Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Birthday Phenomenon
So after I read the first section of Outliers, I could easily relate to the age for sport context. My own kids are either advantaged by this (in baseball), or subject to this (in soccer). Although the oldest in their school classrooms, in sport it has the potential to create challenges. For my oldest son, he will have to move up to U-15 soccer next fall; no bigger than his 3-years-younger brother, he will be playing with other boys potentially 4 years senior. It is unlikely he will play; rather, he is likely to play fall baseball, where his age is an advantage. But how does the birtday phenomenom affect academics? As discussed at a recent SA traing, all the current SAs and this past year's spring SAs all have birthdays that fall between the last two week of January and the first two weeks of September with a disporportionate number falling in the second quarter of the year (April, May, June). Why is that?
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The first thing that jumps out at me is that the SAs are composed of predominantly the youngest students in that year's class. This is assuming that the 'cutoff date' is September 1, as I think it is for most of the country. Contrasted with the athletics example, where the oldest athletes tend to be more successful, it would seem that there is a difference between academic success and athletic success.
ReplyDeleteI almost wonder if both phenomena have the same cause - physical maturity. It's safe to assume that the oldest members of a class are the most intellectually mature as well as physically, yet these students still don't seem to have as much success. At such a young age, the physical differences are much more easily seen and tangible than the intellectual. Thus, students that are larger than their peers could see their physical advantage as primary, while younger students have to rely more on intellect.
So here is another possibility, rather than turning 18 during your first-year, how many of you turned 19? Thus, even though your birthday falls in the younger months as suggested in the book, maybe you are actually the oldest in your classes.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to the cut-off dates for kindergarten across the US. Based on this info, how many of you went to kindergarten as a 6 year old versus a 5 year old?
ReplyDeletehttp://users.stargate.net/~cokids/kindergarten_cut-off_dates.htm
I think my case is sort of curious. As you know I was born in Peru, so I received most of my education there. My birthday is August 1st, however, the cut-off date for kindergarten, elementary, and high school (we don't count middle school) in Peru is the same date, March 8 - 20. Therefore, I was at a disadvantage in the beginning of my education. I clearly remember my kindergarten period, there were kids younger and older than me. Two of them were already in first grade but apparently needed some academic reinforcement. I think kindergarten doesn't determine your academic future in Peru. However, how early you get to the first grade or how capable you are to enter first grade does. I was at a disadvantage. Usually kids enter first grade when they are six. However, I had two options, either entering first grade one year younger than everybody else or taking another year of pre-elementary school in a better school and start first grade next year with an advantage over other students. Of course my parents had not read Outliers and had not clue of the statistics, but thank God they took option number two. I have always been months older than my friends because I was born in August and delayed my entrance to kindergarten. However, my case proves the statistics true, I seemed to have greater maturity than my friends, not only in academics but in simple recess games. My teachers thought I had a higher intellectual capacity and always encouraged me to join academic clubs where I got a better preparation in courses like Math and Writing. They also nominated me for leadership positions. I remained in the top three of my class every year. Once I came here, my age advantage definitely helped me to learn the language and focus only strongly on academics. It was surprising to me the fact that I kept staying on top of my class. But I am aware just as my birthday turned into an advantage to me, birthdays have also been a disadvantage for others as the book says. I guess I was lucky. However, I do not think the statistics showed in the book are a thumb rule. I still believe in individual merit, and I know many younger students than me that have equal or greater intellectual capacity than me. Or it appears so. Maybe they just put greater effort into academics. I believe effort and self-motivation are critical determinant factors in reaching success in academics and/or sports. I am 19 and will turn 20 next year. I am probably the oldest in my class in the SA group. I may have an advantage, but it doesn't necessarily make me better than everybody else in my class.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the length of my comment this my first time writing in a blog. I will keep it short next time.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Eric's comment, I am willing to bet that a number of us still excelled in athletics despite our birth disadvantages. I feel that indicated that we share other more powerful advantages.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I definitely agree that intellectual maturity has had an effect on us, and based on our successes it does seem to be benificial. I question whether attending school at a younger age might force one to mature earlier. For instance, a child who skips a grade is surronded by older more mature peers and acts in a different manner in order to fit in. Perhaps, starting kindergaten at age 5 forced us to grow up faster and transfered some other intrinsic advantages.
I agree that these SAs seem to be on the younger end for their class, though not too many of us are on the very youngest end. One thing that I noticed independently was that I never noticed being young for my class until I hit Whitman - it always seemed like I was pretty average, but here I am definitely younger than most of my friends. It could be that I just never noticed before now, but it could also be that I attended schools with an "abnormal" age distribution. The fact that I attend very small private schools until high school might have been a contributing factor. I'd be curious if other students were aware of their relative age earlier in their schooling.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that the birthday distribution of the SAs is at all significant. I say this because, as I recall, our birthdays were spread out over a 6+ month range. This range might be significant if there were 100 of us, but for a sample size of 15, this statistic does not tell of anything more than coincidence.
ReplyDelete