Posted on 01/10/2011 8:40:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
An article in the Wall Street Journal called "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" has American mothers (and others) in a furor.
It's written by Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor, whose daughters Louisa and Sophia are clearly, well, superior--presumably due to the parenting methods that Chua describes (methods that would appall many American parents).
Are Chinese mothers superior? Read Amy's article (excerpt below) and you be the judge.
If the goal is efficiency, excellence, and success, it would seem that this Chinese mother, at least, has most American mothers beat. And it's not hard to extrapolate that superiority toward a future world in which China wins and Americans dream of glory days when we were hungry, committed, and self-disciplined, too.
(Of course, Amy Chua is an American mother, and her kids are Americans, but leave that aside for a moment...)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
If hey obtain citizenship
I assume this author is a citizen of the US.
Hmmm Chinese Food!
Thanks to opium.
Opium did not become a significant issue in China until after 1800, some time after China had entered its stagnant phase.
It was more likely a symptom than a cause of Chinese decline. Although it obviously didn’t help.
Interesting that you find it tongue in cheek. I didn’t. And if you read the comment section of the WSJ most people didn’t. They thought she was dead serious.
I’m English and Irish, so Anglo-Irish. German as well. But my temperment is Irish.
I feel sorry for you. My Korean gal was nothing like that. She’s very kind. Just a bit high strung.
I read the paper WSJ, so I don’t see comments posted on line. That said, I stand by my reading of the article, though I never claim perfection in all things (but in most).
RE: Comparing white, 2-parent middle class parents with college degrees with a pool of single parent, poor families with GED’s would yield an irrelevant statistical comparison (for deciding which type of education is “best”)
But that is exactly the point of home schooling -— PARENTS BEING INVOLVED WITH THEIR KID’s EDUCATION EVERY DAY.
I doubt if there are ANY home schooled kids who are in poor, single parent households.
In other words, the study comparing home schooled kids and public school kids on average is BY NECESSITY, and BY DEFINITION, going to be selected PRECISELY because these kids belong to this narrow demographic.
Why do these parents not send them to public schools in the first place? I would say that it is because they can’t find a satisfactory public school near where they live.
I suspect that if you compared the test scores of home schooled kids to the test scores of public schools near their area and not a wide swath of public schools, you would still see homse schooled kids doing better.
And this is not an argument for or against home schooling or public schools, it is simply an argument for THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE and STRONG FAMILIES, but you already know that.
“I doubt if there are ANY home schooled kids who are in poor, single parent households.”
I agree - but when you compare the “average score” of homeschoolers with a population of public schoolers that have as part of the population a significant number of poor single-parent households, then comparing the two is meaningless, and may in fact lead homeschool parents to believe erroneously that their kids are doing better than they are actually doing when compared to a like demographic.
That’s exactly why it is a self selecting statistic to compare “Average homeschool” to “Average public school” scores.
If the USA had a slave labor class at $.60 an hour like China we could also be claiming the same growth and providing $2 toasters.
“Why do these parents not send them to public schools in the first place? I would say that it is because they can’t find a satisfactory public school near where they live.”
People do it for lots of reasons. Not all of them have anything to do with public schools at all.
“I suspect that if you compared the test scores of home schooled kids to the test scores of public schools near their area and not a wide swath of public schools, you would still see homse schooled kids doing better.”
I think they would perform substantially the same. Bright kids are going to do well regardless of educational environment, if they come from a two-parent middle class family. This is only my opinion though, I have not found any data anywhere to substantiate it.
I think we can perhaps agree though that homeschool groups, like the one you cited do not have a vested interest in providing anything but statistics that support their business model. Self-selecting statistics suit them just fine, and also meets the emotional needs of their customers in helping them think they are doing a good job when in reality, they don’t know in any objective sense.
Your initial statement to the effect of “Homeschooled Kids routinely kick public school kids butts, academically” is not comparing like demographics - and is merely stating that “Children from white, middle-class two-parent families with at least some college education do better academically than inner-city children from single parent unemployed welfare families”
Hardly as dramatic, but it illustrates the allure of using meaningless self-selecting statistics.
RE: Your initial statement to the effect of “Homeschooled Kids routinely kick public school kids butts, academically” is not comparing like demographics - and is merely stating that “Children from white, middle-class two-parent families with at least some college education do better academically than inner-city children from single parent unemployed welfare families”
Not necessarily. I would say that parents of home schooled kids DO NOT WANT their children mixing with a public school system that has a mix of white, middle-class two-parent families AND single parent kids whose family backgrounds are unknown.
They also do not want their kids to be EXPOSED to the VALUES (or lack of them) taught by public schools ( and that IMHO is a huge factor aside from academics. VALUES contribute a lot to a kid’s success or failure ( even with two parent households ) ).
“I doubt if there are ANY home schooled kids who are in poor, single parent households.”
I have known 2.
One of the mom’s I have not seen or heard from in a few years. I think she moved. She was divorced when I met her and her husband was fighting to have the son put into public school. Her parents helped her with her son. Her retired father taught most of the classes while she worked.
The other mom has 7 children. She was married until her dh started running around and she divorced him. She raised her children on next to nothing, no welfare, no food stamps, just a small child support check and whatever she could pull in from odd jobs.
Her church helped her occasionally such as when she needed a new roof, but she pitched in and was on that roof helping them put it on. She is an amazing woman. I have jokingly told my husband if anything happens to me, marry her! Out of her 7 she has 2 left at home. Her oldest daughter has a degree in accounting. Her oldest son will graduate university in the spring with an engineering degree. She has another daughter who is a dental tech and another son who is a truck mechanic and another will graduate this spring with a music degree and will start this Sept as a youth minister.
She still has 2 high school age students at home. All her children have had part time jobs since they were old enough to work. When the oldest were old enough to watch the younger some the mother had part time jobs to supplement. She can literally make something from almost nothing. Frugal doesn’t even define her.
You should have paid attention in history class then. When in fact, the very opposite was true. We saw ourselves as being vastly superior to the Japanese. In regards to Germany, we knew almost nothing about them because we assumed that they would never become a military threat again after the Treaty of Versailles, and WW1 ended. And, it was because of that superiority illusion that we nearly lost WW2. The attack at Pearl Harbor was what woke us up to the fact that the Japanese were far more advanced and capable than we surmised. We especially learned that lesson the hard way, after we tried to dogfight their superior aircraft. The reason that both the Axis powers eventually lost was, they spread themselves out way too fast and could not maintain the vast regions they had conquered. They also lost because we finally woke up and retooled our weaponry, but we did so, based on the fact that they had greatly advanced beyond our arrogant limitations we had so predetermined. Our Military Commanders like Patton, were also well schooled in how to defeat a World Empire after it had advanced well beyond it's capacity and capability.......Sort of like the USA is today.......
No doubt parents have many reasons and motives behind a homeschooling decision. They are the parents and they decide whats best for the children.
But the self-selecting statistical aspect still is there.
You may well be right about values contributing to academic and career success, but to attribute those to homeschooling and implying an absence in other educational venues is again not supportable with any information.
I have some Chinese kids I work with. One 4th grader — no one speaks English as a first language at home, AND he studies Chinese on the side — has finally gotten out of Extra Help in English (or whatever it is called) and into the mainstream. He got a B- on a report he didi recently, which was his lowest score this fall. Dad was SO UPSET about it. Here he is, finally mainstreamed, immersed in English at school but not at home. This evidently is very common — finding fault vs encouraging.
Wanna take a survey of how many Chinese women over 40 are straight-up nuts?
Were you asleep during the 90’s when Japan was supposed to take over the US and send us back where we belong.
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