Anecdotal... Two parents with high IQs and academic professions have highly-achieving children (although the only accomplishment I was actually impressed with was the bronze medal in the Olympics...).
And the vaguely racist assumption that Asian students know their facts but have no imagination:
<<<<<<<<
When I ask the latter questions such as,
“If you were going to redesign programming language X, what would you do?”
They will tell me what X does in great detail but not answer the question.
American students are more likely to jump in with ideas about how to change X, replete with statements like “X sucks because…”
>>>>>>>>>
I went to school with the child of one of the original UNIX developers. He submitted a word processed paper in grade school (late 70's). I can remember him reading GEB in the back of Chemistry class. He has gone on to do wonderful things - and I never saw evidence of the 'Chinese Mom' upbringing... He always seemed to be a very balanced, healthy human being - doing what he wanted to do.
Richard Feynman didn't have a Chinese mother either...
So we all have these anecdotes - what Chua is talking about is something different. It is not merely anecdotal - it is why there is high unemployment and at the same time tech companies in NYC starving for engineers.
Thee is a link for me in the 'Chinese mom' argument (not Chua's per se but the tiger parenting her daughter pushes against) and Gladwell's Outlier's argument.
Even if you are a genius it takes "10,000 hours" of hard work. Some people are internally motivated enough to do it at a young age. Others need a 'Chinese mom' to turn the TV off and go through the piano piece one more time...
And the vaguely racist assumption that Asian students know their facts but have no imagination:
<<<<<<<< When I ask the latter questions such as, “If you were going to redesign programming language X, what would you do?”
They will tell me what X does in great detail but not answer the question. American students are more likely to jump in with ideas about how to change X, replete with statements like “X sucks because…” >>>>>>>>>
I went to school with the child of one of the original UNIX developers. He submitted a word processed paper in grade school (late 70's). I can remember him reading GEB in the back of Chemistry class. He has gone on to do wonderful things - and I never saw evidence of the 'Chinese Mom' upbringing... He always seemed to be a very balanced, healthy human being - doing what he wanted to do.
Richard Feynman didn't have a Chinese mother either...
So we all have these anecdotes - what Chua is talking about is something different. It is not merely anecdotal - it is why there is high unemployment and at the same time tech companies in NYC starving for engineers.
Thee is a link for me in the 'Chinese mom' argument (not Chua's per se but the tiger parenting her daughter pushes against) and Gladwell's Outlier's argument.
Even if you are a genius it takes "10,000 hours" of hard work. Some people are internally motivated enough to do it at a young age. Others need a 'Chinese mom' to turn the TV off and go through the piano piece one more time...