Malcom Gladwell: Effective teachers have a gift for noticing -- what one researcher calls "withitness." It stands to reason that to be a great teacher you have to have withitness.
From the archive: It is ironic: people don't notice that noticing is important! I was thinking earlier about the idea of "through-lines" in films as a great illustration of how patterns and themes emerge. In fact, in Repo Man, Harry Dean Stanton's character makes a comment about this very phenomenon -- something like, "You're thinking about a plate o' shrimp, and then suddenly someone'll say 'plate o' shrimp' out of the blue ..." And of course, through the whole movie, signs for "plate o' shrimp" are everywhere.
Decius wrote: What do you think of [Gladwell's] new book? I've considered getting it but I have a horrible track record of not finding time to read books ...
I think it is a lot like his previous books. I bought and read The Tipping Point and Blink, but I haven't bought Outliers. Between his talk at the New Yorker festival and his articles, I feel like I know the gist of the message without bothering to read the whole book. He's been building on these ideas for years now. Still, I might pick up a copy later on; Amazon is offering it for 45% off these days. For me, not buying the book has almost nothing to do with the prospect of not reading it any time soon. Or, said another way, I can buy a book without feeling the least bit compelled to read it promptly. | 
