Standing Out from the Crowd

Getting a driver’s license, being able to vote, drinking legally, getting a tattoo: these are all rites of passage that students eagerly wait for. But some watch time pass by as friends and classmates get these privileges. These are the students who have what are considered late birthdays in comparison to their classmates. However, there’s more significance to birth date than the month you get handed your first set of car keys. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” and a Harbinger analysis of AP test scores are showing more of a connection between age and success in both academics and sports.

In some cases, age can affect academic performance. A recent Harbinger analysis of 2010 junior AP scores showed that while the rules don’t apply to everyone, there is a significant downward trend in scores as birthdays get later and later. This advantage is primarily seen within athletics, as shown in Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers.” Gladwell has written “The Tipping Point” and “Blink” and is also one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.” According to Gladwell’s book, professional Canadian hockey players have birthdays overwhelmingly in January and February. Why? Because the cutoff date for club hockey is January 1st, making these players the older, bigger and more experienced of the members on their team.

When they first send them to kindergarten, parents are forced to make an important decision for their child. Should they send little Johnny with a June birthday to school yet, or hold him back? According to a recent article in the New York Times, parents are increasingly torn between sending their child off to school or keeping them back for fear that they will be smaller and slower than the rest of their classmates.

“It’s hard to lay down a straight rule for holding your kid back from school, because each case is different,” Psychology AP teacher Kelli Kurle said. “But I see a lot of boys held back both because they mature slower than girls. Parents do it in hope that he’ll have an advantage in sports when he gets older.”

Junior twins Emily and Reid Frye were about to enter kindergarten when they suddenly had to switch school districts due to class size. The kindergarten cut-off date was too close to the kids’ birthday for their mother Amy Frye to send them off to school.

“The cutoff date for our kids was May 1,” Amy said. “Everyone had warned me that twins would be behind anyways. They were shy as kids, too, so that extra year on everyone really helped them socially mature.”

The Fryes’ birthday is in May 1992, making them older than some of their classmates by a full year. Emily enjoys being older than her classmates, not because she thinks she has an advantage, but for the privileges associated with age.

“The coolest part is getting to drive and getting a car,” Emily said. “And I guess voting too. But [sophomore] Matthew Williamson is in my Calc BC class and he’s the always ahead ahead of us, so I don’t think academic success really depends on age.”

According to Emily, some kids like Williamson are lucky, and even though they’re younger, they can keep up with the pack. But some are always at a disadvantage. These are the children that mature later and are constantly playing catch-up with their classmates.

According to Kurle, a few months can make a significant difference socially and academically.  Six months can make an obvious difference in maturity and size, especially for boys. The older kids in her class are noticably more confident and bigger than their younger counterparts, especially the boys.

Counselor Lilli Engelbrick agrees. She said that she’s never specifically looked for trademarks of age differences between students, but the difference between maturity in young freshmen and when they come back as sophomores the next year is substantial.

“There’s a huge difference that develops, say, over the few months in summer break,” Engelbrick said. “A little bit of time can make a huge difference in their ability to stay focused.”

Studies done in the 1980s such as those conducted by Diamond and Sweetland and Desimone found that even a few months in age can be linked to significant differences in test scores. And a study conducted by Maddux, Stacey and Scott noted that children at a lower end of an age group are less likely to be labeled “gifted.”

However, Gifted teacher Alexander Migliazzo sees no correlation between relative age and giftedness.

“I’ve had younger kids that show as much academic achievement and intellectual curiosity as older ones,” Migliazzo said. “I usually can’t tell how old students are in relation to their classmates.”

An extra year in preschool allows children time to master more difficult concepts before more are thrown at them when they hit elementary school, according to the New York Times article. In fact, test scores of older children are greater by four to seven percentile points in the tenth grade according to the studies mentioned above.

“In some cases, obviously, the older you are the more chance you have to be exposed to knowledge,” Principal Karl Krawitz said. “You’re simply more mature, cognitively and developmentally.”

Being older often means being bigger, and bigger is almost always an advantage in sports. This is another common reason parents hold their children back. And by looking at Outlier’s example of hockey players, it seems to be true. In the National Hockey League, 40 percent of players are born within the first quarter of the year, while only 10 percent  are born in the last quarter of the year.

