It's funny - despite my general openness about personal matters, this is probably the subject I am least comfortable talking about. When someone is a genius, you go through the first 20 years of your life constantly trying to hide it so as not to be seen as a pointdexter, sycophant or snob. "Oh, it must be so HARD to memorize a complicated song in one day or ace all your tests without studying, tell me more about the problems in your life" you imagine 'friends' sneering behind your back, rolling their eyes. The effortless ease with which highly gifted people take on tasks is actually a highly calculated veneer over the same frustrating obstacles as others without seeming arrogant while doing so. The enormous expectation to not just do one's best but to constantly dominate your previous record and everyone else's leads to the eventual sinking realization that there simply is not room in this world for more than one "the best". As both popular science and psychology are starting to confirm, being a genius is in no way a predictor of life success despite every individual's good fortune and efforts, and Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' is the best and most accessible explanation I've read as to why.
Impressing people without even meaning to is one of the earliest memories I have in life. After devouring all of the chapter and picture books I could get my hands on at pre-school age, my parent's classics and old science textbooks (or at least the ones I could reach off the bottom shelf) seemed the next natural step. Dad frequently retells a story in which he asks me as a toddler how I got to be so smart; I replied "good genes". Public school has no idea what to do with a kid who signs up for kindergarten being already able to read novels, play piano sheet music and execute batch files in DOS. I was tested at age 7 with an IQ of 163 upon entering the second grade, having already been skipped a grade ahead as well as being a year younger still due to having a September birthday. This conflict between being significantly younger than my peers at a critical age of development and also several standard deviations more intelligent than them was to be a continual source of strife. I begged and pleaded with my parents not to hold me back, not understanding the implications of being so much less emotionally mature than my peers. On the first day of class I got sent to the principal's office for taking my shoes off and refusing to put them back on. At 9, the teachers were fed up with me reading or drawing and 'distracting others' in class but also couldn't fail me when I was getting perfect grades, so I was pulled out and sent to a private school for the gifted, where after a year of constant boredom (diagnosed and medicated as ADHD) and other behavioral problems my teachers treated me as a class scapegoat and suggest that I be better off homeschooled or back in public school. These events marked the beginning of a long scholastic career of underachievement, contempt of authority, and befuddled administrators who weren't sure whether I belonged in the gifted program or Special Ed.
I was lucky enough to be born into a white, middle class family in one of the most highly educated and prosperous parts of the United States. My parents were psychology majors who read all the right books and took all the proper steps in terms of nurturing the development of a gifted child without stifling or overloading me. So why am I not in the same percentile of overall life success as I am in test score range? Gladwell goes into the many statistical reasons why the high-IQ child is no more likely to become successful than any other child when demographic influences are controlled for, some factors as completely out of our control as being born in the wrong month of the year. He also gets down to what I believe is the true difference between successful and unsuccessful people, the willingness to work hard. If I had been self-disciplined enough to put in the hours academically to master unfavorable subjects with the same voracity with which I took to computers, art, music and reading, plus a less cynical attitude towards the school system, I might have gotten a full ride scholarship to any of the best universities in the world. As it is, I'll have to settle for a community college degree acquired at age 19, being published and owning my own business by 21, and knowing that if I do desire to learn a new skill at any point in life, the only thing standing in my way is myself. (Though, as a side note, I definitely pick up new skills a lot slower than I used to as a child and find myself stymied more often, indications that my IQ has dropped either from aging or drug/alcohol use, something that I try to compensate for with extra patience).
Though it will always be embarrassing and awkward, I've gotten used to the incredulous stares and people asking "how did you do that", though I never had a particularly good answer. "Lots of practice, the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, and luck" is the old standby, though it sometimes felt insincere. Now, thanks to 'Outliers', I realize that's not an overly humble explanation of genius. If I ever have kids, I will not subject them to a barrage of tests in order to find out exactly how "special" they are. I will accept that they are special simply on the virtue that they are them, listen to them to find out what they truly love to do and push them to achieve high but realistic expectations. And that's my advice for children of all ages - do what it takes to be whatever you want to be and do the hell out of it.
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Human connectivity, interrelationships are key to meaningful lives
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2018
One of my past pupils recommended that I read this study in June 2018. I picked it up from Amazon and began to read it on a journey to San Antonio, and completed it on the return trip to Berkeley.Author Malcolm Gladwell tells us that what we usually consider the heart of a success story is really off the mark. There are no self-made successes. "Outliers", people who excel, have many others to thank, including family members who lived two or three generations before their births. They have opportunities, yes, and they have hours to practice, to study, to rehearse, to experiment -- thousands of hours, in fact. In addition, they also have those who encourage them in making social contacts, in ways to best present themselves and their ideas. High IQ and native talent are not enough; being comfortable in the social context makes the great difference.Gladwell introduces his essay with an assessment of the people of Roseto (Pennsylvania) of mid-1900s - how their good health and extraordinary longevity defied American averages. What medical researchers found is that Roseto's population of Italian immigrants and their descendants spent time with each other, and resolved issues by confiding in each other. They shared their meals and never rushed Sunday dinner, which was always intergenerational. The people of Roseto did not die of heart disease or cancer. They died of old age (I relate to this because, as an Italian-American, I have been interested in the story of Roseto for decades).The essay ends with Gladwell telling the story of racial mixing in Jamaica in the 19th century, and how slavery ended there well before it did in the USA, how opportunities were offered and taken, and lives improved, racism died, solidarity became solid, and people found meaning (The Jamaican Story becomes a revelation to the reader at the end).Between these bookends, Gladwell examines the stories of hockey stars, rock stars, geniuses, inventors, tailors, lawyers, nuclear physicists, and other outliers -- and Gladwell finds patterns in their upbringing and in the mentoring that they received that made them, if not exceptional, incredibly proficient.This essay is an important contribution to the study of education, parenting and policy-making. I highly recommend "Outliers: The Story of Success".
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2018
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