I decided to analyze chapter two of David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell due to the fact that this chapter immediately struck me with the effectiveness with which Gladwell manages to express his point of view in a persuasive manner supported by credible evidence. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In this chapter Gladwell wants to incorporate the lessons learned in the first chapter, the advantage and disadvantage into two simple (or so we thought) questions about education. The way Gladwell teaches us most about this topic is with the inverted U curve. This topic is so important as it is constantly used throughout the book as we learn that what we think is a great advantage may not be a great advantage at all. We're up to speed on this education discussion with the question: Would you send your child to Shepaug Valley Middle School? Across the world, from the United States to Hong Kong, strides are being made to downsize classrooms. It's one of the few things that 77% of Americans agree on. It seems pretty simple, smaller class sizes allow students to interact more with teachers, which results in better grades. Yet there is evidence to support the exact opposite. Gladwell also goes on to introduce the inverted U curve, parenting versus money, and how there is a point where money and resources stop making our lives better and start making them worse. Gladwell tells the story of a boy from Minneapolis who became a powerful man in Hollywood, because his father wasn't. Raised to work hard for what he wanted, so much so that it made him not want to live in this small town and depend on working for his father. “People are ruined by a strained economic life. But they are also ruined by wealth because they lose ambition, pride and self-esteem.” Gladwell uses an example graph to paint a picture in our head, you would automatically see a direct increase: the richer you are, the easier it is to be a parent. His argument is supported by scholars who research happiness. They suggest that more money stops making people with a household income of about seventy-five thousand dollars a year happier. Economists call this diminishing marginal return. They then show a graph that presents a wealth plateau relative to parenthood of $75,000. The topic now shifts gears to how it actually might get harder after that dollar amount because of the ability to say “no, we can't” to your child, you can only honestly say “no, I won't,” which leaves you with a questionable attitude. The Hollywood Man falls into what Gladwell says is the inverted U curve, where you're at the point where money starts to make the job of raising normal, well-adjusted children difficult. The inverted U curve tends to catch us by surprise and this is where Gladwell tries to explain his point about advantages and disadvantages. That said, the graph itself may represent the naysayer, showing that in fact what was initially thought about the correlation with wealth and parenting is not correct at all, and looking back, as a reader you are now open to the point of view based on reliable sources and life examples. As for the next aspect of the question, which is about advantages versus disadvantages, Gladwell raises the question about small class sizes and how they are initially perceived as desirable, but after understanding the inverted U curve you get the reasoning behind Gladwell's argument. Hoxby, a well-known woman who has studied this type.