How to raise the next Columbine shooter

[Dreadnaught]

The fact that both of these mothers have the money for lessons, tutors, etc is also interesting. They are sort of a stereotype within a stereotype.

[Loki]

On a tangential note, I just read an article that said that the main form of inter-marriage for Jews right now is to Asians, because both have high rates of grad school attendance (40% for Asians, 25% for Jews, and under 10% for the rest of the population).

[Dreadnaught]

Indeed, I basically can't date Asians because it would be fitting into a really cliched stereotype.

[Omega]

Indeed, I basically can't date Asians because it would be fitting into a really cliched stereotype.

You're a jewish man investing in stocks. what's more stereotypical than that...?

[wiggin]

You're a jewish man investing in stocks. what's more stereotypical than that...?

Pretty much every working middle class individual in the developed world invests in stocks. Please.

[GGT]

How do you know he's not? She explicitly said that he had a large part in the book but it got taken out because he didn't want words put in his mouth.

Because I read the main article, the rebuttal, and the comments. Well, most of them. I'm not going to read all 6,000 + replies.

Really, you can't say you've given your spouse a "large part" in the book, then leave out huge chunks because of the way it's been written. He probably had the "so when did you stop being a father to your kids because your wife was so much better at it" or "when did you decide your wife should be both father and mother" or "man, are you pussy whipped" or some combination.

Maybe they have a great relationship that isn't depicted in the WSJ or NYT. Gosh, I hope so. Because he sounds like a very passive partner, and quite willing to take on the role of Disney Dad.

[Loki]

Again, on what are you basing this? Why are you so quick to judge people?

[Illusions]

Indeed, I basically can't date Asians because it would be fitting into a really cliched stereotype.

Nussbaum and Wu.

[GGT]

Again, on what are you basing this? Why are you so quick to judge people?

Based on what's been printed.

On a tangential note, I just read an article that said that the main form of inter-marriage for Jews right now is to Asians, because both have high rates of grad school attendance (40% for Asians, 25% for Jews, and under 10% for the rest of the population).

How dare you make remarks about what's been printed!

[Omega]

Pretty much every working middle class individual in the developed world invests in stocks. Please.

Mhmmm, I asked my parents and they said they invested over 60k in the stock market after the crash and then some after the April crash last year and I know my next-door-neighbor did too, she always talks about her stocks. I guess most of my neighbors invested too, i'm not nosy enough to ask. But I have a faulty sample size because none of my immediate friends or neighbors have parents earning below the 140k line and asking "friends" I'm not close with would be bizarre because how many high school students discuss the stock market? I sure as hell don't. The closest most of us get to discussing stocks is when we read about them in the Wall Street Journal.

[Illusions]

I'm not close with would be bizarre because how many high school students discuss the stock market? I sure as hell don't. The closest most of us get to discussing stocks is when we read about them in the Wall Street Journal.

This might be abnormal but my friends and I would discuss stocks in High School and what we would have invested in had we had the money. I still wish I had the money to have invested in BP when it tanked to $27 a share recently during the Deepwater Horizon incident. Its almost at $50 per share now...

[Dreadnaught]

Nussbaum and Wu.

Took me a second, I forgot about that place up there!

[Omega]

This might be abnormal but my friends and I would discuss stocks in High School and what we would have invested in had we had the money.

Well, i would have respected you a great deal. Much less mind-nubbin than most superficial conversations I have with most of my peers.

[rumrunner]

If a mob of people showed up at your house and one of them shouted "Rumrunner should be given delicious hot coco and then drawn and quartered alive." would you say that you agree with this mob?

Agreeing on the moral/ethical correctness of an act (thievery in your example) is a separate issue from the appropriate consequences of committing said act. Giving me a soothing delicious libation is good, thank you. Drawing and quartering would be less so, bite me. Just because I agree that praise should earned, does not imply that I agree with scorning/scolding them for falling short of my expectations, or their own. Indeed you think that your arguments make sense when in fact they only show arrogance, which is a shelter for your ignorance.

[Illusions]

Agreeing on the moral/ethical correctness of an act (thievery in your example) is a separate issue from the appropriate consequences of committing said act. Giving me a soothing delicious libation is good, thank you. Drawing and quartering would be less so, bite me. Just because I agree that praise should earned, does not imply that I agree with scorning/scolding them for falling short of my expectations, or their own. Indeed you think that your arguments make sense when in fact they only show arrogance, which is a shelter for your ignorance.

