Legacy

One of the most interesting stories from Outliers the book, involves the Southeastern corner of Kentucky. Up in the Cumberland Plateau is a wild country where the city of Harland lies. It was founded in 1819 by 80 immigrants who had come from the northern regions of the British Isle. The two prominent founders were Howard and Turner. Their Grandsons played a game of poker and argued about cheating and one shot the other dead. It is interesting that one of the Turner boys that was shot and killed was William Turner (same name as Pirates of the Caribbean). He apparently came into the home howling in pain when his mother told him to stop that and die like a man like his brother did. He shut his mouth and died. Many more family feuds are recording along the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia. This is what the book calls the Appalachian pattern. The book attributes this pattern to a plague Sociologists call a "culture of honor." It is a world that took root in the highlands and also area's like Sicily, or Basque regions. It is a culture of Herdsman whose livelihood is dependent upon them alone and a man's reputation is central to his livelihood and self worth. It also has to do with where the original inhabitants of the region came from the scotch-Irish. They were a people in a lawless land steeped in violence protecting their livelihood generally livestock. The south has a strange higher than the rest of the country murder rates generally where the people know each other and why the murder happened. They have less property and "stranger" crimes.

So in the 1990's the University of Michigan decided to conduct an experiment on the culture of honor. They insulted young men and then measured their anger response. The ones who were the angriest grew up on the south. They didn't necessarily even have British ancestors but grew up on the cultural legacy of the South. This is interesting because in my opinion it fits what I have learned about gifts and talents. We inherit many of our gifts and talents from our ancestors. I believe we also inherit our ancestors' weaknesses that if we can identify at an early age in life we can overcome these weaknesses and not pass them on to our children.

The book talks about ethnic legacies too where we get certain behavior from the culture we are from. He goes into a lot of detail about plane crashes especially ones from Korea. Korean air just about shut down because there were so many crashes compared to other airlines. They discovered that between the pilot and co-pilot there is a cultural barrier that is hard to transcend where the co-pilot does not feel they can assert themselves. The typical accident comes from minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions. The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors. The kinds of errors that occur involve lack of teamwork and communication.

Now I don't know what all of this has to do with outliers except that our culture and ethnic backgrounds can get in the way of success if we don't recognize them. I think the author was filling in his book so he could have enough information to sell it. Don't get me wrong it is interesting and entertaining but, a little off subject I think. So is the next part that talks about a specific school where children go to school for long hours every day. It mentions that school was started for something for kids to do in the winter when the harvest was over. Then from that came the thought that if we work our brains too hard it will cause mental disorder. But, this school proves all of that false. You can work your brain hard and excel.

One of the points of school that I thought the most interesting is that they took kids that were from poor income families to go to this special charter school and they do as well as all the others. They found out that the problem with the lower income families is that they don't get the stimulation from education in the summer that the other kids do. They spend their time just playing in their neighborhood whereas the other upper and middle income families take their children to the museums and make sure they read during the summer. When they put these children in summer school when the next year came they were right where all the other children were. They did not lose their knowledge over the summer. So that is a plug for doing year round school unless but, only for the lower income families.

One thing I didn't mention was the thought about china and rice patties that the book brought out in the last chapters. It is so interesting that growing rice is not an easy endeavor. Building the patties, keeping the water temperature right, weeding, and on and on. They have found that Chinese and other oriental counties that grow rice are better in math and they think it has something to do with rice patties. The Chinese have an amazing work ethic In the rice patties so maybe that is why.

So hard work and divine providence plus a good parenting style and success is inevitable-that is a good thing to know.