Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011, ISBN 978-1594202841), a book about the unrelenting pressure to excel that some Asian parents put on their children, has ignited a firestorm of debate, at least among the ambitious upper-class parents of the nation. On the one hand, the pressure and the restrictions some Asian parents put on their children seems inhuman – on the other hand, Asian youngsters are taking away top music and science prizes and coveted college admissions all across the nation. In this regard, I recommend an article in this month’s The Atlantic, entitled Sympathy for the Tiger Moms.
As the grandparent of two granddaughters who are home schooled because their local schools are simply not equipped to deal with exceptionally bright students, I am well aware of how America’s public school system, America’s teachers, and American textbooks have all been honed to serve the mediocre middle, at the expense of both the slower and the faster students. Many progressive elites will bridle at that description, even while they send their own children to expensive private schools to get a better education.
So Amy Chua’s book ignites in America parents simultaneously an outrage that children ought not to be treated that way, and a nagging worry that we in America have come to expect too little of our children
I tend toward the latter view. Certainly there are children who are slower to learn that normal, but I strongly suspect that most children, given adequate parenting and schooling and attention to their natural passions and interests, have gifts that we would think exceptional. Both my granddaughters exhibit what we today would think of as exceptional talents, but I would not be surprised to learn that many more children harbored latent talents equal to or greater than these, if only they had been recognized and supported early in their childhood.
As we enter a national debate about our real priorities, fostered by our growing debt problem, education ought to rank high among the things we need to preserve and improve. Unfortunately, the only way governments can see to improved education is to pour more money into it, a strategy that has demonstrably not worked. Clearly something far more fundamental is needed, not only to reform the educational system, but to reform the parenting system in this nation. So in that sense, the firestorm ignited by Amy Chua’s book is a useful thing.
Posts