You're completely failing to understand what I am getting at, which is that you are not communicating your thoughts effectively. I really wouldn't be bothering with this, everyone knows I have problems at communicating too, but you seem to imply that it is my burden to get better at deciphering what you really mean, rather than your task as a communicator to communicate your ideas better/clearer. If you really wish to argue that it makes more logical sense to assume that "I agree with Lewkowski" means that you agree with Lewkowski, except in areas that were left uncommunicated, and that we should naturally intuit these uncommunicated ideas, rather than "I agree with Lewkowski" meaning exactly what it states, go ahead. Sadly I am not telepathic, so more often than not if you go this route, I won't have a clear idea of what you mean. This is what the hot coco example was meant to illustrate. The thievery example, and the block of text related to it, were to demonstrate that you don't just agree with Lewkowski, there were conditions to your agreement which you did not detail. I don't fully understand how this is insulting to you.

[GGT]

The article was mentioned on NBC News last night, and how the web has gone nuts discussing east/west and extreme parenting. Camera crew visited their New Haven home at dinner time, and showed the older girl playing their Steinway piano. Here's David Brooks' take on things from NYT:

Amy Chua Is a Wimp

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: January 17, 2011


Sometime early last week, a large slice of educated America decided that Amy Chua is a menace to society. Chua, as you probably know, is the Yale professor who has written a bracing critique of what she considers the weak, cuddling American parenting style.

Chua didn’t let her own girls go out on play dates or sleepovers. She didn’t let them watch TV or play video games or take part in garbage activities like crafts. Once, one of her daughters came in second to a Korean kid in a math competition, so Chua made the girl do 2,000 math problems a night until she regained her supremacy. Once, her daughters gave her birthday cards of insufficient quality. Chua rejected them and demanded new cards. Once, she threatened to burn all of one of her daughter’s stuffed animals unless she played a piece of music perfectly.

As a result, Chua’s daughters get straight As and have won a series of musical competitions.

In her book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” Chua delivers a broadside against American parenting even as she mocks herself for her own extreme “Chinese” style. She says American parents lack authority and produce entitled children who aren’t forced to live up to their abilities.

The furious denunciations began flooding my in-box a week ago. Chua plays into America’s fear of national decline. Here’s a Chinese parent working really hard (and, by the way, there are a billion more of her) and her kids are going to crush ours. Furthermore (and this Chua doesn’t appreciate), she is not really rebelling against American-style parenting; she is the logical extension of the prevailing elite practices. She does everything over-pressuring upper-middle-class parents are doing. She’s just hard core.

Her critics echoed the familiar themes. Her kids can’t possibly be happy or truly creative. They’ll grow up skilled and compliant but without the audacity to be great. She’s destroying their love for music. There’s a reason Asian-American women between the ages of 15 and 24 have such high suicide rates.

I have the opposite problem with Chua. I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t.

Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale.

Yet mastering these arduous skills is at the very essence of achievement. Most people work in groups. We do this because groups are much more efficient at solving problems than individuals (swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events). Moreover, the performance of a group does not correlate well with the average I.Q. of the group or even with the I.Q.’s of the smartest members.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each others’ emotions — when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others’ inclinations and strengths.

Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.

This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table.

Chua would do better to see the classroom as a cognitive break from the truly arduous tests of childhood. Where do they learn how to manage people? Where do they learn to construct and manipulate metaphors? Where do they learn to perceive details of a scene the way a hunter reads a landscape? Where do they learn how to detect their own shortcomings? Where do they learn how to put themselves in others’ minds and anticipate others’ reactions?

These and a million other skills are imparted by the informal maturity process and are not developed if formal learning monopolizes a child’s time.

So I’m not against the way Chua pushes her daughters. And I loved her book as a courageous and thought-provoking read. It’s also more supple than her critics let on. I just wish she wasn’t so soft and indulgent. I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library. And I hope her daughters grow up to write their own books, and maybe learn the skills to better anticipate how theirs will be received.

[Khendraja'aro]

I think the author of that piece is a bit confused as to what "intellectually/cognitively demanding" actually means.

