How to Raise An Ivy Leaguer
By Susie Madrak Wednesday Dec 31, 2008 5:00pmOne of my friends raised her kids in the Lower Merion School District, in a Philadelphia Main Line community. (Kobe Bryant went there.) She used to tell me horror stories about the "helicopter parents," like the ones who insisted on getting their kids into the other kindergarten class - because more of that teacher's students ended up going to Harvard. (Really.)
But this takes it to a whole new level:
BEIJING - The book spawned a genre, selling more than 2 million copies in China on the premise that any child, with the proper upbringing, could be Ivy League material.
Now, eight years after the publication of "Harvard Girl," bookstore shelves here are laden with copycat titles like "How We Got Our Child Into Yale," "Harvard Family Instruction," and "The Door of the Elite."
Their increasing popularity points to the preoccupation - some might say a single-minded national obsession - of a growing number of middle-class Chinese parents: getting their children into America's premier universities.
Because government policy allows families only one child, many parents in this rapidly developing country feel immense pressure to groom their sons and daughters for success and, in the process, prepare a comfortable retirement for themselves. They fervently mine the expanding volumes of child-rearing manuals - "Stanford's Silver Bullet," "Yale Girl," and "Creed of Harvard" - for tips on producing what the Chinese term "high quality" children.
"Harvard Girl," written by the parents of one of the first Chinese undergraduates to enter the university on a full scholarship, chronicled Liu Yiting's methodical upbringing that instilled the discipline and diligence necessary for academic success. The tome has a place in many urban households with high school-age children, and new parents receive the book as a present from family and friends.
"Going to Harvard means that the way they raised their child was successful," said Yang Kui, publisher of the bestseller. "People are willing to copy and learn how they did it."
The book, which features a photo on the cover of Liu posing with her admission letter to Harvard, espoused unconventional techniques to turn out an Ivy-caliber child. Liu's parents challenged the young girl to hold ice in her hands for as long as she could bear it to improve her endurance and made her jump rope every day for increasingly longer periods until she won a school contest.
They put toys out of her grasp when she was a baby to make her work harder for them, timed the girl's studies to the minute as soon as she entered elementary school, and made her do school work in the noisiest part of the house to develop her ability to concentrate.
The techniques might make some Westerners cringe, but they hardly raise eyebrows here.
If it's anything like real ivy, it grows like a weed, and nothing you do can get rid of it.
:)
I turned down Harvard for community college. I felt being around axle grease was my calling. Now I can grease a monkey in 10 seconds flat.
Yeah, but I hear they have wicked teeth. Or does greasing them in 10 seconds limit the biting? ;)
This is why MIT stopped race-blind admissions in the 80's. They were seeing 92% Asian classes, which, they figured, I think correctly, is just as undesirable as all-white.
It really is an INTERnational obsession these days with middle class parents all over, and it leads to tremendously burnt out kids. The grease monkey did the right thing. America needs auto mechanics and air conditioning technicians. They don't need more ivy league grads.
Full disclosure: I have a master's from Harvard, and I can't change my own oil. sigh.
I was going to make a liquor inspired joke about changing your oil Bluegal, but I just can't do it. Happy New Year, and all the bestest in 2009!!
Or as Popeye would say to Olive Oyl, lubrikink.
"The grease monkey did the right thing. America needs auto mechanics and air conditioning technicians"
You mean "grease monkey" is a slang term? I wish somebody had told me sooner, those suckers bite hard!
as a greased pig?
I don't go there, this ain't Deliverance boy!
how useful it is to torture a kid into becoming your ivy-educated retirement plan if the kid ends up hating you and leaving you to starve in the Chinese countryside.
how useful it is to torture a kid into becoming your ivy-educated retirement plan if the kid ends up hating you and leaving you to starve in the Chinese countryside. "So long, suckers!"
This is a great idea. Why should the US and Canada have the only university trained McD's staff?
them to cheat
As an educator I can't tell you how many Asian students I've caught cheating on various exams. And their methods for cheating can be quite ingenious. What do you think the tainted milk scandal really boils down to?
