Data Confirms That Tiger Moms Eat Their Young

A couple of years ago, during the uproar over Amy Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the Wall Street Journal asked if a regimen of no play dates, TV or computer games, combined with endless hours of music practice, could create happy kids? The answer, not surprisingly, is no, according to study published in the March 2013 Asian American Journal of Psychology.

The study, which followed 444 Chinese-American families for eight years, found that parents who fit the “Tiger Mom” profile had kids with lower grade point averages and educational achievement than children raised by more easygoing parents. They also had a lower sense of family obligation and were more likely to feel depressed or alienated.  Furthermore, contrary to the stereotype, the study found that the majority of Chinese-American mothers do not even fit the tiger mom profile.

It is predictable that Chua’s form of parenting can lead to depression and alienation. After all, she sees no harm in calling children “fatty” or “trash,” even in front of friends, family and strangers (according to her piece in the Wall Street Journal), and believes that excoriating, punishing and shaming a child for “substandard” performance is an appropriate and effective way to achieve improvement. Yet many might be stunned by the evidence that it is associated with poorer academic achievement, rather than higher. However, when one looks at the characteristics prized by Chua, even the poorer academic achievement starts to make sense. For example, she says that Western moms are more likely to teach their children that learning is fun, whereas no Chinese mother would ever say such a thing: “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.”

If children embrace the idea that learning is not fun and just a lot of work, they may learn how to “play” the academic game (e.g., score well on tests) without developing the motivation to delve more deeply into concepts, think creatively and independently or how to ask critical questions. Consequently, they may learn how to get the right answers without understanding why, let alone how to apply their knowledge to unique or unexpected situations. Perhaps more troubling, however, is the possibility that the chronic stress and anxiety induced by Chua’s style of parenting could also be producing long-term physiological, cognitive and emotional damage through overexposure to the stress hormone cortisol, which can impair memory and cognitive function and increase the risk of developing hypertension, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Furthermore, the idea that children never want to work is ludicrous. My 5-year-old son can work with his Legos for hours at a time, constructing creatures, vehicles, robots and buildings, precisely because it is fun. He experiments with different parts, like gears, axels, hinges and levers, to solve numerous architectural and mechanical problems. He may not be learning the piano or expository writing from this play, but he is certainly honing his mathematical, scientific and creative skills, as well as his manual dexterity. More importantly, he sees this play as a learning experience and proudly proclaims that he is being a scientist because he understands that he is using his senses, logic and experimentation to solve novel problems. He also loves school (at least so far). Rather than being a chore he grudgingly fulfills to avoid punishment or disapproval, he is excited by the learning and this motivates him to persevere with challenges and to take chances that broaden his learning.

The assumption that children never want to work and that every minute of their lives must be organized and controlled by an all-knowing parent is not just grossly exaggerated and cynical. It can also lead to familial and social dysfunction and become a self-fulfilling prophecy for children. How does one develop self-confidence, intrinsic motivation or independence when she is assumed up front to be a lazy shirker, constantly in need of monitoring and scrutiny, and never given the chance to make her own choices and her own mistakes?

Religion Makes You Live Longer By Making You Behave?

(Image adapted from Energizr on Flickr)

Back in 2000, psychologist Michael E. McCullough and colleagues published a meta-analysis of several dozen studies indicating a strong correlation between religiosity and lower mortality. For the pious, this seemed to be proof that God had their backs and that their belief was paying off. To the rational minority, this data was a curiosity that begged deeper analysis. What other aspects of these individuals’ lives were also correlating with longevity? Could it be something other than their belief in God that was responsible?

MCullough did not rest on his laurels,. Rather, he did another meta-analysis in 2009 with his colleague Brian Willoughby, this time looking at hundreds of research papers, revealing that religious people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, like regularly visiting the doctor or dentist, and they are less likely to smoke, drink, take recreational drugs and engage in risky sex, Michael Shermer reported in this month’s Scientific American. This healthier behavior is clearly the more likely explanation for the longer life span.

