February 10, 2011 at 7:58 am, by Carl

In my post last week, I told you about the article from Robert Brokamp where he challenged the findings of author and parent Amy Chua in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Ms. Chua believes that our children need a much tougher stance of expectation from parents.  She has received, largely, negative feedback about her opinions who think that such measures are far too harsh.  However, the evidence is on her side.  Brokamp wrote about the sad state of our children when compared to the world.  He said, “I’ll just quote one study — from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — which found that American 15-year-olds ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. Tops in each category: the kids in Shanghai, China.”


So, what’s the take?  We must teach children that learning is the goal, and comes through hard work.  But, the focus is NOT an “A” because then the effort ONLY gets aimed at “Gaming the system” to get the grade at the expense of learning.  There have been plenty of reports about the supposedly higher grades in America and higher SAT scores.  Clearly, we must admit that we have lied.  Those grades and SAT scores are scammed so that we can all smile about “how smart little Johnny is.”  He isn’t.  I know, because he’s in my classroom.


I read where Thomas Friedman said that his parents used to tell him to “eat your vegetables, kids are starving in India.”  But now, he tells his kids “do your homework, kids in India are starving to get your job.”  One recent report stated that there are more kids in Honor’s Programs in India, than there are total students in the USA.  The competition is intense nationally.  We are just now starting to see the result of a society that has allowed ourselves to be lulled to sleep that “we have arrived.”  We believe that our material wealth is a guarantee and that we are due.  I see students every semester who simply cannot comprehend that learning anything is hard, and that life is unfair.  They’ve been told again and again how special they are, when in reality, their skill set is, at best, average.


In the article, Brokamp quoted former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee who said, “We’ve lost our competitive spirit. We’ve become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we’ve lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things. I can see it in my own household.


I have two girls, 8 and 12, and they play soccer. And I can tell you that they suck at soccer! They take after their mother in athletic ability. But if you were to see their rooms, they’re adorned with ribbons, medals and trophies. You’d think I was raising the next Mia Hamm.


I routinely try to tell my kids that their soccer skills are lacking and that if they want to be better, they have to practice hard. I also communicate to them that all the practice in the world won’t guarantee that they’ll ever be great at soccer. It’s tough to square this, though, with the trophies. And that’s part of the issue. We’ve managed to build a sense of complacency with our children.”


Can we change the culture?


President Obama spoke to the nation during his State of the Union address trying to rally everyone to push towards greater success.  In the speech, he spoke about education and the need for this to be a platform that aids the country.  In response to the speech, commentator Ben Stein wrote on his blog his concern for the same issue, but that the President’s pleading was not going to fix this cultural issue.  He, like Brokamp, took the country to task saying, “[President Obama] cannot make the U.S. more competitive with the Far East and with Germany unless and until he gets U.S. education up to a far better level than it is at now. He cannot do this without revolutionizing the lives of young Americans, turning them from sex, drugs, rap, and rock ‘n’ roll to studying. This is far beyond his poor power to do. He cannot make an American worker who demands $30 an hour competitive with a Taiwanese worker who will work for $2 an hour with just as good equipment. He cannot make American college students who want to study film production into competitors with Chinese engineers.” [emphasis mine]


The system in the USA is broken and had betrayed our kids.  Yet, the system is reflecting our own society.  We cannot legislate this.  We cannot force change to a system unless the parents and the culture support such change.  As long as Madison Avenue wants to sell more things, as long as things like Facebook and Xbox are allowed to rule the roost in our culture, as long as how much money the players’ Unions in professional sports is our latest obsession, any efforts we might dream up to fix things are waste of time and money.


Is there any hope?  Can we fix this?  Not without some tough medicine and honest talk, what my friend and boss, Dr. Sandy Shugart calls the “courageous conversation.”  As I tell members of my church, we are far past the point of walking on eggshells around one another, and as a nation, that truth holds here.


Check in next post to see some ideas that I think could help us move forward.