I read this book and received a lesson that perhaps wasn't intended, a lesson about how to structure learning. Sometimes you don't know where the next lesson will come from!
But, first to the book itself! It's key theme is, "Why do some people succeed and others don't?" As a learning professional I know I'd like to think that education and knowledge play a part. Malcolm Gladwell's book,
"Outliers - the Story of Success" looks at the factors that underlie success, (without doing full justice to the book!) I'll summarise them as:
- Right place, right time
- Practice, practice, practice.
- Brains - but only to a point
- Culture - business as well as ethnic.
Whilst the book is a very interesting and entertaining read, there are some times that conclusions appear without a thorough explanation. For example, Gladwell links Maths success to the cultural legacy of hard-work needed to farm Asian rice paddies - hence the seemingly relative success of those with an Asian cultural heritage at Maths.
Let's not worry about any short-comings now however because for me the main lesson for learning professionals is how the book is written! It is a series of 'stories' around themes. Each chapter begins with a story (the meaning of which is not explained fully at the outset), next Gladwell moves into a theory discussion, gradually linking the theory back to the story before finally solving the 'mystery' of what the story was about.
Then for one final lesson in how to structure successful learning (repetition) stories are often referred to again in later chapters.
The result - you remember the theory because it has been placed in the context of a story all whilst reading an enjoyable book!