Some students at Shawnee Mission East think that the playing field has been leveled out by now. But a Harbinger analysis of the birthdays of senior Varsity soccer boys revealed that 53 percent of their birthdays were in May through September of 1992. Only 13 percent were born in May through July of 1993.

Junior Caroline Dodd’s birthday is August 10, which still gives her a six-month head start on most of her other classmates. She’s played basketball since third grade and soccer since kindergarten–and excelled at both.

“I’ve always been tall for my class,” Dodd said. “I guess it gave me an advantage in stuff like basketball and soccer. But I think that it makes a bigger difference in boys since us girls are all about the same height now.”

Had Malcolm Gladwell studied Dodd, he would’ve pointed out that since she was always older and therefore taller, she was good at basketball from a young age. Therefore, she pursued it and got onto better teams. These teams increased her skill level to a point where she could make Varsity as junior at East.

Likewise, kids who are relatively younger have disadvantages sheerly due to less physical growth.

“I’ve always been smaller than everyone else,” junior Tyler Germann said. “I’m not, like, as buff or strong as they are.”

In the summer between middle school and high school, Germann grew almost four inches. He was skinny and not used to his body being so long. In the weight room, it was a struggle to lift as much as the older, bigger boys.

“For boys, [age] is a huge deal,” Kurle said. “But for girls, once they enter freshman year that’s it–you’re going to have the same amount of talent and size.”

But neither Dodd nor senior Will Severns see any difference that age might make. Severns is a varsity baseball and football player born on April 23, 1992. He’ll be 19 years old before many of his classmates turn 18 years old. In middle school, he had a big advantage on everyone else because he grew earlier. But now everyone has grown and has caught up to him, even though he started out as a stud.

“Maybe if I ever had an advantage, it was when I was way younger. Like when everyone was developing,” Severns said. “It’s pretty much equal now.”

Of course, age alone doesn’t determine if you’re an A- or D-student; a C-team or varsity cross-country runner. There are so many other factors that contribute to success according to both Dr. Krawitz and Kurle.

“I believe the biggest reasons people succeed isn’t due to their intelligence,” Dr. Krawitz said. “It’s a person’s work ethic, commitment, vision and motivation which can make the most difference.”

Being younger isn’t entirely a disadvantage according to senior Prarthana Dalal. She is a full year younger than her classmates yet ranked second in the class. She doesn’t mind being the youngest.

“I don’t associate my chronological age with myself,” Dalal said. “I see it more as a collective grade. Plus succeeding or falling behind in school really depends on the individual and their personality.”

Furthermore, in a Swedish 2005 study, starting school earlier was associated with better long-term outcomes. It argues that early investment in learning and other skills improves the outcome of the individuals life both mentally and economically. Sophomore Matthew Williamson is near the top of his class and is scoring well in many classes that his fellow students may not take until their senior year, like Chemistry 2 AP and Calc BC AP.

“I want to take as difficult classes as possible. The normal-level classes just aren’t challenging enough,” Williamson said. “I don’t feel like I have any sort of disadvantage as far as tests and grades go, but it’s just awkward being the only sophomore in my class.”

For Dalal, being the youngest is not only a different experience age-wise, but also has genuine pros such as being ahead in school comparatively to her age.

“I’m the oldest one at home, so I feel like I get a different experience at school,” Dalal said. “Career-wise, I have one year of extra time to use.”

Kurle believes that benefits of holding kids back depends from kid to kid, and that any psychological impact depends more on birth order than anything else. The oldest child will usually work harder and have a more competitive attitude than his or her siblings. The middle child is less so; he’s more watered down and less intense than his big brother or  sister. And according to Kurle, by the time you get to the third or fourth child, it’s obvious that they have tried to keep up with their older siblings and so are ahead of their classmates. But by the time they reach high school, everyone has caught up with them.

“It’s hard to quantitate maturity and intelligence in high school,” Kurle said. “Each kid is different.”

Dr. Krawitz agrees. He believes that while age can have an affect especially in sports, it doesn’t predetermine an individual’s success.

“There is absolutely no standardized test in the world that can measures a person’s heart,” Dr. Krawitz said.