Parenting, Chinese mothers, and Stereotypes.

Very Interesting article from the WSJ.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
By AMY CHUA

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

 More after the break.


• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.

Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

— Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.

Contradiction?

"One of the things that we're most concerned about is exactly that," said an administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly before the release of the report. The official described the government's plans in an interview with The Associated Press.

So why did you speak publicly, Dude?  This isn't exactly whistle-blowing and you're not leaking something to prevent injury or harm or corruption. It's just spots.

Can't fix stupid.

On jumping to conclusions and historical data.

In discussions that refer to data about historical topics, the non-math folk often fall for the correlation - causation error, as well as misinterpreting their evidence.

It is generally accepted that height actually declined somewhat in late period and early modern times (see, for example, preserved sites like Williamsburg or Jamestown, where door frames and hallways are significantly smaller than nowadays), the reason having to do with more widespread malnutrition and chronic health problems emerging in the 14th century and continuing on until the 18th century. (from a mailing list focusing on medieval history.)

Average is a really tough thing to deal with here and there are a bunch of problems with this statement.

Let's deal with averages first. It's pretty easy to find the average height of modern people. They're alive and measurable. You call together twenty folks at the mall and ask them their height. Convenience sample leads to selection bias, so you retry with a cluster sampling. That's better, but did you happen upon the community of immigrants who are shorter? SO you expand your search and try a more systematic approach. In the end, you have a sense of the average height.

Now try that for the 14th century. Your sources are whichever bones you've been able to find and measure and a few written claims. Not much for numbers there.

Second issue is that pre-19th century doors, hallways and buildings weren't built for standard-sized people. They were built for the occupants and those occupants had different needs. Stating that door frames and hallways are smaller than currently because of a lesser average height is a conclusion that doesn't necessarily follow.

Your average tells you about the group but not much about individuals, so your building codes are set for the 99.8% who are shorter than +3 standard deviations from the mean so that no one is inconvenienced. But what is the average height? That's easier to tell now, but not so much for earlier demographics.

Room size does not correlate to occupant height either. My classroom ceiling, for instance, is nearly twelve feet high. Can we really conclude anything from that? On the other hand, all of the occupants for the last twenty years have been shorter than 6'5" and half of them were averaging 5'4" (the girls). All classrooms built in the last twenty years have 8' or 9' ceilings, becuse of changes in the building code, not because people kept hitting their heads.

The windows are huge, nearly 3' by 8', but that speaks to the need for free light and air rather than a race of giants.  Need and purpose are better indicators of door size in pre-code days.


The typical pre-1850 house has low ceilings and doors I want to crouch for (but that are still taller than I am), for a couple of reasons.

A room with a low ceiling is easier to heat, less difficult to build, and uses less wood in the building process. A 7' ceiling is not a problem for anyone who was going to use it - the builders were making houses for themselves and they didn't feel the need to give themselves 2' of headroom.

Sure, it's shorter than today, but only relatively. We notice because the standards have changed and it FEELS lower, not because we need to duck.

The same is true for the door. It's shorter. It was custom-made and of varying heights. Often it wasn't "square" but rather built to fit the space rather than the other way around. It might have a corner cut off to fit under the eaves or clear a stair. In any case, the door was built for the prospective occupants, not the rare fraction who needed a 6'8" door. Andre the Giant could bloody well duck.

Likewise hallways. What's the need for a wide hallway? It's just wasted space. Your big furniture was on the main floor or was carried up in pieces and assembled in place. There were no ADA-type requirements. Again, we feel constricted, but the person of that time would consider our modern requirements to be ostentatious displays of wealth. The typical house of the 15th century was maybe half the square footage of 20th century houses, and that is being dwarfed by 21st century ones. This correlation is with wealth, not height.

Other factors chime in: the cost or taxes assessed on road (or canal in this case) frontage might dictate your building style. For an extreme example of this, check out houses in Amsterdam: narrow, almost useless staircases and a hoist mechanism outside for lifting pianos and furniture to the second or third floor.


The takeaway for math teachers is to stress that we need more than correlations to justify cause. I might state the original paragraph and have the kids try to punch holes in it. Critical thinking and all that. I'd be looking for points like those above and:

• If the claim is that people were taller before the Templars' suppression at the hands of Philip the Fair, became shorter during the 14-17th centuries and then started getting taller again in the 18th, then your doors should show the same trends for the same time periods, in the same types of houses and at the same socio-economic levels. If the doors to churches showed the same decrease and increases, that would be a good sign.
• How could the builder know the average height of 15th century mankind? Communications were difficult and slow, the size of the foot varied by region among other factors. Besides, even if he did know, why would he care? He's building for the man in front of him, not some mythical beast. Is there evidence that builders knew the average?
• Is the rural house different from that in the city?  See the Amsterdam note above.
• What are other reasons for the differences do you see? 

• War.  Make your attackers duck as they enter. Some Indian adobes have four foot doors for this reason. This picture is from Doune castle.
• Security. A smaller door is easier to bolt closed.
• Religion. Make your visitors bow in humility as they enter.
• Practical. They wanted to reach the ceiling beams for storage hooks.
• Sexism.  Only women used this door so who cared about it being more than 6'? 
• This was where the children slept.  There was plenty of room under the eaves.
• Mathematical considerations:
• Can the average height be measured?  Is that number meaningful here? Should the anthropologist use median or mode instead?  What was the builder using?
• What kind of sampling would work best for ascertaining that measure?
• Historical considerations:
• How do we know that people did get shorter? Did they or is this a myth?
• If they were, was it due to nutritional deficiencies? Were chronic health problems all that widespread in just those four centuries or merely the Black Death taking all the headlines? Was the 9th century healthier?  How about NYCity in the 1800s tenements?  London's Soho at the time of cholera epidemics?
• Were the doors shorter during the time period in question? What was he looking at when he measured?
• What would the students do as step two to confirm or deny these theories? Why haven't they started?

I love math.

Incentives and Achievement

"A multicity experiment to test the effect of paying students for performance succeeded in increasing achievement when the payments were tied to specific behaviors related to learning, such as reading books, but not when the awards depended directly on test scores, new findings show."
“Providing incentives for achievement-test scores has no effect on any form of achievement we can measure,” wrote Harvard University economist Roland G. Fryer in a working paper published last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research."

I can't say that I am surprised by this. Tests seem to be out of the student's control and out of mind quickly. The feedback on tests is too late to be tied to the achievement, while the monetary payoff for reading and such is much more direct and seemingly more in the control of the student.

It may also be an additional explanation why high school students don't score as well on these tests as might be expected from all the other measures of their ability - the reward payoff is delayed so far that the effort simply isn't put into the test. NECAP tests were in November, scores are returned in March/April and school AYP determinations are delayed until May.

One more nail in the coffin of "Merit Pay Should be Based on Test Scores."

Manufacturing a Soccer Ball

So this used to be a truncated icosahedron. You could make one from scratch pretty easily, cut it out and Viola!, you had a ball.

Oh, how times have changed ...

Oblivious teenagers??

I was struck by the ad copy in PETA's news article announcing Hannah Teter's 'Save the Seals' Ad:

U.S. snowboarder Hannah Teter comes from a close-knit family of shredders who spend a great deal of their time doing what they love in the snow and ice. So when the Olympic gold medalist learned about the seal slaughter that takes place every year on Canada's ice floes, she posed for PETA's "Save the Seals" ad series to help spread the word.

"So when the Olympic medalist learned about ..."

Really?

She just learned about it? In 2009?