Analysis Of Marita 's Bargain, By Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, a novel depicting success, provides different examples of how an individual can achieve success in every chapter of his book to show his audience that success, despite a variety of barriers, is in fact in our control. A very important chapter titled, “Marita's Bargain”, explains the flaws in today’s public school systems. He shows the problems with the solutions to fix them while showing the alternatives to the regular system such as the KIPP Program in New York. The KIPP Program (Knowledge is Power Program) is a new kind of middle school that selects students from less fortunate locations and uses unique teaching strategies to turn them around into fantastic learners. In the chapter, Gladwell is extremely descriptive by using visual words to paint the picture of the South Bronx in New York City. He describes the buildings that were built in the 1960’s as squat and bleak looking. Gladwell had an interest in this subject as it involves success, however he had no prior experiences to produce the piece. Gladwell establishes personal credibility through the use of knowledge, reason, and facts and figures. He comes across very knowledgeable on the subject presenting great data with excellent vocabulary. He is able to do this with no obvious bias as well. Gladwell shows authority because he is well known for writing novels that involve success. His intention is to teach and explain how schools need to change the length of vacation breaks

In chapter 19 the author mentions Anne Fox Elementary School, a school in Chicago that goes from having a very poor academic performance in the entire school district of 21 other schools to becoming the second highest academically performing school in just a matter of few years. Anne Fox Elementary School is a great example of the magic that can take place when adults really see the full potential in children and take responsibility in making sure that the children's needs are met in terms of academics. Anne Fox Elementary School shows what can really take place when adults truly believe the idea that every child can succeed. By looking at where they were going wrong and targeting those problem areas Anne Fox Elementary School, created a timely, and organized way to make sure the meet their goals. From changing the false belief of I can’t to I can the elementary school really turned

Some advantages of year-round schooling include improved achievement, improved attendance by both teachers and students, reduced discipline problems, lower teacher stress, increased motivation due to frequent breaks, and increased opportunities for enrichment (Palmer and Bemis). During the two week breaks in between school sessions, students have the opportunity to take classes on karate, ballet, photography, cooking, and swimming. This intersession provides time for hands-on, big project classes that get kids involved in topics that interest them. Intersession can also be used as an intervention for students who are falling behind. “Karl Alexander, sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, studied 800 students for more than 20 years in Baltimore’s elementary schools. He found that by ninth grade, low-income students had fallen 3 ½ grade levels behind their middle-class peers. And most of that gap was attributable to learning lost over the long traditional summer” (Schulte, 2009). The biggest driving force and proponent of year-round schooling is the effect of the “summer slide.” Students lose two months of achievement in math skills and students from low-income families lose more than two months in reading achievement according to the national Summer Learning

In his article “Go Year-Round: A Push for True Summer School”, Milton Chen, the executive director of Edutopia, urges readers to use the year-round schooling system. He explains in brief words what the summer vacation was for. “…when farm families needed young people home during the summer months to replace the three R's with the two P's -- plantin' and pickin' " (Chen). He carries on discussing that the problem with the school days is not only the amount, but the schedule of the school day. The curriculum is too tight; neither the students nor the teachers have the time to step away from the books and text and learn from the outside. The students do not have the chance to go into the outside world and observe what is going on in the society that they live in. Additionally, the teachers do not have the chance to decide how their time is spent because it is spent on the strict schedule of the classroom.

Year-round schooling is characterized by its 45-90 day periods of instruction (varying with different multitrack systems) separated by 15-30 day breaks (varying with different multitrack systems) (California Department of Education). There is no current scientific evidence to show that year-round education lessens the amount of material forgotten during the summer (McMillen 68); in fact, this memory loss is maximized as it occurs more frequently as it accompanies the shorter, habitual breaks. Constant breaks can also multiply some of summer’s negative effects. One common issue associated with summer is students’ loss of focus as summer approaches and trouble becoming accustomed to the beginning of the following school year (Worsnop 439). This would be a, though minimized, a recurring difficulty with constant breaks. Furthermore, teachers

Bruni quotes the President of the National Center on Education, Marc Tucker, “ Our students have an inflated sense of their academic prowess.They don’t expect to spend much time studying, but they confidently expect good grades and marketable degrees”(par.25). From a young age we need to teach these children you succeed from hard work. Many parents have been exempting their children from test and are expecting them to learn? In order for kids to be able to learn what they need to, parents need to allow them to deal with the difficult times.

