Reply to NYT article on easing academic pressure and a cultural divide

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you're interested in this battle, then you need to read this:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Trouble-With-Tiger-Culture/144267/

I'm an academic and I read it when it came out last year.  I was really shocked by some of the author's claims.  He essentially says that childhood is a western concept that people from other cultures don't buy into.  He says that Asians think of kids as 'miniature adults' and that they have no problem with assigning a 3 year old homework because that's his job.

It really highlights the cultural divide.  I find it troubling that so many people don't believe in childhood.   It can't be healthy.[/quote]

"Childhood" is a relatively new concept in this country as well, OP. A hundred years ago children were working in factories and on farms from a very young age. This notion that we should let our kids be footloose and fancy free and unencumbered by pressure and responsibility is rather bourgeois. Only two or three generations ago children WORKED. And they worked HARD. [/quote]

This.

My dad was working in urban America at age 5. He made deliveries six days a week for a fruit vender.

My mother was working at age 8 in the same city. Various jobs.

They were poor kids. Welfare didn't exist yet. No one thought it was child abuse that they worked.[/quote]

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