Book Club Book : Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell Professor Alley English V02 July 19, 2012

Fact or Fiction :You can get ahead if you just work hard enough and go to school.

Group Members :

Pros

Angie Tapia Ana Figueroa Brenda Topete Naomi Yciento Jessey Villareal Santana Nuhfer

Cons

Crystal Perroncel Vanessa Sosa Tiffany Borlendon

Chapter 1: The Matthew Effect

• Gladwell begins by quoting a verse from the Bible that states that “…those who have will be given more while those who have not will lose that which they had.” Throughout the chapter, Gladwell describes certain advantages sports players and children in school have simply because of their birth dates. They happened to be born in an advantageous part of the year, and that time of birth led them to have certain advantages that spiraled upwards from that point on.

Chapter 2:The 10,000 Hour Rule

• All great success stories have similarities and one of them is that successful individuals spend a lot of time practicing and working on their craft. Gladwell cites studies who claim that for an individual to become an expert in any skill, they need to spend about 10,000 hours practicing or working on it. Overwhelming statistics show that all successful people in their fields had at least 10,000 hours of experience before they made it big.

Chapter 3: The Trouble with Geniuses , Part 1

• Malcolm Gladwell describes the incredible genius of Christopher Langan, currently known as the smartest man in America. Langan has an IQ of 195. His genius makes him an outlier because he stands out so much in comparison to the rest of the world. However, has that genius helped Langan be successful in his life? Other than the celebrity gain, what has he also done? The interesting thing about Langan is that in traditional terms, he is not very successful.

Chapter 4:The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2

• Gladwell further describes the background of Chris Langan who has an IQ of 195 and is considered the smartest man in America. Chris grew up incredibly poor with a working mother and a drunken father. When he went to college, he dropped out. Since then, he has not achieved success in traditional terms. Gladwell contrasts this with Robert Oppenheimer, one of the crucial designers of the nuclear bomb, he too was brilliant, but came from a wealthy family, had a degree from Harvard, and was very successful.

Chapter 5 : The Three Lessons of Joe Flom

• Chapter 5 is about an attorney Joseph Flom who did not succeed through hustling and ability but through the virtue of his origins. It was his Jewish culture that kept him having to work hard to accomplish his life. Jews were never hired by white-sole firms and Flom fought hard with his partners to become experts of the legal practice. Their strive to become successful paid off by becoming top attorneys that were never given the opportunity but with hard work and determination were still able to be on top.

Chapters 6: Harlan, Kentucky

• Chapter 6 traces the influence on a person's culture of origin and how it marks him more in the present day then may be generally appreciated. Psychological experiments proved that a so-called culture of honor, such as that found in the South, where people of necessity had nothing but their reputations, caused the products of such a culture to be much more aggressive in defending themselves, their reputations and honor.

Chapter 7: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

• • Most plane crashes are likely to be a result of an achiever relation of minor difficulties and malfunctions. Individually each one mistake would not cause a plane to crash rather a string of mistakes. The author suggests that 7 may be the number of mistakes and mishaps and needed for a crash. Three contributing facts can be bad weather, Pilot hasn't slept for 12 hours so maybe tired and not thinking as clearly, pilot and copilot have never worked together. It seems that the most important affective communication is between the pilot and air traffic control, pilot and co pilot and pilot and crew. This Chapter Is Just One way of explaining how some fail while others have success.

Chapter 8: Rice Paddies and Math Tests

• Gladwell begins by describing how tending rice paddies is a complicated project that requires constant vigilance and hard work. To have a successful rice paddy, you have to rise before dawn and work hard all day, every day. The amount of work and diligence you put into the paddy directly affects how successful it will be. In contrast, many Western farmers learned to use large farm machinery to reduce their work. But in China and other Asian countries, the rice paddies are small, highly cared for and on steep mountainsides.

Chapter 9 : Marita’s Bargain

• • Gladwell briefly introduces KIPP Academies, privately owned schools started in the 1990s to help lower income families give their children the resources they needed to succeed. KIPP students have a rigorous schedule and study regime; moreover, as a result they perform better and often receive scholarships and opportunities that students from regular public schools do not.

Then Gladwell gives a brief history of the general philosophy of education in America.

Pro Debate Questions :

1) If wanting to help others and become a doctor; How do you expect to operate without being educated and having the experience that is needed to do a proper surgical produce ?

2) What is your desired field , and what level of education will you need to obtain a job in that desired field?

3)With all the advantages you have over the competition , when applying for a job; Why would you not get a degree ?

4) Is the risk of no education worth the potential job?

Con Debate Questions :

1) Having six months to a year to pay off your loans after graduation. Do you find a job in today’s market ?

2) Is a degree enough for a job ? 3) Is the career you are going for, worth the debt from loans you will receive ?

4) Do you think the education you have obtained was worth it when so many people like: Christina Aguilera, Winston Churchill and many more have succeeded without it ?