Malcolm Gladwell's The Story Of Success: Redshirtting In Education

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Parents should want to give their kid’s the best opportunities in life. Malcolm Gladwell discusses parents giving their children a better chance at success by redshirting kids before kindergarten in his book The Story of Success. Redshirting in education is the practice of holding one’s child back a year before entering kindergarten. This allows the child to have gained a year of extra knowledge and cognitive ability if the extra time is utilized properly. Parents are struggling in deciding if they should hold their kids back or if they should let them be susceptible to having a disadvantage. Redshirtting in education should be allowed Because it allows kids to be the best version of themselves, they are given the best chance at success when …show more content…

The choice to hold back a child is one that a parent must logically make based on evidence and studies. “The studies that show the academic advantages provided by redshirting may seem to imply that the choice is simple if you want to give your child the best chance of success let him wait a year”(Chen). Redshirtting objectively speaking helps kids gain a better start in life; it prepares them for kindergarten. It is a great oppourtuitiy parents can give their child. It allows them to get ahead of their piers and preform better in school. So redshirtting well help kids grow to be smarter and better preforming in school objectively. The effect of being give repeated advantages in life allows you to succeed vastly more than others who have not been given such opportunities. The most talented and the best in any give field are given the best resources at their disposal which enables them to preform at their high level. “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to future success… Success is the result of what sociologist like to call “accumulative advantage””(Gladwell 30). Redshirtting enables children to be given that first advantage in life. This is where they can get that head start to where they are giving other opportunities down the line. Like they do well in school due to redshirtting so they get a scholarship and they get free school and then be come a doctor or lawyer. That is the effect of giving kids that little advantage to start then it blossoms into a successful career in

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