In preparation for the release of his new book, Outliers, next week, Malcolm Gladwell has published an article, The Uses of Adversity, explaining that sometimes disadvantages come with unexpected advantages.

Writing about the piece afterwards, Gladwell expounded the approach that being an outsider, having a disability or coming from a social-economic disadvantage, can sometimes be exactly what one needs to succeed.

From Gladwell’s blog:

If dyslexia can—under certain circumstances—be advantageous, what are other disadvantages that can have the same effect?

In the article, I mention, in passing, the question of class size, and the data on class size is really quite fascinating. Time and time again studies fail to show any significant advantage to reducing the size of classes—except in the case of very poor children in the very earliest of grades.

This, of course, defies common sense. We know that teacher feedback is a big component in learning. So why wouldn’t learning be enhanced by lower teacher: student ratios? One answer might be that large classes are a disadvantage with advantages: that in coping with the difficulty of competing for teacher attention, kids learn something more important—namely self-reliance. This might also explain why the highest achieving schools—those in places like Japan and Korea—tend to have much larger classes than in the United States.

Aside from the many, many variables that might make comparing class sizes across nations and cultures difficult, I also wonder if teachers instructing inconsistently large or small classes might not be changing their styles to meet the particular needs of a particular class size. It stands to reason that one would teach a class of 10 quite a bit differently than a class of 30—however it’s also very understandable that teachers tend to teach the same way from lesson to lesson and stick to it—regardless of class size.

I’ve been super excited for Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don’t”. The release date of November 18, 2008 was just announced on Amazon, as well they’ve got a product description up too:

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Here’s a list of writings and talks by and about Gladwell that cover genius/prodigy, education, and working:

• his talk Genius: 2012 from the 2007 New Yorker Conference
• The Risk Pool – What’s behind Ireland’s economic miracle—and G.M.’s financial crisis? (risk pool blog entry, and a followup post)
• The Myth of Prodigy and Why It Matters
• Getting In – The social logic of Ivy League admissions
• The Bakeoff – Project Delta aims to create the perfect cookie
• Brain Candy – Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?
• Gladwell’s personal work space
• Making the Grade
• The Talent Myth – Are smart people overrated?
• The Social Life of Paper – Looking for method in the mess
• Designs For Working – Why your bosses want to turn your new office into Greenwich Village
• The New-Boy Network – What do job interviews really tell us?