Comments on: Goodnight to Goodnight Moon?

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 03:56:41 +0000

elbujo,
I don’t know what kind of college professors you hang around with but Swat professors are not the type to have their kids being all “getting an edge.” That said, Tim’s daughter probably knows more about X-men than is healthy for an elementary school child. Which, in the long run, gives her a tremendous edge for getting into Swarthmore given how important X-men literacy seemed to be to large segments of the undergrads 25 years ago (cough) SWIL (cough). (For non-Swatties, SWIL = Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature the geekiest among the geeky and represent probably 10-15 percent of campus population with another 10-15 percent -at least- in basic sympathy but find the group too geeky even for them.)

By: elbujo

elbujo — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:29:37 +0000

I understand it is a kind of objective perspective you seek–but you are so detached from the motives of these parents to understand that the more general idea driving this is the desire to do what is best for one’s child. This is a very common desire–it probably comes closer to being a universal drive than anything I can think of.

In other words, you have to be there.

We live in a profoundly competitive society, in which desirable social slots are getting fewer and fewer. And the tiny margin of difference between middle and upper management can be a vast difference in life satisfaction–whether you regularly take trips to India or spend your time in the backyard, barbequeing.

I’ve never seen a group of people more driven to give their kid the competitive academic edge than college professors. Most of the professors I know are working on a second language for their kids or bemoaning the fact their kid doesn’t have one. The only people I know taking their 4 year old to violin lessons at 7:30 AM on Saturday are college professors.

My view? They actually know the stakes. Their behavior is rational. Their kids will get into top schools and have vastly more opportunities than less study driven, inattentive parents (like me).

The really middle class people don’t take their kid to violin lessons. They take them to soccer. Teamwork–go along and get along, no need to be extraordinary. That’s a very middle class ethos.

It is hard to chill out, because what really *is* best for one’s child? Going to Swarthmore for example, is quite good for one’s child. How does one get there? Science camp helps. You teach there. Surely you must have noticed this.

By: benjamin

benjamin — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:02:01 +0000

apologies for deviating from the topic at hand, but I was wondering if you had come across the following post from thesimpledollar? Seems to crisscross with much of what you’ve argued in the past regarding the purpose of higher education. Here’s the link:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/10/14/10-more-essential-skills-you-didnt-learn-in-college/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+thesimpledollar+(The+Simple+Dollar)

by the way, had an awesome chance to meet with Swat’s new president yesterday night in Seattle (as well as find out who the other Swat alums were in the area and what they were up to). it’s great that she’s taking the time to hear from and make some personal connections with alumni. I go back and forth between considering my time at Swat as valuable, but definitely a part of my past, not my present, and considering Swat as something I still should be connected to and invested in. Nights like yesterday’s certainly make me think Swat has a place in my present and future.

By: ivan812

ivan812 — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:41:37 +0000

pxip makes a good point. In an environment where all book sales are down, it’s not surprising that $18 picture books are down more than the norm: they’re so clearly luxury items to actually own as opposed to take out of the library. That said, I don’t think the NYT article is completely made up. In my own (Midwestern) small city there’s a lot of anxiety about how well 6, 5 and even 4 year olds are reading and a lot of in my view misplaced desire to push ever-younger kids towards more “advanced” texts. The desire to prevent a 6 year old from “wasting time” on aesthetic pleasure/delight when he could be improving his reading comprehension did strike me as sadly symptomatic.

On the other hand I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with reading a 5 year old the Wizard of Oz or the like — both kinds of book can have a place at this age.

By: pxib

pxib — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:01:53 +0000

I work at a public library and can assure you that picture books are no less popular than they were years ago. I can also provide a simple theory besides parental over-interest in reading skills:

Picture books are a bad investment in money/entertainment terms. Even a favorite picture book only buys you 5 minutes a night a few times a week. Parents regularly come into the library and check out twenty or thirty picture books, only to bring them all back the following week and take twenty more. That many “First Chapter” and “Easy Reader” books last the full three week checkout period.

Nobody checks out that many books otherwise, fiction or non-fiction. Ten books a week is a grueling pace. Money is short nowadays, and compared to buying all those picture books, even video games look affordable.

By: josef_kaye

josef_kaye — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:28:40 +0000

This is a somewhat unusual post coming from a thoughtful writer 🙂

“[O]ne segment of the population is still intensely glued to what experts recommend or demand: the professionalized middle classes, who exist in a state of perpetual anxiety about social reproduction…unintended effects blossom like ragweed”

And so on…are these real people? Do you know these people? It seems a bit all too convenient, this idea of middle class families that rush out to follow every latest semi-authoritative pieces of child-rearing advice. Is there any evidence this is actually happening (beyond book sales, from which fact alone one can conclude pretty much nothing)?

By: richwiss

richwiss — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 23:45:54 +0000

Pfft. They would learn Java. That’s so 2001.

By: jfruh

jfruh — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:18:13 +0000

Let’s hope that this feedback loop does take place for the “catio,” the only NYT fake trend of late that I’ve found endearing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/garden/17catio.html

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:02:25 +0000

Yeah, I think that was sort of my option 2: it’s not happening. But this is where the Times is part of the cultural economy of expertise: it helps to generate a list of fears among uptight strivers, who then go on to inflict those fears on their communities and institutions, which often then creates a feedback loop that helps the fake phenomenon become a real phenomenon, at which point the Times says, “See, I told you, it’s really happening!”

By: jfruh

jfruh — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:52:12 +0000

Or it’s possible that the whole thing is just B.S., as I find is increasingly the case for Times “trend” pieces these days. Remember the one a few months ago about how child-rearing experts don’t believe kids should have a single best friend anymore? I read a follow-up piece elsewhere that said that the experts quoted in the article (all both of them!) felt that they were quoted out of context to the extent that they found the conclusions drawn from their statements were unrecognizable to them.