Shermer, who writes the monthly Skeptic column for SciAm, went on to suggest that religion reinforces positive behaviors and rewards self-control by providing a tight social network and by promising Heaven and other delayed rewards. However, he suggests that we are all capable of this without belief in God or participation in organized religion. Meditation, for example, can help people exercise greater self-control and change bad habits. Parents and teachers try to reinforce impulse control and delayed gratification for children so that they will focus longer on the task at hand and refrain from disruptive behaviors.

Of course this notion of living a healthier lifestyle seems implausible in light of the high profile examples of religious leaders engaging in promiscuous sex and drunkenness and the Catholic Church’s ban on condoms. It also seems unlikely in light of the fact that the Bible Belt is the most obese region of the country and has among the highest smoking rates.

Nevertheless, let’s assume the data is valid, that most pious people do engage in healthier behaviors like visiting the doctor more regularly.  Does this mean that their religious affiliations are the cause of this health consciousness? Isn’t it possible that religious people are more likely to have health and dental insurance? It would be interesting to examine the data to see if pious people do in fact have better health plans or, for that matter, higher paying jobs. While the latter seems unlikely—we all hear about how religious the poor are—it is possible that the average wealth of religious people is actually higher than it is for the nonreligious, even including the religious poor.

Regardless of one’s religiosity, the biggest influence on one’s health and longevity is wealth and social status (see here, here and here). Being poor and/or black dramatically increases the odds of having a stressful, low-paid highly demanding job, food and housing insecurity, and lack of access to healthcare and leisure time. It also dramatically increases the chances of developing diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension and an early death.

The debate about whether religiosity or faith improves one’s health is a red herring. If we really cared about improving health outcomes for all, we would focus on ways to improve the wealth and social status of all. Universal health care, for example, would significantly reduce the rate of preventable deaths in the U.S.

Use A Test, Go to Jail

Thanks to Robert Skeels, from the Solidaridad Blog for posting this report from Fairtest: NCLB Fuels School-to-Prison Pipeline: New Report.

According to the report, NCLB’s emphasis on test scores and its consequences for failing to meet them, puts phenomenal pressure on schools to raise test scores by any means necessary. One of the ways schools are trying to boost their scores is by removing “problem” students who are not performing well on the tests. This has resulted in increasing expulsion rates and greater reliance on the criminal justice system to deal with disciplinary matters. The report says that expulsion rates are now at an all-time high and much higher than they were in 2002, when NCLB first started. Furthermore, NCLB funds can be used to hire school-based law enforcement personnel, thus encouraging the use of the juvenile justice system to solve disciplinary problems that would have traditionally been resolved by the school.

There are also much less sinister and more prevalent ways in which NCLB funnels children into the criminal justice system. The heavy emphasis on testing has taken away much of the creativity and inquiry from learning, while also putting considerable pressure on teachers to move more quickly through their curriculum. This can contribute to disciplinary problems for students and provide the rationale for implementing zero-tolerance and other heavy handed disciplinary policies that push kids out of the schools more easily and for minor offenses. NCLB has also lowered graduation rates. Young people who lack high school diplomas have higher rates of incarceration than those who complete high school.

To read the full report, click here.

To visit Fair Test, click here.

Pepper Spraying Birmingham School Children

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that resource officers in the Birmingham city schools routinely use pepper spray and mace against school children, even for offenses as minor as swearing.

I Hate Meetings

Today we spent an hour determining which of the generic things we think we are and aren’t doing (but should be doing) to help our students achieve, things like teaching them reading and writing and critical thinking skills and good citizenship. In the end, we concluded that we’re doing a pretty darned good job of teaching reading and critical thinking, but we’re kind of lax in the writing and citizenship departments. This was demonstrated by having us place colored stickers next to these topics on a poster. (Pretty scientific, eh?)

