Deliberate Practice · Talent · Luck — the core concepts: Gladwell’s argument that extraordinary success arises from the interplay of practice (10,000 hours), circumstance, and timing as much as innate ability.

Highlights

Kyle: Usually, when I read books like this it’s more of a personal reflection. This book, however, made me think much more of my own children and the environment I’m creating for them to grow up in. Gladwell points out that “geniuses never actually make it on their own.” One story he told was of Chris Langan, with an IQ higher than Einstein but who had been kicked out of Reed and Montana State, never really finding acceptance in academia. When asked about whether he would ever teach somewhere like Harvard, he said, “When you accept a paycheck from these people, it is going to come down to what you want to do and what you feel is right versus what the man says you can do to receive another paycheck.” Gladwell’s response: “What? One of the main reasons college professors accept a lower paycheck than they could get in private industry is that university life gives them freedom to do what they want to do and what they feel is right. Langan has Harvard backwards.” Kyle: But the point he goes on to make is that Langan, though he had all the intelligence he could ever need, had to do everything alone. He didn’t know how to go through the process. I don’t profess to want desperately for my kids to be geniuses, but if I want them to be successful, I recognize the necessity for providing the support that most people can’t get alone. Kyle: The second big takeaway was the role of hard work; specifically, coming from a background where hard work is expected. Gladwell mentioned a Chinese proverb: Kyle: “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” early morning sleep Kyle: That, coupled with the idea that on average, Chinese kids spent something like 40% more time trying to solve a problem, it makes me think of kids I’ve talked to who, when trying to do something hard, give up relatively soon and hand it to me, saying “I need help.” Kyle: This book contrasted directly with what I read about in “Dumbing Us Down.” It’s great to say we should want less time in school and more time being taught in the world by family, but what about the kids that don’t have a family that can give them that? Where, if they’re not in school, they’re just exposed to more negative influences?