f you have not read Malcolm Gladwell's books, The Tipping Point, or Blink or The Outliers, you probably should. He's among the most brilliant societal commentators of our day.


In his recent book, The Outliers, he addresses the issue of education. I'll let Gladwell provide the detail.

But, there are two theses that are important for Connecticut parents.

(1) When reviewing the variety of factors that led to student success, the single factor that most determined student success was how much students worked during the summer

(2) When reviewing students from countries which performed better on international education tests, the 
length of the student's school year was the most dominant factor that predicted success.

Under either theory, the amount of work that students did led to greater success.

That should not be a great surprise.

But, as a parent, when you examine the world that your child is currently in and the world that your child faces, there are some clear implications.

You should structure your child's summer and after-school work environment such that your child does not fall behind either: (1) students in his current school and (2) students in countries that work harder than the US.

Related to the first point:

Gladwell examined a study of children in Baltimore. The study was designed to figure out why wealthier children performed better than students from less affluent backgrounds. Prior to the study, some thought genes or the educational background of the parents would be the determining factors. Neither was most significant.

The impoverished children learned at an equal rate as their wealthier counterparts during the school year. For that reason, each group tested nearly equally during the first couple of years of schooling. The difference in achievement started showing up thereafter. That was curious to the researchers. Differences in genes or parental educational background would presumably have an equal effect on 1st graders as 12th graders.

The students were consistently measured to determine how much they improved during the school year and for the most part the findings stayed the same: the parental income of students had no effect during the school year.

But, the achievement gap kept increasing each year. The reason: those from wealthier families learned more in the summer.

So, for example, Student Rich and Student Poor may have had equal achievement at the end of 1st grade. But, Student Rich's family made him read books, attend enrichment camps, get tutored and generally structured his education in the summer. Student Poor's family did none of those things. 
As the years passed, Student Rich's summers of enrichment gradually shifted the achievement gap between the two students to significant proportions.

Summer should include fun. Lots of fun! But, the day is long. Some work will not put much of a damper on the beautiful summer. Parents who structure some part of the summer to include academic enrichment are giving their students a huge advantage for next year.

In terms of Gladwell's other finding, that achievement was far higher in countries where students had longer school years, the implications are clear. US students spend about 180 days in school. Several Asian countries have students in school between 220-240 days per year. When we did not have such a global workforce, this fact would likely not lead to a great future impact.

As the world has become "flat" (see Thomas Friedman's excellent work on the interconnected world we now live in), our students are competing against international competition. Students from other countries are working 20-30% longer each school year. As the years pass, they are outdistancing the normal American school child.

Your child will be facing that competition when he graduates. It would be wise to take control of your child's educational structure outside of the school environment.

"Einstein didn't do well in school". I'll hear an occasional student tell me this old and somewhat exaggerated tale. Each seems to hope that I'll agree that not doing well is a fine thing. That's not what I am thinking.

Usually, "you are no Einstein", is the thought that flashes in my mind. He did well in his career in spite of not excelling in school. He did not succeed because he did not excel.

Students are fooling themselves by reasoning with induction incorrectly.

Inductive reasoning involves moving specific facts into a pattern that forms a general conclusion.

But, correct inductive reasoning involves considering numerous examples and considering counter-examples in order to form a general conclusion.

For example, if you were a college lacrosse coach who ran summer camps and noticed numerous outstanding lacrosse players from Daniel Hand High School in Madison, Connecticut and you had few or no counter-examples of poor lacrosse players from the same place, then concluding that Madison, CT produces good lacrosse players would a reasonable conclusion.

Or, if you were an admissions officer at a liberal arts college with the capacity to examine individual high schools and you noticed repeatedly that East Lyme High in East Lyme, Connecticut produced students with excellent SAT II math scores and you had few or no counter-examples, then you could conclude through inductive reasoning that East Lyme High must have a strong math department.

As another example of flawed inductive reasoning, we'll hear:

"Bill Gates dropped out of college."

The student making the point is usually justifying their reason for leaving college by trying to link Gates' early departure as evidence that dropping out of college leads to wealth.

As a parent, your response should be that you can drop out of college provided you have the same brilliance and diligence that got Gates into Harvard in the first place and that you, like Gates, will dig in around the clock for years to develop a revolutionary technological innovation.

Where it is the case that the counter-examples are prevalent - lots of people who succeeded in their educational days do well in their career - and/or dominant - people who graduate college are more likely to earn more than those who do not graduate college - then inductive reasoning cannot lead correctly to general conclusions.

At best, such reasoning can be the start of a conversation about what else is needed in order to succeed if one of the main reasons for practical success - education - has been undermined.

For example, there have been NBA basketball players who have succeeded despite being less than 6 feet tall. In each case, however, the player had other attributes: extraordinary quickness, agility, coordination, sense of the game and so forth.

In the Einstein example, the conversation should be that he didn't do well in a traditional educational setting. So, if you want to be like him, you better start teaching yourself advanced physics!

