That same April issue of
The Atlantic has two more pieces about childhood and education. Both offer different perspectives.
Here's an excerpt from
one of them :
Because as much as I cavil about Chua�s fears of generational decline, I admit that my own murky hopes for my kids are even more open to question. Truth be told, I am not sure what I want for them. Harangued by my own Tiger Dad, I grew up believing in crack math skills and followed�at least initially�a stereotypical Chinese path of acing my tests; getting into the world�s most prestigious science university, Caltech (early admission, no less); majoring in the hardest, most rarefied subject, physics � And then what? Almost 50 years old now, some 30 years after graduation, I look at my Caltech classmates and conclude that math whizzes do not take over the world. The true geniuses�the artists of the scientific world�may be unlocking the mysteries of the universe, but the run-of-the-mill really smart overachievers like me? They�re likely to end up in high-class drone work, perfecting new types of crossword-puzzle-oriented screen savers or perhaps (really) tweaking the computer system that controls the flow in beer guns at Applebee�s. As we know, in this tundra-like new economy, even medical degrees, and especially law degrees, may translate into $250,000 of unrecoverable higher-education debt and no job prospects, despite any amount of hard work and discipline.
Here's a quote from
the other piece: We seem to have returned to the 18th-century notion that play for its own sake is a waste of time, that children can be allowed to pursue their natural inclinations only if those can be channeled into activities that will prepare them to be orderly and productive (and now, God help us, �creative�) adults�even today�s play movement stresses the uplifting �educational value� of play. But childhood is not just preparation for �real life,� it�s a good portion of life itself. If the golden years of childhood are from age 3 to 12, they encompass more than twice the time people spend in what is generally regarded as a focal point of life: the college years. As Smith�s memoir demonstrates, childhood�those first, fresh experiences of the world, unclouded by reason and practicality, when you are the center of existence and anything might happen�should be regarded less as a springboard to striving adulthood than as a well of rich individual perception and experience to which you can return for sustenance throughout life, whether you rise in the world or not.
