If someone asks a question such as “How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?” science changes that question to “How fast does the average child learn to read in the classroom?” We then ignore the children who read faster or slower, and tailor the classroom toward the “average” child. This is what Tal Ben-Shahar calls “the error of the average.” That’s the first mistake traditional psychology makes. If we study merely what is average, we will remain merely average.
