Contrary to the hardworking, salt-of-the-earth stereotype of the downtrodden peasant, the farmers of old were lazy. In 19th century Flanders, laborers spent a few hours in the fields each morning between late spring and early autumn. For the rest of the year, they essentially hibernated, huddled close to each other in bed for warmth and to conserve food.
Compare that to the life of a rice farmer in China, who tended his paddy nearly year-round, constantly weeding, working hard to keep his crops properly watered. There was no feudal system in China, so while the European peasant toiled for a landowner, a rice farmer was responsible for, and beneficiary of, his own success.
From these different cultures arose contrasting proverbs. In Europe, faith was put in God, or luck. In China, there were sayings such as “no food without blood and sweat.” Or “In winter, the lazy man freezes to death.” Which is why Asians do well in school.
At least that’s what Malcolm Gladwell argues in his latest pop sociological study, “Outliers: The Story of Success” (Little, Brown and Company). As in “The Tipping Point” and “Blink,” the New Yorker magazine writer weaves academic studies and anecdotes, piling on statistics and “Bob couldn’t believe what he was seeing” until – ta-da! – he’s connected the dots to tell you that, for instance, you had a better chance of being a successful lawyer in the 1970s if your father was a garment maker.
Gladwell, who pretty much invented the “secret pattern” book, writes with such conviction that you find yourself swayed, even when his logic takes a particularly long leap. “Outliers” is a book about success, but it’s the opposite of a self-help manual. It argues – in sometimes politically incorrect ways – that there is no such thing as an “overnight success.” Culture and class can mean more than talent, even IQ (Gladwell persuasively argues that once you have an IQ over 120, you’re smart; and you’re probably just as likely to succeed as someone with an IQ of 170).
Leaders with even the humblest beginnings had advantages we don’t even realize are advantages, like being descended from rice farmers and garment makers. “The successful are those who have been given opportunities – and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them,” Gladwell writes.
These opportunities can be as odd as the month you were born in, as with the large percentage of American baseball players with birthdays in August. Why? Because those children would be the oldest – and therefore the biggest – children allowed into a Little League season before the cutoff. Those players are seen as more gifted, and given extra training, so that by the time their physical differences balanced out with their peers, they are in fact better athletes.
Or take Bill Gates. While undoubtedly intelligent, Gates also had the advantage of attending a private school in Seattle that had a computer club. Doesn’t sound extraordinary, except this was 1968 – and most schools didn’t even have a computer. As an eighth grader, Gates was getting more experience than almost any other member of his generation for the career of the future.
But there’s a key word here: Experience. You can have access to the computer club, or be born in August, but it still takes dedication to become good at something, a very specific amount of time, in fact.
While Gates was only 20 when he founded Microsoft, he had already logged many months on a computer. Studies of music school students find that what separates a concert violinist from a hobbyist is not talent but practice. Even Mozart and other child “prodigies” didn’t produce great works without years of effort. In almost every case, Gladwell says, the time commitment is the same – 10,000 hours.
Needing 10,000 hours to do anything well points to the main problem with our educational system, Gladwell argues – the arcane notion of a summer break. He traces the modern school year to an 1871 report called “Relation of Education to Insanity,” backed by the US commissioner of education, which argued that the overtaxing of a child’s brain could be damaging to their intelligence, even their mental health. Unlike most Asian nations, we think kids need time to play.
But when you compare the test scores of students before summer breaks and after, children in lower socioeconomic levels fall behind – because their parents don’t have the time or money to teach them at home or send them to tutors. Gladwell praises the KIPP charter school in The Bronx, which keeps kids in school from 7:25 a.m. to 5 p.m., often later with after-school activities, and is in session for three weeks in July. KIPP students get into college more than any other Bronx graduates for the same reason Asian students do better on standardized tests – they spend more time in school, in a culture that encourages effort. “Schools work,” Gladwell says. “The only problem with school, for the kids who aren’t achieving, is that there isn’t enough of it.” Which may be Gladwell’s most counterrevolutionary – one could say conservative – conclusion. Strip away the freakonomics, the sociological arguments, the rice paddies and the month you were born, and the secret of success boils down to one thing – hard work.
It’s sort of like a diet book that says you should eat less and exercise more. What American would buy it?