<p>Interesting this discussion is still going on. I am not going to touch the subject of freedom per se but rather with control. There actually is something underlying both Chua’s approach and that of the Chinese government, and that is about control. The Chinese government fears disorder, they fear the kind of change that in their eyes will throw off social harmony (and not to mention challenge their power), so they do everything they can to keep a lid on it, which includes the lengths they go to censor things (want an example of the ridiculous lengths they go to? a music store’s website that we use is banned in China [instrument store], it is a local store that serves a local audience. So why are they banned? Well, knowing that Asian kids are big into music, they advertised in several Chinese newspapers here, and apparently one of the papers is very critical of the Chinese government. So because they had an ad in the paper, their website is blocked…). Likewise China blocks YouTube and the like because in their eyes all that diversity that is there will “throw society into Chaos”. </p>
<p>Chua in effect does the same thing on a micro scale, fearing where the kids choices would take them she shapes the path almost entirely, she controls everything along the way, towards that goal of what she sees as ‘doing something useful’. She is afraid her kids won’t be strong enough to resist temptation, so she forbids anything in her view will cause temptation (reminds me a lot of fundamentalist Christians who fear that science and associating with non believers will challenge their faith, so they isolate themselves). It is a very controlled path that also takes out of it the nebulous things of life, it is a very measured, ordered path, very much like for example in China the system of exams and such that define someone’s life, there is little ambiguity, which is comfort for those who fear such things. When she says stupid things like “playing the drums leads to drug use”, it shows a paranoid world view that refuses to recognize that the slacker monster isn’t around every corner…</p>
<p>And the problems using my analogies are the same. Things like innovation and creativity are messy, they are not ordered processes, they tend to be very messy in how they occur and also in what they end up doing. Someone in another post made the point that science and engineering are creative occupations, and the answer to that is it depends. In both science and engineering there are routine jobs in those fields, where people basically are doing routine things, and someone can get degrees in those fields, and end up doing basically stuff that doesn’t create much that is new, rather it is applying what is out there. There are people teaching college Chemistry who have the PHd, who otherwise haven’t done a great deal, there are engineers doing routine design work or incremental changes to existing design that don’t take a lot of innovation or creativity to do. </p>
<p>When you control things, as China’s government does, when you control information, when you set up controlled everything, it is next to impossible to create because the very constraints that create order kill innovation, because the process of innovation and creativity is all about challenging what is out there, it is questioning everything, which is scary to control freaks.</p>
<p>likewise, when you define things as Chua did into those things that are ‘worthwhile’ and those that are a ‘waste’, you are throwing out a lot more good then preventing bad a lot of the time. According to Chua’s view of the world, Albert Einstein would have been a waste of a person, because he didn’t do well in school, he had a hard time getting his degree and once out, was considered a science outsider (he was working <em>gasp</em> as a patent clerk, and spent most of his time <em>oh my god</em> daydreaming)…in the guise of what she would see as success, he was a total failure…of course, the reality is he didn’t do well in school because he was challenging people as rigid and conformist as she herself is (in view) and because he was willing to think what were considered “wasted thoughts”, because he didn’t go along with the crowd in physics, learn Maxwell and Newton and assume that was the pinnacle of physics, he along with others unleashed a firestorm that upended a lot, because he didn’t buy what was considered “useful” he became a ‘genius’.</p>
<p>Another great example is Richard Feynman, who left behind a legacy that scientists are still gaining insight from , 20+ years after his death, his mind ranged across physics and into things like nanotechnology and parallel computing. If you read his bio, he absolutely hated rote learning, he said it killed the mind and was comfort for those too scared to really think, and spent his time ripping the kind of learning where stuff was done ‘because it was valuable’. He didn’t grow up with Tiger mom, rather he had parents, especially his dad, who taught him to question things as the way to learn and encouraged him to go wherever that took him, and yet he had by any account a brilliant life. What Chua and people like her forget is that true brilliance and success usually comes to those who march to the beat of a different drummer, not those in lockstep. </p>
<p>So much of what people like Feynman and Einstein and so many others did came from eschewing doing ‘what was valuable’, eschewing the idea that learning was accepting facts and spitting it back, and more importantly, they will willing to do things that ‘aren’t useful’, and it is those things where creativity and innovation come from. You can have a 4.0 average and get 2400 on an SAT and go to Harvard, and that is all fine and dandy, but how someone gets there is important too, and that is what Chua and others are missing, and it is something the Chinese government is going to need to figure out,that when you constrain learning and growing, you also kill innovation and creativity, because those so constrained are conditioned to be afraid of going there. </p>
<p>There was an article not too long ago in the NY Times where they talked about the so called “Sea Turtles”, Chinese students who went to US grad programs and then went back home after getting their degrees, and having massive culture shock when they realized how constricted it was back home, how frustrating the bureacratic interference and the hierarchical controls were and how hard it was to try new things. From what I am led to believe, in China parents are pushing for major changes to the education system to make it more like what goes on in the US, because the method Chua uses, which is pretty close to what goes on in China, isn’t creating the kind of culture where innovation and creativity flourish and they know that is the future.</p>
<p>I was talking to someone about Chua and her book, and the person asked me if I thought she was totally wrong, and I said no, that the idea of high expectations and self discipline and such towards the goal of succeeding are good ones IMO, as is supporting the child the way she did (and many other parents do; in the music world, there is no such thing as a kid heading into music who succeeds without a ton of support and encouragement). </p>
<p>Where she is wrong in my opinion is in the single minded obsession with success that is based entirely on a very limited model, where success is achieved through this path of doing only certain, ‘important’ things that pay off (like playing certain musical instruments, reading ‘great books’, whatever) and in assuming that success is found only in one thing they way she apparently does, rather then instilling in her kids the self discipline and high expectations and letting them find at least part of that path. Obviously, doing well in school is important, but so is finding other things that put together create a successful adult, and in that I think she fails. </p>
<p>I see a ton of music students who have been driven like Chua and in watching them play,as compared to the kids who drove themselves, there is no comparison, the Chuistic taught kids are fantastic technicians, but the self driven kids are musicians.I say there is no comparison, because the kids that were driven like Chua drove her own kids were not allowed to explore music in all its facets, they were driven to compete in competitions, they were driven to play the hardest pieces as early as possible, get into high level pre college programs, all driven around basically being forced from an early age to achieve technical mastery by heavy duty practice and focus, but in most cases with practically no chance to explore the music itself or the feeling behind it, because that in general doesn’t win competitions or otherwise make someone “#1”. It is likewise in academic endeavors, you may read ‘great books’ to score high on an AP lit test or whatever, but did reading the book actually make an impression, make the kid think, or was it something to be ground through to get a good score on a test?</p>
. But to me that is such an insignificant distinction. Maybe people should come out and preface every single criticism with - “I didn’t like this thing she did, but she 's not advising this for everyone.”</p>