Anaheim High School, a beautiful campus filled with intelligent students all around. You may tell yourself that but do we really have some of the best grades? Anaheim has too many days off for vacation and not enough school time for students to learn. In order to increase student success at Anaheim, we should have longer class periods so that students understand the material without having to be rushed and start class earlier or extend school release time until 3:30 or 4:00 pm. In the article, “Marita’s Bargain" by Malcolm Gladwell, he states, “The day goes from seven twenty-five until five pm” (9). Students at KIPP Academy are starting their classes at seven twenty-five and get out of class at five pm. They are getting longer classes which allows them to focus on their academics without having to be rushed to move onto the next topic. Anaheim High School is struggling with students being rushed and not understanding the

Starting in Chapter 6 Gladwell presents us with the mysterious and seemingly inexplicable series of events that occurred in Harlan, Kentucky in the 19th century to introduce the enormous effect of cultural legacies.

When thinking of successful people you automatically think about how hard people have worked to be successful. In the Outliers book "Malcolm Gladwell" argues that we should look at the world that surrounds successful people. For instance their culture, family, experiences, and their upbringing. Gladwell has made an interesting argument about how people become successful. In this paper, I will be talking about how Bradley Byrne, US Representative for Alabama became successful using some information from Gladwell’s arguments.

To the counter-argument, Ballenger & Kneese say it best: “Of what value is there to a community of having most of its classrooms unused for fully 25% of the possible school days each year, when America 's students need more, rather than less, education?” As it stands, concerns concerning loss of learning over the extended summer break remain prevalent. Changing to a year-long school schedule would close that learning gap, allowing students higher retention. However, as Gabrieli states in Koonce (2015), even schools that add “25 percent more time each year – or the equivalent of three extra years of school for students” (p. 236) can achieve this increase merely by extending the school day with no adjustment in summer breaks. Expanded hours and days “can ensure at risk students keep up academically; develop attachment to school through such activities as sports, arts, and drama; and develop the beliefs and behaviors consistent with success” (p.236). The proponents of expanded learning time (ELT) may attest that “the greatest opportunity that expanded learning time offers for improving academic achievement comes from being able to better individualize instruction—putting the right teachers with the right students and focusing on the right skills” (Koonce, 2015). ELT allows students to learn that “through hard work, they can excel through the odds, but that [success] requires time” (Koonce, 2015). Supporters of expanded learning time argue that there is a sizeable benefit from

Q1. What is the general focus of Part 2? Answer: The general focus of Part 2 is ‘legacy’.

The author, Gladwell's, research focuses on KIPP Academy a public middle school in the South Bronx, New York City. Children enrolled in KIPP live in the poorest neighborhoods and are randomly chosen by lottery to join the school. Their goal is for students to acquire an opportunity of education similar to higher class student. KIPP proves that despite their economic situation, students can achieve high academic grades with time and dedication. They believe students should spend more time in school studying to become successful. Students vacations are limited since they make student’s learning procrastinate

Gladwell’s essay about KIPP schools, tells us that it is in a poor neighborhood in New York City and the students that attend there are mostly from financially disadvantaged families and are what is considered, minorities. Although, KIPP is a low-income school it has gone against the negative expectation and is one of the most desirable middle schools. Gladwell is an English-born Canadian author and is a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996, most of his books and articles often deal with implications of research in the social sciences. The essay, “Marita’s Bargain”, was written to inform families

At Anaheim High School some students seem to always complain of being tired from the night before doing homework late some due to not understanding, others did not have enough time. Teachers as well as parents seem to always go the extra mile to help students with their learning problems but sometimes it is difficult. Therefore, in order to increase student success at Anaheim High School student have a thinking skills class. In “Marita’s Bargain” by Gladwell stated “They all do a course call thinking skills until seven fifty-five” (9). This quote is important because it tells you they start the day off by waking up the brain with this first class which gives them more time to ask questions and have a better understanding on subjects. Another

There are many problems in Anaheim High School that we can fix, but the most important one is to get students more intelligent and we can do that by having longer school days. In order to increase student success at Anaheim Schools, we need to have longer school days. “The school year in the United States is on average 180 days long. The Japanese school year is 243 days long.” This is a quote from the story Marita’s Bargain that shows that students from other countries have more and longer school days. This is one of the reasons students are doing better at school. “Saturdays they come in nine to one. In the summer, it’s eight to two.” This is another quote from the story Marita’s Bargain and it is also telling us that they even go to Saturday school. So this means that instead of going to school 5