SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in Our Stars, But In Our Schools

Margaret Wente’s column today takes on Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis in his book Outliers that phenomenally-successful people owe their success to three factors: a combination of a fierce drive to succeed; 10,000 hours of purposeful practice; and extremely lucky circumstances. Wente, while agreeing with the first two factors, would substitute extraordinary talent for lucky circumstances. She thinks that all the ambition and practice in the world will not result in élite performance if talent is lacking.

In a way, there’s not all that much difference between the two positions, in that for both Wente and Gladwell extraordinary accomplishment depends on the luck of the draw - lucky genes or lucky circumstances, take your pick. But there is in fact a crucial distinction in terms of the percentage of the population who can become accomplished performers. If Wente is right, only the very talented can achieve high-level performance. If Gladwell is right, high-level performance is possible for virtually everyone - although of course only a few individuals will be lucky enough to become superstars.

This distinction has important implications for educators. If Wente is right, then schools should be pretty much sorting institutions - identifying and supporting talented students. After all, in Wente’s scenario, there’s not much point in trying to teach calculus to kids who don’t have a math gene! But if Gladwell is right and élite performance is possible for most people, then schools should be trying to motivate students to reach for the stars and then providing them with the means to do so.

At School for Thought, it is our perception that schools lean strongly to Wente’s position - to the detriment of their students.