Curiously, our reading scores are very low and we’re in Program Improvement, so either we aren’t as good as we think at teaching reading, or the kids just aren’t learning, despite our wonderful efforts. On the other hand, our disciplinary issues have been steadily improving, as measured by declining suspensions and detentions. Apparently we’re doing much better in citizenship than we think.

My point is that it’s a mistake to base policy on perceptions. For example, everyone teaches citizenship daily by enforcing discipline and respect in the classroom. This is necessary before any real learning can occur. Yet, since most teachers don’t create daily lesson plans around citizenship, or have rubrics or grades based on it, they forget that it’s something they teach. As a result, we gave ourselves low marks on this and may end up spending the rest of the year analyzing this deficit and giving ourselves a lot of new responsibilities to fix it.

One other point: having teachers put stickers onto poster paper is not a very good way to make them feel like respected professionals.

Jocks Vs Cheerleaders: Who’s Rights are Right?

40 years ago the Supreme Court declared that neither students nor teachers lose their free speech rights on a public school campus, ruling that students could wear armbands in protest of the Viet Nam war. The ruling was in marked contrast to the private sector, where free speech is still severely restricted.

Students’ rights have been steadily eroding since the 1980s, when the courts allowed a principal to prevent a student newspaper from publishing articles on pregnancy and divorce. In 2007, the courts permitted a school to suspend a kid for hanging a banner that said “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Such court rulings have emboldened schools to further encroach on students’ rights in many ways, including locker searchers, drug testing and even using webcams to spy on children at home. Fortunately, Philadelphia families have won their lawsuit in the webcam spying case.

A Silsbee, Texas, cheerleader was not so lucky. She was raped by a player on her school’s basketball team. Pending trial, he was allowed back to school and permitted to continue playing ball, thus protecting his right to be treated as an innocent man until proven guilty. However, when the victim refused to cheer for him as he shot free throws, she was kicked off the squad on orders of the superintendent, who was angered by her protest. Her rights were apparently less important than the athlete’s. The young man eventually pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and was slapped with a small fine and community service.

When the cheerleader’s parents sued the school district, the local court ruled that her action was not free speech because she conveyed no specific message. Yet her message should have been obvious to everyone at the game. It was public knowledge that she had accused the player of raping her. Fans in the bleachers were taunting her throughout the game.

The appeals court argued that as a cheerleader she served as a mouthpiece for the district and that she was interfering with the business of the school. However, the primary business of a school is to promote the well being, dignity and safety of all students, not just the student athletes.

 As is often the case, the adults at the school were asleep at the wheel and failed to protect the student, not from being raped, which happened off campus, but from the public humiliation that would inevitably arise from her participation in the basketball game. She never should have been put in the position of having to choose between cheering her rapist versus being kicked off the team. Adults at the school were aware of her accusations. They should have assumed they were founded in reality and that she was likely traumatized. A sensible response would have been to excuse her from games in which the accused rapist was playing. Instead, when her parents complained about classmates mocking her and calling her a slut, the school recommended that she stay away from school for a while.

This case highlights the sexist and misogynistic double standards that continue to permeate our society. The rape victim’s accusations were not taken seriously by the school or the local community.  Her rights to learn in a safe environment and to participate in school activities were undermined in favor of her assailant’s, ostensibly because he was not yet convicted, but more likely because of the high value the school and community placed on boys’ athletics. Her sport, cheerleading, which is predominantly female, was treated as subservient to the boy’s basketball team. (The school jumped through hoops to keep an accused rapist eligible to play basketball, but didn’t mind losing one of their cheerleaders).

It also highlights the rigid, punitive and self-serving mentality that governs many of our educational systems. Instead of publicly disciplining the cheerleader at the game, school officials could have ignored her or allowed her to sit out the game and then discussed the matter at a less fraught time. Instead of prioritizing the needs of an anguished student, school officials compounded her disgrace and suffering because it served their interests.