My Wonderful Introduction to Malcolm Gladwell

Let’s pretend for a moment the Lord has granted you super human strength that would turn the Hulk from green to red at the arm wrestling table.  He then gives you one simple task:  Fold an 8.5X11 piece of paper in half, 50 times.  I’m sure you could think of a thousand more fun and worthwhile endeavors for your strength, but humor me, and let’s start with paper folding.  You’ll need all of your strength too.  Mere mortals can’t get 7 folds.  The hulk might stop at about 30 unless maybe you talked about his mom.  But you, your goal is to keep going until you reach 50.  Now, how tall do you think that piece of paper would be?  As tall as a refrigerator?  A house?  Assume that I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a crazy answer.  5 empire state buildings stacked on top of each other? 

Not even close.

Your 8.5X11 piece of paper would now stretch from the earth to the sun. Approximately 93 million miles.  And if we went to 51 folds, your paper would be tall enough to make a return trip to earth.  This is the power of exponential growth.  One fold doubles the thickness, but the next fold is 4 times thicker, then 8, 16, 32, 64 and on and on. This rate of growth is hard for us to wrap our minds around.  In Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explores this question: What is it that makes some ideas, diseases, merchandise, whatever it might be, spread at an exponential rate?  What makes things spread like wildfire?  But wait a second, wildfire isn’t quite strong enough, wildfire doesn’t really spread exponentially.  I’m starting, right here and now, a new “spreading” simile.  How can we get things to spread like paper folding?  That works, right?  Maybe not, but paper folding kicks wildfire’s butt in spreading every time.

But back to Gladwell’s question: Why do some things spread at an exponential rate?  Think YouTube viral videos.  What makes a video jump from 10 views in one week to over 2 million three weeks later?  What makes it spread like folding paper?  Gladwell answers this question with three neat bullet points.

1) You have to have the right people involved.  Paper folding epidemics of any kind, need a few specific types of people that we all know but are actually quite rare.  These people include gifted persuaders, trustworthy know-it-alls and those crazy extroverts who know hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life. If a video link comes from these types of people, we are much more likely to watch it and to send it to someone else.

2) The second thing is that the message (or video in this case) must have a “stickiness” factor.  That is, it must somehow resonate with us and make us want to pass it on.  You only forward that video link to your friend if it made you laugh out loud while you watched it again and again.  That video’s hilarity is it’s “stickiness.” 

3) The third part is the message must come when we are contextually/historically ready for it.  You might get the same hilarious video from every persuader, know-it all, and relationally gifted extrovert you know but you aren’t watching it if it’s September 11^th, 2001.  Wrong time to be a hilarious viral video.   For something to spread, it has to be the right time historically and contextually.

Sounds easy right?  Wait for the just the right time and get your sticky product/idea in the hands of the right people and presto—the paper starts folding.  This is the genius of Malcolm Gladwell.  He is a master at explaining complex ideas to the masses in a fascinating, page- turning style.  I could have chosen from 20 different studies or stories as fascinating as the paper folding example.  The Tipping Point is a fun fact bonanza.

For instance did you know that subway graffiti can have an effect on the murder rate in New York City? The stickiest part of the book for me (besides the paper folding example) was the Broken Window Theory.  This theory says that there are often very small contextual things that get an epidemic started.  If a person walks by a building with a Broken Window they might assume that either no one lives there or they don’t care how it’s treated and proceed to break the rest of that window, take what he wants or even make himself comfortable.  Eventually, this building is trashed and the next hoodlum says, “Man, this building is trashed.  That one next to it can’t be much better; I wonder what they got in there?”  Slowly the neighborhood starts to crumble.  The disorder spreads from the buildings to the streets and chaos ensues.  The building owner might complain about the neighborhood, demand police root out the criminal underworld; maybe he drops a few thousand in campaign contributions to the next mayoral candidate promising to be tough on crime.  But believers in the BWT think he should have just fixed his window in a timely manner.  BWT says that crime is a manifestation of disorder, and disorder is in the smallest details.

