Dear TCS Community,
With the time for reading and reflection that the winter storms have allowed, I enjoyed a recent, thought-provoking editorial by the latest (and unexpected) supporter of a Touchstone education: David Brooks. Though I might argue with Brooks about a number of things, I believe he is right on the mark with his analysis of Amy Chua’s critique of American parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html
Brooks takes issue with Chua’s focus on individual achievement because so much of what we accomplish in adult life depends on our ability to work with groups. He writes:
Most people work in groups. We do this because groups are much more efficient at solving problems than individuals (swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events). Moreover, the performance of a group does not correlate well with the average I.Q. of the group or even with the I.Q.’s of the smartest members.
But the required “emotional intelligence†(Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Why It May Matter More than I.Q., 1996) or “practical intelligence†(Robert Sternberg, Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life, 1997) is hard to come by. Brooks, again:
Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together. This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table.
Chua would do better to see the classroom as a cognitive break from the truly arduous tests of childhood. Where do they learn how to manage people? Where do they learn to construct and manipulate metaphors? Where do they learn to perceive details of a scene the way a hunter reads a landscape? Where do they learn how to detect their own shortcomings? Where do they learn how to put themselves in others’ minds and anticipate others’ reactions?
As I read these passages in David Brooks’ piece, I could almost imagine that I was reading the copy in our new viewbook—it was that much in sync with our rhetoric and our practice.
As we move through the remainder of our class presentations connected to MLK day; as TCS families preview the classroom experiences ahead at family night tonight; and as we send out re-enrollment agreements, a new viewbook, and the link to a renovated website in the next few weeks; and as we go into portfolio conferences, I am thankful for new, thoughtful evidence of the power of a Touchstone education.
Best,
Don Grace, Head of School