When I was in elementary grade 2, my teacher had a different way to discipline us. She frequently gave us exams and base on the results, she punished us for the mistakes and errors that we got. And the punishment, we lie down on our desk while she hit us on our butt with her stick. The number of hit corresponds to the number of errors we committed on the exam. The pain that we had on our punishment...

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, highlights the difference in mathematical ability of Asians versus Westerners. He goes to explain with facts as to why the Asians are much better off in Math. And one of the core reasons was because of the higher level of persistence exhibited by Asian students to solve a particular problem. And this very attribute of persistence, he goes on to say, is one of...