Now, let’s take a look at this theory in practice.  In the 1980’s, New York was experiencing a terrible crime wave.  We are talking 2,000 murders and 600,000 felonies per year.  In response to this crime wave, New York leaders decided to apply the Broken Window theory.  They attacked small, surface level offenses that were simply causing disorder.  They cracked down on subway graffiti and subway fare jumping (over 100,000 per day!).    Life as a windshield squeegee man became a high wire act in avoiding arrest.   If you were publicly drunk or caught urinating in public, you were going to jail.  They obsessively fixed the broken windows.  The results were astounding.  By the mid 90’s murders were cut in half, felonies were reduced by two-thirds and in the subway alone felonies dropped by 75%. 

Seems simple enough right?  Fix the small stuff, big stuff follows.  As a teacher reading this, your mind starts racing.  Before our eyes we seem to be watching the disintegration of the Kansas City Missouri School District and you can’t help but think of the possible broken windows.   Before reading Tipping Point, I would have jumped immediately to huge systemic problems:  The disintegration of the urban family unit.  Lack of quality administrators and teachers.  Students with low basic skills. Lack of Parental support etc.  All problems that appear to have zero short term solutions.   But who in the world would have thought attacking subway graffiti and fare jumping would cut murders in half, in less than 10 years?  It’s hopeful and unsettling at the same time.  Hopeful because I feel change is attainable.  Unsettling because I’ve grown quite comfortable throwing my hands in the air and saying, “Nothing can be done with problems so big.”

Off the top of my head here are some possible broken windows of public schools:  Join me in my practice in naivety.

1)      Building maintenance and cleanliness.   Teachers and kids can’t focus on learning amongst urban decay.  My school does an amazing job of this.   Also, Mr. Daniel needs to clean his desk off more than once a week.  It’s the broken window of his classroom.

2)      Dress code:  What students wear and how low their trousers ride affect their attitude.  It’s not popular with the kids but it’s true.  Sadly, I’m guessing only about 10% of teachers really take the time to look for dress code violations (That noise you hear is me whistling,  looking around the room and waiting for the subject to change).

3)      Jokes:  What students are allowed to joke about affects how they treat each other and their attitude towards learning.  We don’t make jokes at the expense of others regardless of how innocent it might seem.  We don’t joke about fighting.  Students are held accountable for what they joke about.

4)      The bus:  Finish this sentence with the profession of your choice: “There is not enough money in the world to get me to be a____________”   This is easy for me: middle school bus driver. It’s 100 times less appealing than cleaning sewers and even selling bridal gowns.  Driving a bus is hard.  The drivers don’t seem to have the disciplinary authority of teachers and the kids know it.  Even with a bus supervisor, it’s hard to keep an eye on everyone with the large distance between the front and back seat.  The bus is a tough place.  Things get crazy.  When the bus is crazy, kids think it’s okay to be crazy at school.  The bus needs something that says this is a safe, orderly place.  Bus seating charts?  Class management training for bus staff?  Something.

5)      Students entering the building:  What if every single teacher and administrator not on morning duty lined up and welcomed students with a high five, a fist bump or any other sort of positive welcome to school?   We are glad you’re here.  We’ve been waiting for you.  Today is important.  Let’s have a great day.

Let’s not focus on the fact that I’m a little late to the Malcolm Gladwell party and celebrate the fact that I finally made it. I loved every page of Tipping Point.  It’s not only a fascinating read that is guaranteed to make you share at least two interesting facts with someone you know, but it makes your mind race with possibilities in your own line of work, in your own life even.    I hope I start a tipping point for the Tipping Point.  I want to talk to people about it.  I want it to spread like wildfire being folded 50 times.

Thanks for reading.

-td

A Husband's Guide to Reading Pride and Prejudice

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice aloud with my wife.  I learned in Teddy Roosevelt’s biography, that he loved to read aloud to his wife.  The read aloud aspect had such a wonderful crackling fire, library feel to it that we decided to give it a try.  I chose Pride and Prejudice because it is my wife’s favorite movie and thus, my best chance of getting her hooked on reading together.  It was a fabulous book, but I’d like to give a few pointers to any husbands who might be trying to read this book with their wives ¹; it provides some challenges for those of us suffering from various forms of stereotypical maleness.  Husbands, if you follow my game plan you will be able to pull this off and even enjoy yourself.  This does not have to be the reading equivalent of a Sandra Bullock movie.

Tip #1: Cleanse your reading palate.