Sorry, but from a scientific viewpoint it's a load of rubbish. It's conflating wildly divergent topics - trying to lump social skills and intellectual skills together as one. Which demeans both as a result.

[Dreadnaught]

I think he's spot on actually. And it's the larger point people often make in this "East vs. West" education debate. Social and creative skills matter. Having someone shove violin practices down your throat doesn't necessarily mean anything in the long term if it comes at the expense of normal social interaction and creative thinking.

The columnist in question BTW has been on a major psychology/neurology kick for the past 12-18 months.

[wiggin]

Perhaps a relevant contribution?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...01/education_0

IN RECENT decades, researchers have documented a rising wage premium for college educated workers, and economists have theorised that recent increases in income inequality may be due to rising demand for skills combined with lagging supply of skilled workers. University, it would seem, is more important than ever. But some critics contend that the better earning performance of those with college degrees primarily reflects the higher skill level of those who attend and complete a college degree, and others indicate that the main benefit of university is its signalling power to employers.

So, do colleges actually teach students anything? A new book tracking 2,300 students at four-year universities includes some striking findings:

* 45 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" during the first two years of college.
* 36 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" over four years of college.
* Those students who do show improvements tend to show only modest improvements. Students improved on average only 0.18 standard deviations over the first two years of college and 0.47 over four years. What this means is that a student who entered college in the 50th percentile of students in his or her cohort would move up to the 68th percentile four years later -- but that's the 68th percentile of a new group of freshmen who haven't experienced any college learning.

"Learning" in this case is determined by performance on a test called the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which gauges "critical thinking, analytic reasoning, and other 'higher level' skills". This may not be what students go to college to learn. It is possible that collegiate learning mainly involves an increase in knowledge in specific study areas. That is, a history student might not improve his critical thinking faculties while at university, but he might learn an awful lot about history. On the other hand, employers probably value general critical thinking skills far more than they do course content. The information necessary to do any particular job tends to be highly specific to that job and only loosely related to the key concepts of a degree programme.

Some other interesting results:

* Students who study by themselves for more hours each week gain more knowledge -- while those who spend more time studying in peer groups see diminishing gains.
* Students whose classes reflect high expectations (more than 40 pages of reading a week and more than 20 pages of writing a semester) gained more than other students.
* Students who spend more time in fraternities and sororities show smaller gains than other students.
* Students who engage in off-campus or extracurricular activities (including clubs and volunteer opportunities) have no notable gains or losses in learning.
* Students majoring in liberal arts fields see "significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study." Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the smallest gains. (The authors note that this could be more a reflection of more-demanding reading and writing assignments, on average, in the liberal arts courses than of the substance of the material.)

It's easy to think of potential endogeneity problems in these analyses, but the authors have probably tried to control for them.

But here's the thing. If there is a good way to assess ability through examination (and it seems like we're assuming that the Collegiate Learning Assessment is a good way to assess ability), and if firms are primarily interested in this measurable ability, then why wouldn't firms just ask to see these test scores as part of an application and not worry about whether an applicant had completed a university degree? At the very least, why wouldn't firms ask for test scores alongside some documentation attesting to completion of a degree? Indeed, why don't more firms requiring skilled workers hire people without college degrees? I understand that there are issues of asymmetric information such that college is a useful signal, but given the enormous direct expense and opportunity cost of a four-year college degree, the market failure seems to large here to be realistic. Some firms should be able to find an advantage in going to top quality secondary schools and hiring graduates at some salary lower than what they'd pay a new college graduate but representing a major improvement in net financial position relative to full-time student status.

Something is amiss. And I have to believe that firms value something imparted by a college education that's not captured by these assessments of learning.

I think both this and some other results are somewhat undermined by the fact that the highest college wage premium goes to people with specific knowledge sets, not those who have scored well on some critical thinking test; generally engineering, hard sciences, and mathematics (as opposed to people with classes assigning 40 pages of reading and 20 pages of writing; hell, in four years of undergrad I had precisely one traditional paper to write). Now, of course, you could argue that STEM majors aren't valued because of specific knowledge imparted but rather skill sets, and I'd agree in part - certainly part of engineering school is teaching you to think like an engineer, which is a very valuable skill indeed. Additionally, one could imagine that since STEM classes tend to be oriented towards problem solving (as opposed to essay writing and the like), you are learning useful skills along the way. But I'm skeptical this is the major thing employers look for - otherwise, why wouldn't a company looking to fill a mechanical engineering position just hire anyone who graduated with a STEM degree as opposed to specifically a MechE? They're looking for a composite of trained skills and depth of knowledge in a field. In fact, the reason that professional doctorates tend to provide a higher wage premium than an academic doctorate is because they teach specific knowledge sets (whether in medicine, law, or some other field) on top of an undergraduate education that may be largely unimportant. School can teach you something specifically useful, beyond vague things like 'critical thinking' and 'social aptitude' or even 'communications skills'.

