Dear Fellow,
Today’s despatch ought to be a review of a book. In the true sense of the term, this is not a book review. However, the content of this despatch is hinged on my experience with a book. If you care to know why I did not write a book review for this despatch, I’d love to share the details. I did not write a book review simply because I had not finished reading a book in the past seven days. I have slipped into that situation again, where you have over five unfinished books—that is, books I am still reading. Lately, my reading has gotten so purpose-driven in the past five weeks or so, that I hardly read just for the fun of it. I am compelled to share this situation with you because I feel so committed to the initial arrangement of this newsletter for this year, that I am wary of not being too welcoming of spontaneity.
Recall the arrangement is to write a book review this week, a narrative essay the next, a book review the week after, and the cycle continues. Well, I think I am in one of those moments when your commitment to a routine or schedule is challenged by reality. The good news in my situation is that I have not abandoned the habit of reading; it only isn’t as structured as I envisioned the year’s reading to be. And that is fine! Why? I love the fact that it feels like an adventure.
Speaking of adventures, yesterday was the last day of an adventure of a course I designed and taught in my city. Designed for 13-18-year-olds and scheduled to run for 6 weeks, the course is called Bookmatics. It is an exercise toward . . . rediscovering the treasure in books and the joy of mathematics. This summer, the initial plan was to cater to 12 teenagers; however, only 6 registered. We met three times a week—Monday and Thursday for math sessions; and Friday for book readings, joined by a literary enthusiast in the city.
During the sessions where we tackled statistics, I made an observation. Before the reading session last week Friday, I had read the first chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success. In the first chapter titled “The Matthew Effect”, Gladwell draws your attention to an interesting detail of the roster of a Canadian hockey team. Looking intently at the 2007 roster of the Canadian team Medicine Hat Tigers, Gladwell expects you to see this pattern: “Seventeen out of the twenty-five players on the team were born in January, February, March, or April” (p. 23).1 To explain the pattern, consider this paragraph from the book:
The explanation for this is quite simple. It has nothing to do with astrology, nor is there anything magical about the first three months of the year. It’s simply that in Canada the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is january 1. A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn ten until the end of the year—and at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity (p. 24).2
Further in the chapter, Gladwell explains how the “twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity”; whereby the physically mature in an age-class hockey team outshine the less physically mature in making the most of the preparations and opportunities for success the team is exposed to. He goes on further, citing relevant examples, to explain how our seemingly objective but rarely scrutinised systems of selection and categorisation of individuals in schools, athletics, and the like, do more harm than good in most cases. You really should read the book to get the gist in full.
The point here is, something happened to my eyes after I read that chapter. It was less than an hour before the reading for last Friday at Bookmatics commenced. Until then, I didn’t notice this. The ages of the 6 students I was tutoring for the period were: 17, 16, 15, 14, 14, and 13. This pattern eluded my eyes. My perception only awakened to them after I had read the chapter of Gladwell’s book which dwelled so much on the birth dates and age. Perhaps if there had been no introduction again at the meeting last Friday, I may not have noticed the pattern in the ages of the teenagers who attended Bookmatics.
Image source: Warby Parker
When knowledge is acquired on a certain concept, we become more aware of it; our eyes become more awakened to its existence. And knowledge is most effectively acquired, in this manner, through books. Written words help improve our senses of perception the most because reading is the means of acquiring knowledge in which we see, smell, hear, taste and feel at the same time.
Good Fellow, make the most of your ability to read.
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (Strand: Penguin Books, 2009).
Ibid. p. 24.