Thursday, February 10, 2011

Article From Slate about being a so-called "Tiger Mom"

I thought this article on Slate was interesting...I'm more for creativity that forced memorization...so I agree with the authors purpose. To see the article in it's entirety...go here. The blue links in the article aren't mine...but I did highlight what was, to me, the hinge on the whole "Tiger Mom" educational theory.

Enjoy!!


Mary Gates and Karen Zuckerberg Weren't Tiger Moms

Is the Amy Chua approach bad for the American economy?


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 global economy 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 children of 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 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 rich nations 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 whole package 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 in experimenting 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 relative advantage 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, 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 Taiwanese insurance 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 implies that 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.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Girl Scout Summer Camp 2010...Troop 10224 LOVES South Florida!!!



This summer, all my kids attended some kind of camp...which made it nearly impossible to have a regular summer school program. So, what I did instead was just let my kids do there own camps...with occasional worksheets and activities from me that would (hopefully) keep their brains from turning to sausage over the break. 

I did put together a week-long summer camp for my Girl Scouts, since the Day Camp put on by the Service Unit was canceled this year. This was my agenda...we crammed A LOT in...we earned all the patches, but RARELY had time for the "Time Busters" I planned...I guess it's always better to be OVER prepared rather than UNDER prepared, right?


Troop 10224 LOVES South Florida!!!




Monday, July 12: Welcome to Troop 10224’s Summer Camp!!!

  • a. Make Sun Tea and Sun Jam Outdoors in the City #6 30 minutes
  • b. Make a camp t-shirt Art to Wear # 5 1 hour
  • c. Decorate tote bags Art to Wear # 10, Prints and Graphics #2, 3, & 4 1 hour
  • d. Make a camp “scrapbook” to record the weeks adventures, go over cameras Write All About It #1 & 2, Camera Shots #1, 2, 3, 4,7 & 8 1 hour
  • e. Make water bottle straps 30 minutes
  • f. Lunch 30 minutes
  • g. Learn about our great state Florida (state bird, flower, animal, tree, etc.), publically elected officials, capital, etc. Make a map of our state, with rivers, lakes, and other topographical features. Label the capitol, major cities, oceans, rivers, etc. Talk about poisonous plants and reptiles in our area. Wildlife # 1 & 5 1 ½ hour
  • h. Create a travel brochure for Florida. Highlight your favorite places. Globe-Trotting #2 1 hour
  • i. Snack (tea and jam on toast) Lets Get Cooking #1 & 2 15 minutes
  • j. Talk about healthy choices and lifestyles, pool safety, present chart race, and do warm-ups Fun and Fit #1, 2, and 3, Environmental Health #1, Safety First #7 30 minutes
  • k. Go swimming Swimming #1, 2, 4, & 7, Water Fun #1, 4, & 5, Fun and Fit #6 1 hour
  • l. Cool down and stretch Fun and Fit #4 & 5 15 minutes
  • m. TIME BUSTER: Talk a walk to the park. Look at all the things in our city, collect flowers to press. At park – draw, paint, or sketch something pretty on art paper, take landscape pictures Outdoor Creativity #1 & 4, My Community #1, Camera Shots #4, Outdoors in the City #7, Outdoors in the City #3 2 hours
  • n. TIME BUSTER 2: Write in your journals/scrapbooks about the days adventures, what you’re looking forward to at camp, and what you want to learn about. Include drawing and art. Write All About It # 1 & 3 1 hour
Tuesday, July 13: Butterflies!!!

  • a. Find out about the Life Cycle of a butterfly, and label the parts of a butterfly and color it. Talk about what makes up butterfly wings. Butterflies # 2, 4, 5 & 9 1 hour
  • b. Take a field trip to Butterfly Gardens (have lunch there) Butterflies #8, Camera Shots #2,3, and 4, Wildlife #2, 6, 7 & 8, Outdoor Creativity #7 4 ¾ hours
 


  • c. Snack Lets Get Cooking # 7 30 minutes
  • d. Write 3 kinds of butterfly poems…haiku, free verse or rhymed, anagrams or sonnets Butterflies # 6, Outdoor Creativity # 3, Write All About It # 9, Outdoor Fun #10 1 hour
  • e. Do warm-ups, strength training exercises, update chart Fun and Fit # 1, 2, 3, 5, & 8 30 minutes
  • f. Go swimming, Learn to snorkel Swimming # 3 1 hour
  • g. Cool down and stretch Fun and Fit # 4 & 5 15 minutes
  • h. TIME BUSTER: Butterfly craft
Wednesday, July 14: Hurricanes!!