Pffft. I got into Harvard, Columbia and Penn in 2003. And my parents are nutjobs. My mother has treated me like I'm her competition my whole life. I could have done it sooner with their support, but of course I could have had parents who expected me to be a little success object, who fuck you up in other ways.
Never forget, a morally-bankrupt, empty-souled fuck-up like Bush went to Yale.
Just what I was gonna' say.
These parents think that the real powers get into Ivy League schools because of their academic prowess? GW sure didn't, and hundreds of other kids of moneyed parents were dumb as rocks but made it in.
Too bad. I admire a cultural drive to succeed and give kids every possible advantage, but it hardly seems worth the effort to get into an Ivy League school, given the kind of peers they'll find there. I suppose the Ivy League name is what they're aiming for.
Well if we're going to shine our own lights on our selves , I've got a ninth grade education, and I can rebuild an engine . Build a computer from scratch, do any carpentry work and build a house from the ground up and I didn't have to pay a 100,000 bucks to some assholes at holly hock university for a degree to flip hamburgers at Wendys, !!!!!!!!!!!!
and you just hit the nail right on the head! That's the problem with the entire damn world. Spoiling their kids, sending them to fancy schools, so they can sit on their already fat asses the rest of their lives in make believe land. Truth is, there is hardly any manufacturing anymore because most of the lazy shits want a to be desk jockey bosses when they are done with school. And it's the parents fault. Every parent seems to think that all their kids HAVE to go to college and university. Well guess what folks? No nation on this earth would be as rich or successful as they are, without hard back breaking work. It has to be done.
happy new year to you concerned canuck, i learned that the hard way , in the summer months the union buisness agents sent us a few of these working my way thru college kids , they mostly stood around leaning on thier shovels making the rest of us look bad , but that ended when they made me foreman i told them to get the hell going with them idiot sticks or hit the flucking road!
Yep, you spent time in the trades tyree.
Happy New Year Bud.
Remember, with Viagra, if you experience an erection that lasts for more that 24 hrs, well you know. The more the merrier.:)
Don't turn around too fast.( unless their wearing goggles and a helmet.)
Spin like a top!
happy new year muddy , i worked on building dams , power plants chemical factorys highways sewerlines and about every big job in this area,and enjoyed every moment of it! ill have to check into that viagra later , when i get old!
You Stud!
I'm thinking it's a dying breed. Sure there is a few kids today with some ambition. But the ones that can do manual labour, only do it part time until they are "done school." Mom and Dad are convinced that all their kids have to further their education, even when it means they live in the basement until they are 40, because there are just no jobs left to fill that require you to sit behind a desk.
guess ill be one of the few qualified for one of them obummer jobs!
anyway i enjoy your posts concerned keep em comeing!!!!!
Well, just as it's wrong-headed to assume Ivy-leaguers are all superior, fine people, it's equally wrong to claim they're all desperate losers. To suggest this is sour grapes.
There are kind, lovely people at all income levels.
President Bush graduated from Yale.....
You would think that with a scumbag like bush, the Yale & Harvard tool, that would be advertising enough for what psychotic trash those schools are capable of churning out.
(not Ivy League, just Cal Poly Pomona). Seems like I'm always "overqualified" for the few McJobs that are left these days. Thanks GWB...
...and, while I have to have a credential to teach, I'm not teaching anything I received my degree in. I focused on Natural Sciences (ecology would be closest) and I've taught everything from geology to social studies (which is my worst subject, even behind PE. Go figure).
So I suppose I'm questioning the value of my own college degree too.
One thing I wish all schools would teach better is how everyone, from grease monkeys to Yale graduates, can teach themselves using available resources. Since social studies is not a strong topic for me and I'm forced to teach it, I felt I should know much more than I actually do. But what to study? How could I assure myself of a broad education in history that had minimal holes when I didn't know where to start?
