Age and Success

I found this book to be really interesting. The very first topic discussed in the book caught my immediate attention so I decided to write about it. I am referring to when the author Malcolm Gladwell links together when a person is born with success. I never really thought about how one's birth month can drastically affect their lives. Being born in the early months of the year means that in most activities where there are others born in the same year, that person will be the eldest. That's what many people know. What others, including myself, never thought of before is that because those people are older, they had more time to mature and develop themselves. A few months difference doesn't seem like a lot, but when putting it into an educational context, when one is born is extremely important. People who are born early in the year tend to do better than those born in the end of the year because they stand out. That only makes sense because those born in lets say January are almost a year older than those born in December. That's almost one year of extra learning that the January kid had in comparison to the December kid. I don't think its fair that people who are older are able to have more opportunities because of the underlying factor of age. Like the book says on page 33, “Elementary and Middle schools could put the January through April- born students in one class, the May through August in another class, and those born in September through December in a third class”. This sounds like a great idea. By having kids be in a class where there are others on the same level of development, it allows all children to have a fair shot at becoming advanced. I think all schools should adopt this idea and give all their students an equal shot at being successful.