Http Www.slate.com Format Dynamics Clean Print Proxy

8/6/2019 Http Www.slate.com Format Dynamics Clean Print Proxy

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/http-wwwslatecom-format-dynamics-clean-print-proxy 1/3

By Ray Fisman

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011, at 1:38

PM ET

Amy Chua's "tiger mom" approach to

childrearing has become a national topic

of discussion bordering on obsession. She

has clearly tapped into deep-seated

anxieties among American parents and

educators about the country's children

increasingly slipping behind their

counterparts in the rising economic

giants of the East. The Tiger Mother

phenomenon came on the heels of global

math and science results that put

Chinese students (or, at least, the ones

who had migrated to Shanghai) well

ahead of the rest of the world, with

America's misdirected youth firmly

buried in the bottom half. It's easy to

imagine that soon the tables of the globaleconomy will be turned, with innumerate

Americans working for pennies an hour

on assembly lines producing next-

generation iPhones designed by Chinese

eggheads. The theme was even picked up

by President Obama in his State of the

Union call to reinvigorate American

global competitiveness.

While we shouldn't excuse the dismal

showing of U.S. high school students in

math and science, we may also not want

to push America's next generation to

compete head-on with the tiger childrenof the East. We may be wiser to celebrate

the aspects of American culture and

education—promoting free-thinking and

creativity over rote memorization—that

are well-suited to America's current place

in the global economy. Let China—with

its armies of flawless test-takers—

produce automobiles and computer chips

with error-free precision; we'll focus on

generating a few revolutionary ideas to

ensure the next iPhone or Facebook is

Advertisement

Print Powered By

Mary Gates and Karen Zuckerberg Weren't Tiger

MomsIs the Amy Chua approach bad for the American economy?

Page 1 of 3Format Dynamics :: CleanPrint :: http://www.slate.com/id/2284502/

31/5/2011http://www.slate.com/formatdynamics/CleanPrintProxy.aspx?unique=1306818519967...



conceived and designed in America.

One of the basic insights of modern

economics is that countries are better off

focusing on producing whatever it is that

they do relatively well—their so-called

comparative advantage. So, for example,if the United States has a particular

knack for producing Hollywood

entertainment, we'd do well to focus on

exporting blockbusters and use the

proceeds to buy T-shirts, sneakers, and

food.

It turns out, though, that global trade

isn't simply a matter of poor countries

sending iron ore and plastic toys to richnations to be exchanged for

supercomputers and action movies. Rich

countries trade a lot with other rich

countries. Some years ago, Gene

Grossman and Giovanni Maggi, a pair of

international economists, came up with a

clever explanation for at least some of

this trade between countries that would

seem to have similar skills for producing

sophisticated goods. If we buy their

story, it may have implications for what

the United States should take as its

priorities in keeping its competitive edge.

Their insight comes from the observation

that for some goods—like automobiles

and semiconductors—the value of the

final product can be undermined by any

problem in the design process or along

the production line. One poorly designed

or installed brake pedal, and the wholepackage is worth a lot less than that of

your error-free competitors. Economists

refer to this kind of production—where

the value of what's being produced is

undermined by one weak link—as O-ring

production, in reference to the space

shuttle Challenger, which exploded 25

years ago as a result of the failure of one

seemingly irrelevant O-ring seal in its

rocket booster.

But in other industries, it doesn't matter

how many mistakes you've made inexperimenting with new ideas as long as

someone has an "aha" moment now and

again. Pharmaceutical companies, for

example, are always looking for the next

blockbuster drug that will emerge amid

thousands of failed attempts.

The authors argue that precision-minded

societies—like Germany, Japan, and,

increasingly, China—have a relativeadvantage in churning out identical

copies of well-engineered products. They

produce armies of well-trained

technicians and scientists well-suited to

O-ring design and production.

By contrast, the U.S. contributes to the

global economy goods that require a few

talented people and their bright ideas—

we excel in areas like software design,

drug development, and financial services,

which we trade to the Germans, Japanese,

Advertisement


31/5/2011http://www.slate.com/formatdynamics/CleanPrintProxy.aspx?unique=1306818519967...



and Chinese for automobiles and

computer chips. (Foreigners may no

longer appreciate our genius for financial

innovation, given the supposedly risk-

free mortgage-backed investments that

American bankers passed off onto

German bankers and Taiwaneseinsurance companies, investments that

turned out to be worthless.)

Aspects of our education system—the

progressive-education movement; the

science-fair tradition—may in fact be

well-suited to producing the labor force

that will allow us to continue to compete

on this basis. And even Amy Chua

describes her approach to learning as joyless and focused single-mindedly on

rote repetition and memorization at the

expense of free-thinking creative

development. The debate on the future of

American education reflects this tension

between teaching basic skills that

generate higher test scores and fostering

the blue-sky creativity that wins science

fairs and creates great scientists. Indeed,

some blame our increasing obsession

with test results for an equally alarming

decline in creativity.

This point was picked up by Larry

Summers—hardly known as lackadaisical

in personality or parenting style—who

pointed out in a debate with Chua at

Davos that if Karen Zuckerberg and Mary

Gates had been tiger moms, they never

would have let young Mark or Bill leave

Harvard to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams, and we might not have Facebook

or Microsoft (though America would

probably have two more very competent

dentists or lawyers).

Of course, it's hard to invent Facebook or

design the iPhone without developing

sound foundations in math and science,

the kind of preparation that Gates,

Zuckerberg, and others born to privilege

receive in America's elite private schools.

The dismal showing of American

students in international tests impliesthat we're limiting the pool of possible

innovators by failing to provide this

training to most children.

It also doesn't mean that tiger moms

should be any more forgiving in strict

violin practice schedules or demands for

A+'s in everything (except gym and

art): That depends on whether they're

willing to give up stronger prospects of Ivy League acceptance for the long shot

of producing the next Bill Gates. But for

the American economy to exploit its

relative advantages fully, we may in fact

be better off with a few more easygoing

parents and fewer tiger moms.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on

Twitter.

Advertisement


31/5/2011http://www slate com/formatdynamics/CleanPrintProxy aspx?unique=1306818519967

Documents

Http Www.slate.com Format Dynamics Clean Print Proxy