I don't want to say it's all one way or the other, but clearly placing too high a value on building social skills at the expense of building problem solving skills and knowledge sets is a bad idea. Of course 'soft skills' are very important in a workplace, and good communicators and team builders are valued in corporate America - but not if they are a veneer covering a fundamentally untrained or ignorant mind.

[Loki]

I think you're conflating two different things here. It's true that specific skills are important, but they're only important for certain fields. Someone hiring an engineer expects that person to be good at engineering, and someone hiring an accounting expects that person to be good at accounting. But a vast majority of jobs don't require specific skills (at least not skills that take more than a few months to acquire). If someone gets a degree in engineering and doesn't improve in critical thinking (in areas other than engineering), they will be worthless in any job other than engineering. Meanwhile, anyone who majors in a field that improves critical thinking would do well in almost any job that doesn't require specific skills. The latter person is going to have far more flexibility, though the former might earn money if he's in the proper specialized field. Of course if something bad happens to that field, they're going to be in a heck of a lot of trouble. They also might not make it to management, as that entails an entirely different set of skills.

[wiggin]

The wage premium suggests that the jobs people pay more for are those requiring specific skill sets; all other jobs are paying less even if they have this supposed flexibility. They also have higher rates of employment after school, indicating persistently high demand for these skills.

Furthermore, I think you underestimate how much engineers and other STEM-like majors are valued outside of traditional engineering disciplines; they are sought after by management consulting firms because of their blend of critical thinking and quantitative analysis - they can quickly understand financials, have a technical vocabulary to understand clients' technology, and are well-suited for quantitative models. STEM majors are frequently hired by financial firms and law firms for their technical expertise as well as quantitative skills; they are often sought after for eventual training to management at an MBA program due to their understanding of the technical aspects of the company's work (and easy grasp of the financials underlying a company). In fact, only about 60% of engineering undergraduates continue on in the engineering field (much fewer scientists continue on in science), yet they still have higher employment and salaries.

I don't think that specific knowledge sets and critical thinking are an either-or proposition; in fact, the problem-based approach of STEM classes probably specifically trains critical thinking as well as a deep technical understanding of specific topics, yielding a combination that commands a significant premium on the job market.

Sure, it's possible to do many jobs without specific knowledge or skill sets, but it definitely helps to start off with a big leg up. My broader point is that we shouldn't lose sight of what employers actually want. They want knowledge and skills, and they'll pay for it - but they'd also like communications/social skills, 'critical thinking', etc. I won't say all STEM graduates have this combination (definitely some hard sciences are better than others in imparting useful knowledge and skills, and there is a common complaint in industry that some engineers and mathematicians are not adequately trained in communication), but clearly enough do that companies will pay for it preferentially, even for non-technical jobs.

[agamemnus]

Perhaps a relevant contribution?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...01/education_0

Have you seen job postings? I can count on one hand out of a thousand postings that only require a college degree. New entrants to the labor market are screwed, sir.

[GGT]

[...]

I don't want to say it's all one way or the other, but clearly placing too high a value on building social skills at the expense of building problem solving skills and knowledge sets is a bad idea. Of course 'soft skills' are very important in a workplace, and good communicators and team builders are valued in corporate America - but not if they are a veneer covering a fundamentally untrained or ignorant mind.

Balance. The rest mentioned are flaws in the US educational system, and our testing/assessing, grade inflation, etc.

I can't find the link right now, but the news today claimed the average American student spends ~50% of their time "socializing", including internet social networks. They study less than 10% of the time, and read far less students just a decade ago. Also, that today's teachers and professors spend more time on administration activities, or trying to get published/get tenure/advance their career, than actual teaching time.

What's a parent to do?

[earthJoker]

I think the author of that piece is a bit confused as to what "intellectually/cognitively demanding" actually means.

