Visionally challenged not visually challenged

We do not need some external element to deceive us. We deceive ourselves very often. This is not a hi-fi philosophy statement. I wrote about the six sigma syndrome. Talking of statistics, consider the following:

Assemble a randomly chosen group of 100 people. Find their average height. Add the tallest person on earth, say, an 8-footer to the group. Recalculate the average height of the 101 people. Do you expect to see a large difference? Hardly.

Find the average net wealth of the same 100 people. Now, add one of the wealthiest people in the world, a Buffett, Mittal, Ambani or even a Bill Gates. Recalculate the average wealth of the group of 101 people. Any difference? Huge.

The statistical principle of finding the average of an augmented group is the same. It is only that the behavioral characteristics of height and wealth are different.

Very often we ignore this and blindly apply techniques and solutions from one context and one era to another context and another era without verifying whether they would be applicable or appropriate.

An educational consultant recommended teacher motivation schemes in an aristocratic school as part of school excellence. It did not take off in another school because the latter’s main problem was drop out of children. Unless this was tackled there was no scope of talking about excellence. He then blamed the poor teachers as not motivatable!!