This is something every person should know. Life-long learners tend to be happier, no matter what they're studying.
Think about a country with recorded history of over five thousand years, with a culture that overshadows or at least equals, every country on earth wanting a child to end up in the center of intellectual dry rot that is the Ivy Leaguer system. Harvard, Yale, and all the rest would be great if you want a child to grow up to only be three generations out of date. Remember that the leaders of big business and big government love to tell about their Ivy covered past. And our future has been put in jeopardy just because of what they learned in those hollow hallowed halls.
They had a great line in one episode of the first season of Superman (1951.)
Clark Kent and Perry White were investigating the disappearance of the latter's sister in Haiti. At one point they were interviewing a heavily French accented, black Haittian official, while loud drumming was going on outside their hotel. Perry White was asking about the voodoo drums, and the official was assuring them that voodoo was no longer practiced in Haiti, except perhaps in secret. These were talking drums. So Clark Kent asks him, "Do you know what the talking drums are saying?"
His answer, "I'm afraid that wasn't included in my course of studies at Harvard monsieur."
Two of the dumbest people I've ever met were Harvard and Princeton graduates.
Hell, George W. bush went to Yale.
muddy i dont want to hear you would up in some sharks belly in 09 , remember thoes famous words from apocalypse now , never get out of the fucking boat!
I've had enough close encounters, that it's a feeling that's always there.
Thanks tyree, I was just playin around up there.:)
Be well my friend, and Happy New Year to all here tonight.
I have to get up early tomorrow, so it not so mucha party tonight.
Good Night folks, good luck, take a taxi, and I'll see you all next year. Be well.
Don't think I'll make it 'till midnight here on the east coast either.
May 2009 find us all employed!
the huge percentages of undergraduates at Harvard and Yale who are legacies (one or both parents attended) it it statistically unlikely that the student bodies at those institutions represent any sort of intellectual elite at all. If history tells us anything it is that it is unwise to hire any graduate from those institutions who did not attend on a full academic scholarship. At least check to see if they can spell potato.
I'm currently in, and have been around, many graduate programs in the US. In my department only about 3 of the 30 of us were born, or raised, in America. The rest are mostly Chinese and Indian.
And, judging from the undergraduates we TA, I doubt too many more Americans will be winning those coveted graduate positions in the future.
Pick any discipline, and pick and school, and then go to their website and look up the Ph.D. program. Increasingly, you will see fewer and fewer American citizens as students. The US really has to step up its game if it wants to compete in the world.
The US really has to step up its game if it wants to compete in the world.
I've been saying this for years now; seven years ago, when I moved to Korea, this became very apparent to me. The level of competition here in Asia is sooo much higher than it is in the U.S., and your observation about the number of Asian students in American Ph.D. programs is the result of that level of competition. Anney above had written, "I suppose the Ivy League name is what they're aiming for." Yes and no. Yes, the name of the school is important. However, Asians don't really care about what everyone here is griping about (the legacies, the so-called "intellectual dry rot," etc.). That's completely irrelevant from their point of view. What they are most concerned about is their child's success in the face of enormous competition. For some people this fear of losing out, either for themselves or for a family member, is an extremely strong motivator; here in Singapore, such people are said to be kiasu. (And I've run across many people who are like this.) But when jobs are tight and the number of qualified applicants is high, people will do just about anything to move ahead. As the joke goes, "In China, when you say that someone is "one in a million," that means there are 1,320 other people just like them."
I was in a math based grad program and was the 1st American to finish in several years, not because of some genius, but merely interested enough to apply in the first place and work a little once enrolled.
The classes, 90% Chinese, were great because of those students and their incredible work ethic which I had to adapt in some ways - to my benefit. I feel the classes and most programs of this subject in the US, wouldn't even exist if it weren't for interest from foreign students, so a U.S. citizen should be glad they're there. A few disciplines in high need would disappear entirely if not for Chinese and Indian students.