  • a. Learn to read a weather map, read clouds, understand hurricane tracking, talk about weather trends, discuss what causes hurricanes and why Weather Watch #1, 3, 5, 6, & 9, Storm Ready #11 2 hours 
  • b. Learn/review basic first aid and build a pot-holder first aid kit First Aid 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, Outdoor Fun #2 & 5, Storm Ready #1 & 7, Hiker #3 2 hours
 


  • c. Lunch 30 minutes
  • d. Make a Storm Safe binder for important documents, list of jobs for each family member, maps to closest evacuation shelters, etc. Discuss how you will take care of pets in severe weather. Plan 3 non-cook meals and make a grocery list for those items. Make plans for games and activities, and add to binder. Learn how to purify water. Storm Ready # 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9, Outdoor Cook #7 & 10 2 hours
  • e. Snack Let’s Get Cooking #8 30 minutes (pink hurricanes @ Family Fun)
  • f. Do warm-ups, strength training exercises, update chart Fun and Fit # 1, 2, 3, 5, & 8 30 minutes
  • g. Go swimming, work on water first aid Swimming # 1, 4, 5, and 6 1 hour
  • h. Cool down and stretch Fun and Fit # 4 & 5 15 minutes
  • i. TIME BUSTER: Make pickle barrels or backpacks for each girl/ 72 hour kits (have a list or supplies), do hurricane worksheets…
  • j. TIME BUSTER: Go out in the kayak, practice water/small craft safety
Thursday, July 15: Water!! 
  • a. Learn about the water cycle and make rain Water Wonders #1 and Weather Watcher #10 45 minutes
  • b. Learn about where we get our drinking water, do water comparisons, and find out the many ways that salt water and fresh water are different Water Wonders #2, 9, & 10 1 ¼ hour
  • c. Talk about the drought in our state and how it affects us, learn about other areas in the world that suffer from drought and what they are doing to fix the problem Water Wonders #3, Serve to Preserve #1, Water Fun # 7, Environmental Health #3, Eco-Action #3 30 minutes
  • d. Go to the beach (Lunch at the beach)!!! Take pictures, draw pictures, do crafts. Practice snorkeling. Make a beach snack. Camera Shots #2, 3, & 4, Outdoor Creativity #10, Swimming #3, Water Fun #2, Water Wonders #5, Wildlife #7 & 8, Serve to Preserve #5, Outdoor Cook #3, Puzzlers #3 4 hours
 


  • e. Divide in to patrols and start an environmental newspaper… one group writes about water conservation, and another about endangered butterflies and how to help them Eco-Action #1 & 5, Environmental Health #7, Write All About It #10, Serve to Preserve #3 1 hour
  • f. Write a fictional story in scrapbooks using one of our beach-y story starters Write All About It #2 & 5 1 hour
Friday, July 16: Giving Back and Getting Wet

  • a. Plant a Butterfly Garden Butterflies #1, Eco-Action #2, Outdoor Creativity #6 3 hours
  •  Go to C.B. Smith Park (lunch there!!) 5 hours


    • c. In journals, write a “how-to” on planting a butterfly garden. Include pictures. Write All About It #4 1 hour
    • d. TIME BUSTER: “Trashy Art” Craft, Decorate Paper Sacks Eco-Action #6 & 7
    2 hours
    Saturday, July 17: Helping our State

    • a. Discuss what “biofuels” are, how they are made, and talk about energy and alternative energy in the state of Florida Serve to Preserve #2 30 minutes
    • b. Learn about fossil fuels, and how plants and animals became the oil we use today, show where most major deposits are found. Talk about products use petroleum, and how to use less of them. Oil Up #2, 3 & 10 30 minutes
    • c. Discuss the Gulf Oil Spill. Make and try to clean up an oil spill. Show how oil affects a beach. Oil Up #5 & 6 30 minutes
    • d. Make Earth keychain 30 minutes
    • e. Learn about what rescue workers and scientists do to save animals affected by an oil spill, discuss our local endangered species that would be affected once the oil enters our waters Oil Up #1 30 minutes
    • f. Continue newspaper. Have one patrol write about a Florida endangered species, and have the other write about the Gulf Oil Spill. Together, work on a comic strip that explains what happens to one of the drops from the spill. Add pictures, photographs, and print up a copy for everyone. Oil Up #8, Eco-Action #1 & 5, Environmental Health #7, Write All About It #10, Serve to Preserve #3 2 hours
    • g. Lunch 30 minutes
    • h. Put pictures in scrapbooks, decorate with stickers and papers. Write about favorite activity, and what you hope for next year. 2 hours
    • i. Snack 15 minutes
    • j. Do warm-ups, strength training exercises, update chart Fun and Fit # 1, 2, 3, 5, & 8 30 minutes
    • k. Go swimming, play water games, practice diving Swimming # 8, Water Fun #5 1 hour
    • l. Cool down and stretch Fun and Fit # 4 & 5 15 minutes