When students send the message that it is OK to underperform because of a flawed metaphor, then lifetime bad habits will be cultivated. If your student-child is not performing the work to get good grades in a Connecticut high school, then he's creating habits that will hurt him in all future endeavors.

Parents who let their kids engage in flawed reasoning are doing a disservice that will come back to haunt their children at some later point.

I love sports. But, I see an alarming trend of athletic focus taking away from academic focus.

I understand the pressures of ensuring that your child is a top competitor in their sport. For example, I fully understand the parent whose child dreams of being the starting high school shortstop. Since there is only one starting shortstop on a baseball team, you want to do everything possible to help him achieve that goal. It is extremely hard to counter-balance that desire with conversations about devoting sufficient time for academic excellence. I also want to be clear that for those who can pull off the balance there is no problem.

But, today, the monomania on developing greatness in particular sports is creating a culture of overly striving athletes who ignore their academics.

For example, It was the case for those growing up in the last century that students played one sport in one season. Many student-athletes played two different sports in two different seasons. The best of athletes could manage three sports. Certainly, for the special few who seemed destined for college scholarships, there was a focus beyond the season. But, for most every student-athlete, baseball, for example, was a spring sport. That was pretty much it. There may have been some summer games and certainly a lot of pick-up game.

But, now, we work with students who play nearly the equivalent of a major league baseball season through the combination of their high school baseball team and their premiere team(s) that have a spring, summer, and fall schedule. In addition, many of our baseball playing students have a winter workout league that consumes 6-8 hours.

Here's the tricky part: in terms of our general philosophy regarding mastery, these students are doing exactly what we suggest. They are getting excellent training and then they are putting themselves through a rigorous training program to gain mastery at a skill.

There is something about mastering anything - even if it has no particular practical application - that deserves commendation. If students can take that same vigor they have towards mastering the game of baseball and apply it towards other areas, then they are learning an extraordinarily valuable process.

I also want to be clear that we fully understand the wonders of athletic-recruitment. We, in fact, have a program that we call Student-Athlete Mastery. In this program, we help young student-athletes navigate the balance of excelling in both sports and school with the end goal of being recruited by schools for either athletic scholarships or for leveraging their athletic ability to gain entrance into elite schools.

But, the focus for many student-athletes has been disproportionately focused on the athlete part of the equation. Most every parent fully understands that the athletic career of their child will last through college at best. But, you would not know that from the amount of time, energy, and money that many parents spend on sports.

The problem for most students living in upper middle class suburbs is that they have no idea about the level of competition that exists in other areas of the country. The sports culture at the youth level creates dangerous delusions for both child and parent in equal dimensions.

For example, I worked with a student who was one of the top football players that ever played in his school's history. But, the area where we live in Connecticut is comprised of a small, non-diverse population. This student was an excellent football player for our area. Part of the reason was that he was very big for his position - at least against the competition that he faced in our little neck of the woods. Since he was utterly dominant in the games he played and since he received many local accolades, his parents were certain that he would get a scholarship to play at top colleges throughout the country.

I did not want to burst their bubble. But, it seemed evident from an objective perspective that being the best football player for his position in a wealthy region of a Connecticut did not necessarily mean that the kid was even in the top 100 for his position compared to kids in a big football states like California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida. So while the parents thought they this kid's ticket was certain to be punched, they had not done the recruiting math. And, the student, filled with bravado related to his football playing potential, was not doing his math either which was why he was working with us. He was nearly failing out of school when his parents were pushed to get tutoring help by his Southeastern, CT high school.

There are only so many Division I schools that can give athletic scholarships. Some of these schools also care about academics. At the lower Division II and III levels, scholarship money starts to either dwindle or disappear and at many of the Division II and III schools, academics really matter.

As the year passed and the ratings of national high school players came out, the family was stunned to see that their superstar was not in the top 500 for his position. His size - which for our area made him extremely large and was certainly a reason for his dominance - was simply above average at the level of national recruiting and the rest of his skills - did not make him stand out. 50 states - most of which are a lot bigger than Connecticut - each had an average of 10-11 players better than him.

He was good. But, he was not college scholarship good.

This sad story reminded me of a kid I knew in high school. He played basketball. And, he was great in middle school. For his age, he was probably one of the best players in the history of our middle school. His parents encouraged his commitment to basketball excellence. They let him play all hours of the day at the expense of his homework. They hired a private coach to work with him.

But, his parents failed to realize some critical issues related to their child's early basketball prowess: first, their kid was very tall for middle school, in part because he had his growth spurt earlier than most. Second, his skill level was so comparatively high because other 12-14 year olds had yet to dedicate themselves to the sport the way he had.

As he went through high school and other kids caught up to him in height and skill, he went from being a prodigy to being a good high school basketball player. But, being a good high school player does not get scholarships. And, perhaps the focus should have been equally on getting tutoring for his low grades and test scores. During the last conversation I had with him, I could see his crushed expression as he explained that he was going to work at a local factory after high school.

Parents should certainly embrace sports. But, to do so at the expense of academics is foolish.