How does Outliers connect to MY life?

The book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, was very interesting to me. The book describes how people seperate themselves from other people. He describes many things that start out as a slight advantage, and turn into huge advantages. Many of the things in this book connected to my life.

The first way this book connected to my life was when he talked about sports. In the book, Gladwell says,    "The professional hockey player starts out a little better than his peers.And that little difference leads to an opportunity that makes that difference a bit bigger..." (30) I play baseball, and I have found this to be very true in sports. When I was cut from modified baseball in middle school, there were some kids on the team that I thought I was better than, or at least even with skill-wise. When the spring season started, those kids looked much better. The tryouts ended in March, and the spring baseball season starts in mid-April. That month and a half of extra practice made them a lot better, and their edge got bigger.

The second way this book connected to my life was the parenting styles of different families. In the book, Gladwell describes an experiment by Lareau, and he says, " the middle-class children learn a sense of             'entitlement' " (105).  I am normally a quiet kid, but if there is something wrong, I feel comfortable speaking up and fixing the problem. I think this has a strong relationship with how my parents raised me. My parents may not have pushed me as hard as Alex Williams' parents did, " ...his mother and father- in the manner of educated families- have painstakingly taught them to him, nudging and prodding and encouraging and showing him the rules of the game..." (108), but they did push me to become more social and assert myself when something was wrong when I was little. This parenting style has caused me to be able to assert myself in a situation, and has helped me a lot in school and even at home.

The third way this book connected to my life was the part about academics and the chapter Rice Paddies and Math Tests. The part that I felt most connected to myself was the part about the Renee tape. When he is talking about why the Renee tape is Schoenfeld's favorite example, he says, " Twenty- two minutes pass from the moment Renee begins playing with the computer program to the moment she says, ' Ahhhh' " (245).  This applies to my life, because when I was taking Integrated Algebra in 8th grade, I had a lot of assignments that were challenging to me. Instead of taking one look at the problem and giving up, I tried to look at the problem from the different perspective to help myself solve the problem. I personally have never spent up to twenty-two minutes on one problem, but I worked for a long time to solve one of these challenging problems. I think that this patience may be what allows me to excel in math. I received a 97% on the Regents exam that year, and I believe my patience played an important role in that.  Gladwell supports this in the book, when he says, " What if coming from a culture shaped by the demands of growing rice also makes you better at math?" (232). When Gladwell says this, he means that the patience from growing rice leads to the patience in learning, which leads to better understanding. This is how the chapter Rice Paddies and Math Tests connects to my life.

This book makes many valid points, but these three examples are how the book best applies to my life. I thought this was a very interesting book, because not only does he connect all of the stories to one main point, but he uses all true stories. Gladwell put a lot of effort into researching and putting facts together for this story, and it shows in this book. Outliers does a great job of showing how people who are very good at things get to where they are, and uses many examples that people can relate to.

   

Perspective Poetry Prompt: APPLE: Describe an apple as seen by a young woman who has just lost her husband to cancer. DO NOT mention the husband or the word cancer.

Decay

A lone apple
sitting on the ground
under the tree where it once grew
slowly decaying, as it is eaten away from the inside.

A once bright red apple
is now in horrible condition.
Everyone wishes that it was still bright red,
and everyone could enjoy it.

Only a few traces,
of what it used to be.
Now brown and rotten
the apple is soon gone.

Microfiction: The lights appeared out of the darkness.

The lights appeared out of the darkness. The taxi pulled up, and I got in. I told the driver where I wanted to go, and off we went. After a couple of turns, I was completely clueless as to where we were. The driver seemed to know where he was going, so I didn't worry about it. The driver was going over the speed limit, so I wasn't too surprised when a police car pulled up behind us. The driver turned the wheel to pull over, but instead, he floored it, and turned back onto the road. Clearly there was something this man was hiding. I was shocked. The man who seemed like an ordinary cab driver had turned into a convict in a split second. I thought I was just going home, now I was stuck in a criminal situation. I had no idea what to do. I had never been in a situation anywhere close to this intensity. Next I saw the driver pull out a gun. I knew that I had to get out of the cab. I opened the door, and jumped out. My head hit a brick building as I was landing. I hit the sidewalk hard, and felt like I had jumped out of a plane. I reached back to see if my head was bleeding, and I could feel the blood. I didn't care, the wounds would heal. I was just happy that I had escaped the situation, and I could return to my live as usual.

TU Tuesday- Editorial

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/EDITORIAL-Schools-can-celebrate-Christmas-with-2373608.php

Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.


The editorial says that Christmas should be celebrated in multicultural schools, and that nothing about the holiday should be changed. I agreed with the fact that the vacation should not change, because that is a time when many families get together, but some of his reasoning is flawed. " Thus schools should not hesitate to promote, say, the Christmas message of peace and goodwill or student choirs singing Christmas songs. And yes, those songs should include the traditional lyrics instead of secular alternatives... Yet schools should be careful not to go too far in these efforts." I disagree with this part of the article, because if he is taking the stance that beliefs should not be censored, he can't go back and say some beliefs should. He should stay firm on one side of the argument, instead of trying to please everyone by saying something that makes everyone happy. This is a good editorial, but the flawed arguments leave some questions.

My T-Shirt Vote

My vote is for the Play 60 shirt, that has a McDonald's sign in a red circle, and says end childhood obesity, get out and play and don't eat all day.

If I win I would like chocolate chip cookies.

Creative Contest I Blog

O= Otterhound

Information from: http://clubs.akc.org/ohca/OHCA.html

Breed Description: Bloodhound and several rough coated French hound breeds in its background

Appearance/Size: " The Otterhound is a large, strong breed (with a considerable size range within the breed). Males are generally in the 95 to 115 pound range and 26-28 inches at the shoulder, with females 65 to 90 pounds and 24-26 inches at the shoulder. An Otterhound's head should seem large and long even given the size of the dog, and it should have very long, low hanging ears."

Diet: " What you feed an Otterhound depends on the dog and what you are doing with it. There are two things to consider. An Otterhound is large dog and will be more expensive to feed than a smaller dog. Some also may be prone to bloat - which may make multiple smaller meals a day preferable to one large meal. It's also possibly a bad idea to feed the dog immediately before or after vigorous exercise."

Temperament: " The Otterhound standard says that the breed is "amiable, boisterous and even tempered". Basically these are big friendly dogs, but with a mind of their own."

Shedding: "Though some Otterhounds do have a fair amount of coat, most do not shed a great deal. With an "average" Otterhound, expect to brush the coat on a weekly basis to keep the coat from matting, particularly on the head, legs and underside."

Health/Allergies/Vaccines: " Otterhounds have a relatively long life span of 10 to 13 years with 25% living to 12 or older, and a few living to 15 or even 16. Like many of the large breeds, they are subject to hip dysplasia and bloat. Otterhounds are also subject to a potentially fatal bleeding disorder."  

Creativity Breeds Creativity

Small Poetry Prompt - Write a poem about a very small object.

A single nail
holding a bench together
it goes unnoticed
but it may be the most important part.

Small and strong
it holds together the entire structure
not only the bench
but the people on it.

It may be viewed as insignificant
but in reality is overlooked
because the bench could not exist
without the small nail.