Lesson 56: Size Matters

Today I was reading Whatever It Takes by Paul Tough and came across the following passage:

"You have to walk in the door with a take-no-prisoners, I'm-in-charge, move-over-a-new-sheriff's-in-town, let-me-at-them attitude."

Pinder was a burly African American in his late thirties with a reputation as a disciplinarian....He wore a tan suit, perfectly tailored to his substantial frame.

This man, Glen Pinder, was charged with turning the Promise Academy charter school in the Harlem Children's Zone around and raising test scores, two daunting tasks that required a lot of structured leadership and unprecedented expectations from students (and parents) who were previously dismissed as hopeless cases.

And while the book is great and I'm enjoying every minute of it, I thought instead about size in relation to leadership. Clearly, Paul Tough thought that Pinder's "substantial size" was important enough to be mentioned, but I wonder what would have happened if a diminutive principal had walked into that school instead. As a female who is shorter than the average 28-year old woman, I've heard all kinds of short jokes. Most of the time I just let them roll of my shoulder. Sometimes if they're particularly creative, I'll laugh. But then again, some of them really get old. But I felt better when I saw today that there are some advantages to being short:

Shorter people are less likely to break bones when they fall, have faster reaction times, greater ability to accelerate body movements and are less likely to get severely injured in a car accident.

Shorter people have a smaller impact on the environment. It was found that people averaging 6 feet and 190 pounds can impact human survival by creating more pollution and depletion of resources, such as water, energy and oil.

Shorter people live longer. Bigger bodies need more cells and duplication of cells is limited.

Short people have a lower center of gravity, and having a lower center of gravity gives someone better balance and stability.

Aside from these scientific advantages of being vertically challenged, I also found these humorous ones from a taller than average girl:

1) You can buy clothes that actually FIT you. If they're too long, who gives a care, you can hem them, it's not that hard. If they're too short, there's not really anything you can do except add different fabric, and that just looks weird, and you can really tell.

2) It makes you cute. :) You're probably sick of hearing it a lot if that's said to you all the time, but at least it's a positive thing, unlike being called a giant. :\

3) A lot of guys prefer smaller girls. They like to protect them.

4) You can slip away easily in crowds. Positive if you WANT to. Negative if you don't, but it wouldn't be the hardest sticking with your posse.

5) People can pick you up, because you weigh a lot less. You can be piggy-backed and all that fun stuff. :)

6) You tend to have smaller feet, therefore it is a bit easier finding cute shoes rather than looking for huge sized ones.

7) When you're dancing, you don't have to duck while spinning under someone's arms...

8) It's easier to do the limbo! :)

9) You don't get interrupted while working every second of the day to help somebody reach something because they're too lazy to grab a chair to stand on.

So I guess that when it comes to being 4'10, I'll suck it up and wait for someone to grab a piggyback ride from so that I can reach the cookies on top of the fridge. :-)