It's a shame the report seems to infer that Chinese who want their children to succeed are greedy and want an easy retirement. When I've been in China, parents I've met (granted, just a few) didn't want charity from their children and have a reasonable retirement via their government from what I could tell. It doesn't ring true to me, nor do I think all groups who act similarly are assigned these motives.
Also, keep in mind that a few million books is not a large subsection of that nation, nor does buying a book mean you follow all its suggestions. I bet there are more embarassing self help books bought by the same pct of Americans.
two million copies of a book sold in China is statistically insignificant in a country of 1.5 billion. I think it's about the equivalent of of 40,000 copies of a book being sold in the US.
When I went to an information session for prospective students in an information technology certificate program, one Chinese mother attended. Her son (the prospective student) wasn't there. Her only question was how much money her son could expect to make as an IT worker.
This is stupid. You do what it takes to help your kids. I did not have much money, so I made both kids into voracious readers at an early age. My wife and I led by example, reading all the time. When the kids picked out books at the Public Library, we made the house rule that if you're reading, and not supposed to be doing something else, then no one may bother you. A couple of swats on little bottoms, and they both caught on real quick. As their vocabularies grew, they were able to master any subject they studied, from art to math. They both did well in school, and got nearly free rides at a small liberal arts college.
I went there and graduated 1964. At that time the parents were the same
of ALL variance between-students on standardized tests.
SO:
It would be true. Any peasant child raised with upper-class experiences ('native' affinity for literacy, conversation, nuance, critical perceptions, etc) and expectations (that these things are indeed normal and the child's due) will have the wherewithal--you could call it 'social capital'--to gain admittance to any 'elite' institution, since admission to such institutions depends as much on a youth's 'accomplishment' as on sheer intellect.
Of course the culture of childrearing varies widely from society to society. But this technique could be a double-mind-fuck for the kids raised that way when they suddenly find themselves--HERE. What skills are the parents of such kids engendering in their offspring aside from academic ones? Are they learning to be self-accepting loving humans or duty-bound academic automatons? When the kid gets here, she's going to encounter a dramatically different perspective on what constitutes success, academic and otherwise, what may be legitimate choices for any person (even one coming from Asian societies) and even what constitutes a person.
I welcome anybody from anywhere who wants to and can come to study (or do whatever else they want to do to achieve their dreams) in the United States. It has been thrilling to see the number of Asian people who've come here to live in the last 15-20 years. There is no questions that we're immeasurably richer for it, just as we are for the immigrants who come from other cultures for other reasons. I hope to God that kids whose parents are driven single-mindedly by material considerations are able to glean a more whole concept of their humanity from the more liberal social and academic culture of the United States. And I doubly hope that the passing of the Bush "era" will make it possible for this country, once again, to make itself hospitable to something and someone besides the robber-baron elite whom Bush proudly called his "base." Base. Good term for it.
Just ask Theodore J. Kaczynski, class of 1962.
You may remember him as the Unabomber.
Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist
Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber
There's another part to the definition of "helicopter parent" not covered in this article & that shouldn't get lost. They don't want to see their kids fail at anything, and they hastily swoop in when they think their kids are being harmed. In educational institutions, the parents keep a vigil over their kids' assignments and grades, contacting the professors and stepping in to complain about grades the kids earn. A professor's judgment of the helicoptered kid's work is taken as an indictment of the parents; the parenting ego feels wounded.
It's hard to deny that the Ivy pedigree gives someone an advantage. Let's hope that talent and hard work will always win out, though. According to MSNBC, of Obama's cabinet picks, 7 people are Ivy Leaguers: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/1...
A professor's judgment of the helicoptered kid's work is taken as an indictment of the parents; the parenting ego feels wounded.
I've been teaching primarily Asian students (high school and college students) here in Asia for the last six years. While a lot of parents do monitor their kids' work at school and occasionally contact the teachers, I've always found teacher-parent conferences to be very positive experiences for both of us. Parents don't always have wounded egos when their child gets a bad evaluation (and I've given out plenty over the years), and the conferences can often lead to a greater understanding between the parents and teacher. I, as a teacher, often have a better understanding of the child's strengths and weaknesses, and can adapt my teaching strategies for that child's benefit based upon the new information the parents have given me. Likewise, I can give the parents a better understanding of how their child is doing in class and make suggestions that they can use to improve the child's education at home (i.e., doing class readings and homework).
