(23) Try This Experiment with a passage from Gladwell's Blink

Read the following passage from Gladwell's B L I N K, (page 272 in my copy), and then do the quick "replacement exercise" suggested with the word at the end. I thought of this awhile ago when I was reading the book. Let me know what you think...

"But understanding someone’s statistical performance in a game is only one small part of understanding how good an athlete that person is. There is also the broader issue of ability. How good is he at the myriad of skills and attributes that it takes to be a successful athlete? How hard does he work? Is he a good teammate? Does he stay out all night drinking and doing drugs, or does he take his job seriously? Is he willing to learn from his coaches? How resilient is he in the face of adversity? When the pressure is greatest and the game is on the line, how well does he perform? Is he someone likely to be better over time or has he already peaked?

I think that we would all agree that these kinds of questions are much more complicated than --- and every bit as important as --- simple statistical measures of performance, particularly when it comes to the rarefied world of professional sports.

Imagine that you were looking at a seventeen-year-old Michael Jordan. He wasn’t the tallest or the biggest basketball player, nor the best jumper. His statistics weren’t the finest in the country. What set Michael Jordan apart from his peer was his attitude and motivation. And those qualities can’t be measured with formal tests and statistics. They can be measured only by exercising judgment, by an expert with long years of experience, drawing on that big database in his or her unconscious and concluding, yes, that they have it, or no, they don’t. The very best and most successful basketball teams --- like the best and most successful organizations of any kind --- are the ones that understand how to combine rational analysis with instinctive judgment.


Now replace the word "athlete" by "student," "coaches" with teachers" and reread the passage.