This book was recommended to me by a fellow moderator in the Mater Amabilis group. I immediately recognized it as a kind of counter to Outliers, which I read a few years ago and included in the high school health course First Son completed.
Range argues against the idea of early and thorough specialization. Early in the book, he explores a 2009 paper coauthored by two researches with opposites points of view who found that early specialization leads to success in only certain domains (like chess). They were able to differentiate those areas as ones that had rapid and consistent feedback, as opposed to fields that don't present clear rules or patterns or where feedback comes too late to allow immediate connections.
The book goes on to elucidate some of the ways we can educate ourselves to apply broad thinking strategies in a wide variety of areas, arguing such training would be beneficial to everyone and perhaps more beneficial than some of the specialized training people receive in college or graduate programs.
Some tactics are applicable in our home education. For example, being forced to provide an answer, even one devised by wild guessing, improves the chance of a student remembering the correct answer at a later time. This strategy is apparent in our spelling or dictation practices where students must write something, even if I immediately point out the correct spelling and ask the student to change it. (My kids hate this, by the way, so I've been telling them all about my recent reading.)
Another key point that is helpful to highlight for children is that encountering challenges or frustration when struggling with problems is a sign of learning, while easily parroting back answers isn't.
For a given amount of material, learning is most efficient in the long run when it is really inefficient in the short run. If you are doing too well when you test yourself, the simple antidote is to wait longer before practicing the same material again, so that the test will be more difficult when you do. Frustration is not a sign you are not learning, but ease is. (p. 89)
I am constantly reminding my children that learning happens when things are hard (but not too hard). If it's easy, either you're going to forget it as soon as we finish or you already knew it. You want to be right on the boundary of what you know.
Mr. Epstein presents lots of examples of people whose education and career paths meandered through disparate fields of study. Many of them have found a satisfying, challenging, and engaging career by melding their knowledge and interests. Surveys show those who follow their interests are happier, even if they experience a decrease in salary. Also, maintaining a regular interest in playing an instrument or singing seems to be indicative of success in scientific fields, suggesting time spent practicing a hobby can benefit a career.
As I read Range, I was struck repeatedly by how the kind of education edified in the book followed many of the precepts outlined by Charlotte Mason and already present in our little homeschool. We read from a feast of subjects, even into high school, offering readings and experiences in music appreciation, drawing, geography, mythology, and so much more along with traditional mathematics, composition, and sciences. These kinds of vastly different readings offer students different ways to think and reason through a variety of problems. They may provide a spark, a remembrance, of a situation or problem from a different area that can be applied to a current problem.
Also, our wide range of readings are spread over an extended time. We may read from a book only once a week and take an entire year to finish it (or two or three years). The time in between forces children to reflect to themselves about what was happening at the end of the previous reading (reinforcing the material) and allows them to easily make their own connections between completely different topics as they encounter them intermittently throughout a year or level.
One of the things I liked about using Outliers in our health course was how it highlighted the kind of early focus and opportunities that allowed some people to surge ahead in a field, with the idea of guiding my own children to understand 1) the power of opportunities (which are often absent in those of low socio-economic backgrounds) and 2) how focused practice leads to competency and excellence. Range does touch on the second point (often by explicitly contrasting experiences with those in Outliers), but the first I am probably going to address in a modern government course.
There are also a few examples we as Catholics may not appreciate in the same way as the author. One of the people highlighted in the book was the woman who led the Girl Scouts into the modern day by incorporating activities and teachings of which many Catholics disapprove. They don't feature prominently in the book, and I think the idea of someone willing to draw on unexpected experiences in crafting a way forward can be appreciated.
After reading this book, I see again and again in articles and essays descriptions of education and career paths that fit much more with that described by Range than that described in Outliers.
Overall, Range is an excellent book to read late in a Charlotte Mason education as a student transitions from an education designed and shaped by a parent to one shaped by a college or life-long student. I'm going to replace Outliers with Range in our Range high school health course. If First Son has time, I'm going to assign it to him for senior year as a kind of "get ready for college and life" book.
I have received nothing in exchange for this review. Links to Bookshop or Amazon are affiliate links. I borrowed this book from my library and then bought a used copy.