Last week I tried to eat an orange after brushing my teeth.  I found the orange so bitter and disgusting that I couldn’t finish it.  And so we see my enjoyment of the orange was entirely dependent upon the last thing that entered my mouth.  Reading Pride and Prejudice is not much different; you need to watch what you consume directly beforehand. 

Here are a few things to avoid:

Hunger Games was the most gripping book I have read since The Deathly Hallows or The Half Blood Prince.  Pride and Prejudice is not gripping.  It meanders like a Sunday stroll.  If you still have Hunger Games on your palate, you will be making the bitter orange face the entire time and asking your wife things like, “Is there any sort of death match soon?” or “I bet with a little training, Elizabeth could be handy with a pair of throwing knives.”  It’s just not fair to Pride and Prejudice, your wife, or even peaceful, innocent Elizabeth. 

Hemmingway was once asked if he spent much time editing The Old Man and the Sea and he replied by saying something like, “Read that book and see if you can make any sentence even one word shorter.”  Jane Austen is anti-gripping and she is also the anti-Hemmingway.  It would not surprise me if asked the same question she might have replied, “Just try and make one of my sentences even one word longer...”

The beginning of The Old Man and the Sea starts like this: “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.”  In Jane Austenese that sentence turns into something like this, “In the sun drenched humidity of the vehement Gulf Stream there once lived a man whose countenance had suffered failure after failure to procure various forms of salt water vertebrates from which he derived his livelihood, passion, love and existential fortitude.  Nay, it was nearly 6 fortnights past whence he last had a companion upon his solitary maritime vessel which, in the not too distant past, had kept him sailing through many suns, moons, hurricanes, and sunsets.”

In short, she’ll feel a little wordy and grandiose on the heels of Hemingway, like she’s a wonderful speaker in love with the sound of her own voice.  Just know, like Hemmingway and the rest of us, she’s a product of her time and geographical location.  She’s brilliant, but a brilliance hewn from the Dickinson (who was paid by the word!) style of longwinded, old-school British verbiage. 

And so I recommend cleansing your reading palate with something a little slower paced and grandiose.  I’m thinking some sort of narrative non-fiction that takes you back to a slower simpler way of life.  Of the books I’ve read this year I’d recommend David McCullough’s, Mornings on Horseback.  Appropriate time period, perfect pace, and tactfully wordy. 

Tip #2: Stay humble.

I’m warning you, there will be a lot of talk about relationships, manners, and dancing at balls.  You will feel like the lone Y chromosome at a bridal shower in 17^th century England.  Now, if you are a prideful male convinced there is no wisdom to be had from a bridal shower, you will perhaps miss Pride and Prejudice’s greatest quality: the jewels of wisdom Ms. Austen throws in among what appears to be silly chatter.  If you aren’t humble, you will cruise right by them trying to get to the action.

Some of my favorite jewels are as follows:

“…their passions were stronger than their virtue.”

            (Yikes, this concisely describes high school and college…)

Speaking on their shared disdain for small talk Elizabeth says: “We are each of us an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.”

(Hmm…my distaste for small talk doesn’t seem so…personality driven)

“Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

(ouch! I do love to appear humble…it’s not a stretch to see humility masked as boasting)

The book is drenched in wisdom but we will miss it if we are not humble.  And while we’re talking humility, don’t be too proud to read with a dictionary in reach.  She uses big words.  Humble yourself, grab a dictionary, and learn a few.  Don’t pretend like you know what she’s saying all the time.

Tip #3 Read in a British accent.

I’m not sure which axiom of speech pathology I have stumbled upon, but when I read Austen in a British accent, it flows off the tongue and I can better intuit the intonations of her language.  Remember, its jam packed of old-school British verbiage and even if the accent is just in your head, you will somehow read faster and smoother than trying to hammer through in your own unsophisticated accent.

Tip #4 Be prepared for a shock.

The story itself is not shocking.  If you haven’t heard already, Darcy and Elizabeth get married as well as Jane and Bingley; it’s all a matrimonial paradise.  But what’s shocking is how tender you will feel towards Elizabeth and how much respect and admiration you will have for Darcy.  I really can’t explain how Austen did it either. For the first half of the book I was convinced I didn’t really care, but as Darcy’s layers are slowly (very slowly) peeled back, I found myself rooting for this relationship as much as I have for any literary romance.² 

Also surprising is Austen’s ability to write the villain.  When Lady De Bourgh demanded Elizabeth to stay away from her nephew and threatened to destroy her family with all her money and social influence, I desperately wanted Elizabeth to showcase her hidden knife throwing skills.  My read aloud voices became intense and loud, I’m thinking “Aha!  Death match!  Let’s do this!”  In this case, De Bourgh’s villainy was magnified by the fact that for 3/4 of the book I was quite convinced the only villain was dull conversation and a silly 16 year girl. 

