Outliers

I've just about finished my most recent read, something I don't get to do nearly as much as I would like during the school year but with a long weekend because of our parent/teacher conferences last night I had some time to devote to finishing it up.  It has really spurred my thinking.  The book is called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  If you haven't read any of his stuff, I would highly recommend it.  The book investigates some of the reasons our best and brightest are the best and brightest.  After our parent/teacher conferences last night I keep coming back to a few of the highlights:

1. 10,000 hours.  This is the number concluded as the amount of time one has to put into his or her field in order to be the best of the best, or an outlier.  Whether you are a cellist, athlete, computer programmer, pilot, etc., 10,000 hours of work is required in order to reach the elite level of success.  Not many of us are willing to devote this much time to a single focus.
2. There is a big part of the book devoted to external factors that influence success.  Had Bill Gates been born any time other than he was (to put him right in the middle of the personal computing revolution) it is doubtful that he would be in the position he is.  He had his 10,000 hours in at just the right time.  Although his birth date is a major factor, it is not the ONLY factor; 10,000 hours...
3. The environment in which children are raised plays as big a role as IQ in determining one's eventual success.  He contrasts Oppenheimer and a man named Chris Langan, both of whom possess high IQ's but were raised in very different environments, and where their lives took them.  Along with these men, Gladwell draws from Lewis Terman's psychological studies of intelligence during the early 1900's that reinforce this.  This is a big one for me as I see many of my students being raised in less than ideal home settings.  The thought that saddens me is that these parents don't even realize how much they are handicapping their children by making the choices that they make.
4. Lastly, as a math teacher, I love his take on the stereotype of Asian countries' successful math scores year after year.  He focuses on the fact that these cultures typically have very strong work ethics because of their involvement in rice farming and the difference this makes in the mathematics classroom.  I draw from this with my students frequently when discussing success in my classroom and how much of their success in my classroom is directly related to the amount of work and focus they put into into it.

How can we change our school culture in order to put our students in the best possible position for success.  We as teachers do a lot, but sometimes (maybe after seeing only 20% of my parents at conferences when many of my students are underachieving) it feels like we are fighting an uphill battle against a cultural adversary.  Teaching is easy, but creating a culture that breeds success and where earning an education is important is extremely difficult.  How can we change the culture?