Most likely the worst decision I made. I thought that $13.00 an hour to start was a great way to sock away some cash for the future. I was sort of right. After two years at my job, I dislocated my knee, tore the cartilage and snapped my ACL. After two weeks, it was obvious there was something seriously wrong, I was told nothing was wrong, "just a strain get back to work". Needless to say, I couldn't stand for an hour much less work at my former job. When a suitable job for which I was qualified and experienced in opened up at the employer, I applied only to be overlooked repeatedly for the shovel leaner types..... for two more years. I finally got a proper diagnosis and surgery, which was botched (I found out after the statute of limitations for a malpractice lawsuit ran out), than had that fixed as best as possible (leaving a permanent degenerative injury). This whole medical debacle took six years and got me an other manual labor job. A short time at this job left me with a "clay shoveler's fracture", a compressed disc and massive muscle spasm and strain. The fracture healed, but the disc and muscle injuries are permanent and recurring. Again I tried to apply for positions in the company which I was qualified and experienced. No luck, again the young inexperienced temporary college students, who needed to be trained and never really did the job correctly were hired.
I was lucky, so I thought, because I was referred by NYS to VESID, a vocational rehabilitation program for the disabled. They did a battery of tests and concluded that I was a prime candidate for a college education.... which I believed, or rather they made me believe.... They offered to help me financially with my studies, by offering enough money to buy a couple of text books. It was the hardest thing I set out to do. In order to do this, I worked 30 plus hours a week 50 miles away from the state colleges I attended full time and pulled a mediocre average with a wide variance in my grades; ie. C- in calc 2 and an A in calc 4), primarily because of the extra pressure of maintaining a job, long drives and the persistent medical problems. To top it all off, in my second senior semester just before the mid terms, I was injured at my job herniating 3 discs. A couple of my professors refused to allow me to take my mid term at a later date, effectively giving me an F for the semester (automatically failed for not attending the mid term), while others allowed me to make up exams and work from home, very successfully I might add. Because the university was not offering one course ever again and the other would not be offered for another year...... which made me turn down a job with IBM that was offered to me pending my graduation.... So I finally graduated with no prospects, and $35,000.00 in debt as loans were the only way to afford it.
The education has not served me as it was described to me by the school and the government. By the time I graduated in 1998, IBM had laid off some 15,000 people at once locally, the entry level jobs were being shipped overseas and everyone was looking for "experienced" engineers and technicians with no real training in place to get American grads that basic training.
What is my point?
Well...
If you go to college, do it early. Why?
Age discrimination is very real;
The move from our classic American economic model to the world economy has flushed our country of many entry level jobs (especially technology and manufacturing);
In general, the college playing field is stacked against any one low income and especially the disabled with a low income.
I question the whole current economic system, I have found little suitable work, while still being called "lazy" because of the limits from my disabilities.
Among the work I have found in the past ten years, some highlights:
two years at a small internet broadcast start up; 1999-2000.
Another two years working at an ivy league school in the nuclear physics department taking data and doing maintenance on a sub atomic particle accelerator looking for Bosons; 2002-2004 (funding for further projects was diverted to Laurence Livermore for mini nuke research).
Yep, that's right 4 full time suitable years of work out of ten....
You do have some point. My husband retired from the military after 21 yrs. Throughout the time he earned a BA degree. He even took classes after he retired. He couldn't find a job in his field. He ended up working at Wal Mart. If everyone is told to go to college but there are alot of college educated people out there with no jobs. Look at some of these guys that went to those big name colleges and end up on wall street or the white house. Most of them are book smart but I wouldn't give them the time of day. Who wants a guy like that who always is gone from the family. No I would rather have a guy that works with his hands. They can make a good living depending on the job.
