STS colleague and founder of Ignite Creative Learning Studio, Kathryn Haydon, discusses the link between creativity and the controversy surrounding the new parenting book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. (To hear an NPR interview with Amy Chua about her book, click here. )
By now, you have likely been drawn into the heated conversation about Amy Chua’s recently released book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which was sparked by her Wall Street Journal essay entitled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”. Bloggers, mainstream newspapers around the globe, and NPR have picked up the story, and they all have something to say about Chua’s stringent parenting methods.
While people rush to take sides lambasting or praising Chua’s philosophy – or the Wall Street Journal’s audacity in running such an story – are they missing the point?
Most people didn’t read the accompanying article to Chua’s essay, “In China, Not All Practice Tough Love”. This report cites parenting trends in China to be quite the opposite of what we are led to believe in “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” In fact, middle class Chinese parents are in reality moving away from the traditional focus on high academic achievement. Instead, they are placing importance on nurturing their children’s individuality, confidence, and interests, instead of being driven by parental pride and traditional social norms. Best-selling parenting books in China include many well-known Western titles such as How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, and a book by Chinese author Fang Gang entitled My Kid Is a Medium-Ranking Student. Fang is quoted as asking, “How many [top-ranking students] have kept independent thinking, creativity and their unique characteristics?” And there it is, the needle in the messy haystack of unfocused debate: creativity. But it’s not just parents thinking these thoughts.
China knows that creativity and problem solving skills are, and will be, essential to compete in the current and future “creative age”. Ironically, as our own school systems are becoming more ingrained in a stringent, achievement-test model, China is re-focusing on problem solving and creativity.
This shift is supported by numerous sources, including “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, the Newsweek cover story last July that reported on the unfortunate decline of creativity in U.S. schools. Jonathan Plucker, a Professor of Educational Psychology at Indiana University, who has conducted analyses of E. Paul Torrance’s data, was reported to have had the following experience:
Plucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ” (Newsweek July 2010).
So here we are, going in swinging about the not-so-nice names that Ms. Chua has admittedly called her daughters, questioning our own parenting methods, or lauding hers, when the real debate is nestled quietly at the bottom of page two. It is interesting to ponder the irony. If Ms. Chua’s methods truly are typically Chinese, they are so much at odds (as she says herself) with current Western thought. However, the same Chinese people that did (or do) hold these views are seeing the big picture on education, thereby embracing creativity and problem solving in their schools. The importance of creativity is the decisive message, the real lesson we must learn from the firestorm ignited by Chua’s book. And we need to learn it fast, before the creative tigers of the world drown out our own students’ ability to be innovators, problem solvers, and leaders to change the future for the better.
For further reading on the real issue of creativity and creative teaching and learning, please see the following books: The Element by Ken Robinson; A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink; The Making of A Beyonder by Garnet Millar; and Igniting Creativity in Gifted Learners edited by Joan Franklin Smutny and S.E. Von Fremd.
by Kathryn P. Haydon
Ignite Creative Learning Studio
January 14, 2011
Scholastic Testing Service, Inc. 