Sorry, but from a scientific viewpoint it's a load of rubbish. It's conflating wildly divergent topics - trying to lump social skills and intellectual skills together as one. Which demeans both as a result.

Do you speak about David Brooks? Have you read the same article as I have?

[GGT]

The columnist in question BTW has been on a major psychology/neurology kick for the past 12-18 months.

Brooks has been a social commentator for at least a decade, that's what he does (sometimes with a political flair). Since that kind of science is a larger part of our culture now, that only makes sense.

[Loki]

The wage premium suggests that the jobs people pay more for are those requiring specific skill sets; all other jobs are paying less even if they have this supposed flexibility. They also have higher rates of employment after school, indicating persistently high demand for these skills.

Or it suggests that people aren't stupid and do specialized degrees in fields in which there are currently high demand. That doesn't mean that such demand will persist into the future (just think computer scientists a decade back).

Furthermore, I think you underestimate how much engineers and other STEM-like majors are valued outside of traditional engineering disciplines; they are sought after by management consulting firms because of their blend of critical thinking and quantitative analysis - they can quickly understand financials, have a technical vocabulary to understand clients' technology, and are well-suited for quantitative models. STEM majors are frequently hired by financial firms and law firms for their technical expertise as well as quantitative skills; they are often sought after for eventual training to management at an MBA program due to their understanding of the technical aspects of the company's work (and easy grasp of the financials underlying a company). In fact, only about 60% of engineering undergraduates continue on in the engineering field (much fewer scientists continue on in science), yet they still have higher employment and salaries.

I agree about being sought out to do quantitative analysis, but I'm fairly sure that the reason they're in such high demand in consulting and MBA programs is because so few apply. A consulting company needs people who specialize in the same area as their clients, and that means that a consulting company without engineers would be at a handicap helping those kind of companies. The fact that engineers are in such high demand says more about the quantity supplied than about their inherent worth.

I don't think that specific knowledge sets and critical thinking are an either-or proposition; in fact, the problem-based approach of STEM classes probably specifically trains critical thinking as well as a deep technical understanding of specific topics, yielding a combination that commands a significant premium on the job market.

Sure, it's possible to do many jobs without specific knowledge or skill sets, but it definitely helps to start off with a big leg up. My broader point is that we shouldn't lose sight of what employers actually want. They want knowledge and skills, and they'll pay for it - but they'd also like communications/social skills, 'critical thinking', etc. I won't say all STEM graduates have this combination (definitely some hard sciences are better than others in imparting useful knowledge and skills, and there is a common complaint in industry that some engineers and mathematicians are not adequately trained in communication), but clearly enough do that companies will pay for it preferentially, even for non-technical jobs.

I'd like to know how much non-specialized jobs today don't require a high proficiency in A) writing, B) reading, and C) speaking. You learn none of those skills in a field like engineering (I won't mention communication, because I think there's a selection effect in terms of the kind of people who go into math/engineering/hard sciences). I do accept that a very good engineer would have strong critical thinking skills, as he'd be applying the rigorous standards of his field to the area he's working in. I'm not convinced an average engineer would have that ability, however.

[GGT]

I'd like to know if you've discussed all these things with your spouse (or future spouse) if you plan on raising children. And parenting styles....

[Nessus]

I'd like to know how much non-specialized jobs today don't require a high proficiency in A) writing, B) reading, and C) speaking. You learn none of those skills in a field like engineering (I won't mention communication, because I think there's a selection effect in terms of the kind of people who go into math/engineering/hard sciences). I do accept that a very good engineer would have strong critical thinking skills, as he'd be applying the rigorous standards of his field to the area he's working in. I'm not convinced an average engineer would have that ability, however.

Actually, I think an argument could be made that foreign-language speaking engineer students have a huge incentive to learn at least quasi-effective communication skills in English, and we both know that the majority of hard science grad students in the US are Asiatic types willing to work their asses off for slave wages.

[agamemnus]

Actually, I think an argument could be made that foreign-language speaking engineer students have a huge incentive to learn at least quasi-effective communication skills in English, and we both know that the majority of hard science grad students in the US are Asiatic types willing to work their asses off for slave wages.

I see your slave wages, and raise you with slavery!

[Nessus]

I see your slave wages, and raise you with slavery!

Russians never shied away from slavery.