There are cultures, and parents, all over the world who push their kids to excel. Some do it better than others, for more altruistic reasons. Forcing a kid to hold ice cubes until her hands ache, jump rope to win a school contest, withhold toys, and use what some of us would classify as Guantanamo-esque torture by music may well give you a child driven to excel at all costs. It will also give you a child who grows up psychologically impaired, contantly striving for an unattainable perfection to satisfy unrelenting parental goals. I'd be interested in seeing what the suicide rate will be in about, oh, say, fifteen, twenty years.
There is nothing wrong with encouraging one's child to succeed in life... if you actually have a concept of what 'success' is. Some years ago, I had the great pleasure of staying up all night talking to Dr. Clifford Stoll in a hotel room in Munich while at a book festival, a fascinating man, author of Silicon Snake Oil and High-Tech Heretic. What he said then is true now - if everyone became a computer programmer, then you'd end up with the elite being plumbers, because all the IT expertise in the world isn't going to unstop shit from clogged sewer pipes.
And if you have a glut of IT experts competing for a finite number of jobs, a massive downturn in the economy, and a cheaper workforce elsewhere, then all the Ivy League diplomas in the world will make nice wallpaper, but that's about it.
I'm currently studying for my PhD as well, so I feel slightly hypocritical about this. But my goal is pretty pragmatic - I need a doctorate to make a living at teaching undergrads how not to be able to make a living doing what I really do with my life, writing fiction. Believe me, there's no shortage of people chasing dreams. In China. In New Zealand. In the US. Let's just try to encourage as many varied dreams as possible, or we'll just 'successfully' educate ourselves into a termite army of unhappy drones.
I got into the top three Ivies, and my parents had no idea that I had thought about the Ivies. Or especially that I was planning to apply. I think the problem is not the way the Chinese parents push their children, but the way that US children (especially without parental pushing) do not choose to push themselves.
The idea of the ivy league is an overblown myth in the minds of America and increasingly the world. This was brought home to me by two experiences: 1) spending a summer at yale as a research assistant during my phd and being decidedly underwhelmed by the students (I expected them all to be brilliant) and 2) learning that the average IQ (a useful but flawed concept) at Harvard as measured by a researcher there is 128, and realizing how many people I've known with scores higher than that.
I taught in Asia for two years, then attended a graduate program in the U.K. at a university where a huge percentage of the postgraduate students were Asian (and a huge percentage of them were from mainland China). Cheating and plagiarism were rampant in both cases- though when I was teaching, it was largely overlooked. Kids in most Asian school systems are encouraged to regurgitate, word for word, whatever is in their textbooks or comes out of their teachers' mouths, after all. It's not surprising that cheating and plagiarism are rife- particularly when coupled with "Examination Hell" and the intense pressure to perform.
In my postgraduate program, there was a zero tolerance policy with regard to plagiarism and cheating; all essays and other written work were run through a program to make sure they weren't cribbed from the internet. Examinations were carefully looked over for evidence of cheating. Anyone who got caught could expect to be given a zero at best or, more likely, expelled. I'm sure there were people who found ways to beat the system, though.
And I have to say, I shared a flat with four Chinese students, and to a man, they were amongst the laziest, most self-entitled, spoiled people I've ever had the misfortune to meet. My impression, based on conversations we had, was that most of them came from very well-off families with parents who would be considered part of China's elite- either economically, politically or both. Apparently my read isn't unique; they call it "Little Emperor Syndrome" in China- parents are only allowed to have one child, so they spoil them rotten, cave to their every whim, et cetera, et cetera. Of course, I'm sure some parents go in the opposite direction, as evidenced by this article- they only have one child to "prove" their parenting skills, so they suffocate them with insane expectations, become increasingly demanding and require perfection.
Interestingly, students from Hong Kong and Taiwan seemed far, far less prone to the above extremes (and generally spoke much better English- though that part didn't surprise me as much).
n/t