Reply to White privilege and asian-bashing

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I take OP’s point that tying things to race or culture is not necessary. A school can say that they are taking steps to help children avoid stress without indicting Asian-American families in the same statement. The phrase “tiger mom” is so loaded and easily avoided.

I can also understand that a school does see shifting norms, for whatever reasons, and find challenges in responding to those. But schools used to deal with different challenges like seniors having legal access to beer and students taking smoke breaks. Then came cultural shifts like elite athletes coming in fatigued from early morning practice or travel teams. There will always be things happening in the world outside of school that schools need to respond to. I wish administrators had greater emotional intelligence and knew what was out of their control.

In much the same way that varsity sports aren’t for everyone, the spelling or geography bees won’t be appropriate for everyone either. Perhaps the solution isn’t trying to exert more control over others but to create more opportunities for fun competition, akin to JV and club sports. It stinks that we guard these opportunities as if they’re limited resources instead of expanding the opportunities (unless perhaps the point is to sneer at and detract from those we fear may be more talented than ourselves).[/quote]

NP - Yes, it is unnecessary to tie comments to race, but let's be serious.  The comment about immigrants coming from a different system of education is true.  It is well documented that many kids suffer from the intense pressure of the educational systems in China, Japan and South Korea (and we could argue about the ultimate educational outcomes of those systems as well.)  Parents move here and want to re-create the system that they had at home, and which we as a country have consciously avoided.  Those immigrant parents have every right to choose their children's extracurriculars, and to advocate for changes in public school, but the existing population has every right to resist those changes as well.  That isn't white privilege (and those resisting may not even be white, they may be second generation Asians, etc.); that is making another judgment about what is valuable for childhood.  Not everything is about race.[/quote]

I do not think Asian parents are pushing their beliefs on others.  If they want to provide outside support because that is important to them, they should be able to do so without criticism.   As a mother of  Asian/white children it has been troubling to have people say things like you get good grades because you are Asian. We have had this happen with teachers, classmates and other parents.  This discredits hard work on their part and creates a non-inclusive environment.[/quote]

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