With a few easy considerations and a proper frame of mine, this story can be enjoyed by all.  Simply stay away from thrillers and Hemmingway beforehand, hang in there when it slows down, open your heart to the characters, and above all, read in a British accent—no, sorry—above all, be prepared for Austen’s wit, wisdom, and loveable characters. So grab your sweetie and shut off that TV.  Sit up in bed, and by the light of your nightstand lamp put your arm around her while she rests her head on your chest.  Enjoy the beauty of reading a classic aloud together.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

1.  Not that reading with your wife is the only acceptable Pride and Prejudice endeavor…

2.  It’s no Ron and Hermione, but it’s up there.

A Dream is Realized

I quick update of good news: my wife and I moved into our new house and I’m typing this from my new library.  That’s right, library. Let me tell you about it.  Off the kitchen is a simple 12X8 room with two windows overlooking the back yard.  It has a brick fire place, wood paneling on every wall, and wood floors with walnut pegs (I’m told this is stylish). Dark stained cedar beams run across the middle and perimeter of the white ceiling.  Six, dark cherry colored book shelves line the walls and two leather chairs rest on a soft, tan rug facing the fire place. They are at a strategic distance for the warming of feet by fire and provide an alert yet comfortable posture helping to avoid the unintended reading nap.²  One simple light is directly above the two chairs and it seems to have been waiting for someone to read to it all these years.  Outside the window my bird feeder and bird bath rest underneath a 50 year old oak tree and are in perfect view from both chairs.¹ So far, dark eyed juncos and a male and female cardinals are my most regular visitors.  A ready chess board sits between the two chairs (I’ve always wanted a room with a ready chess board!).  The west facing windows let in soft, orange light at sunset when the cardinals often come back to feed.  It's a room in which a hobbit might light a pipe full of good leaf at the end of long day.

A non-reading friend sat down in my chair the other day and said, “Man, even I feel like reading a book in here.” Unfortunately, he continued, “But you know what would be cool? A nice fat, flat screen above the mantle.” 

Sorry my friend, there are no TV’s in this room.

Even in the off position, TVs silently gloat of their stranglehold on my life.  “That book is cute and all, but you know where you will come when your eyes get a little tired, and you reach the inevitable lull in your little story.”  TVs are pompous, loud and change the spirit of a room.  Crackling fire, birds chirping in spring, conversations, the occasional turning of pages, maybe the thud of an aggressive chess move.  These are the sounds of a library.

For the first time in my life there is a designated room for reading and I’ve been amazed at how well it reminds me to schedule time for something that is good for my soul.  I don’t want to squeeze some reading in before I go to bed, when I’m good for about 10 minutes before my eyes start shutting on their own.  I want to be present.  I want the mental capacity to visualize and the alertness to share a meaningful passage with my wife.  It's not just a pre-nap activity.

It is my favorite room of any house I’ve ever lived in.  I actually have opinions on décor which is a new thing for my wife and me to navigate (every room needs a framed 85’ Royals World Series poster right?).  I’ll say it again: I’m typing this from my library.  It is sanctioned tranquility.  The book shelves are only a quarter full right now, but the chess board is set-up, the chairs are warm and inviting and it is now ready for a visitor or two who can handle an evening without the chatter of a TV.  You are welcome anytime...

   

Thanks for reading,

-td

1. I may or may not have required my wife to sit in both chairs while I moved the feeder and bath six inches to the right, then two inches back, then three inches back to the left etc.  My wife may or may not have given me the, “are you serious?” look after the sixth bird viewing check.
2. Let’s be honest with ourselves\: When we lay down on a couch on a Sunday afternoon with a book, we are not reading.  We are justifying a nap by taking along a book. We wake up an hour and a half later saying, “Oh, wow I must have fallen asleep…”  We should just take a teddy bear next time and be more comfortable/honest.