According to Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The story of success, rice agriculture is considered to be tedious, difficult work. It is also meant to be skill-driven. Because of this, Asian people have a cultural advantage due to their appreciation of hard work, and of the time necessary to improve oneself. He argues that this upbringing is one of the factors why Asian children often excel at school.
In the second part of his argument, Gladwell discusses the KIPP, or “Knowledge is Power Program” which is aimed at children from poor backgrounds. The program argues that shortening summer vacation and increasing the time children spend in school will prevent them from “unlearning’’ the knowledge they had acquired during the past year and help them improve their performance at school. He argues that this program brings some of the logic of self-improvement behind rice paddy farming to places like the South Bronx, which would most likely benefit from the program.