19.1.11

Dear Miss Tiger Lady,

I have just read your article on the Wall Street Journal. Beforehand, I’ve thought about parenting in some aspects. I sometimes imagine hypotheticals. “What if my parents did this when I was four? Seven?” Your article brought into question a lot that I’ve taken for granted. The story at the end was the kicker, bringing doubt to the way I view parents. For this, I thank you greatly.

Still, I’m left to wonder how justified some of your standards are, particularly with grades. You dictated at the very beginning that your children were not allowed to get less than an A nor be less than #1 in their class. You then proceeded to interpret why Chinese parents would think in such a way.

Fallacy of composition aside, I still disagree. For one, students could incorrectly interpret it by focusing purely on the grades and not on the effort they spend or the real lessons they learn. This could result in cheating and plagiarism. Of course, the iron grip of a tiger mom may prevent the very thought of cheating. But I digress. The thing is, such a rule seems to over emphasize the results over the process, when in fact attention to process produces great results.

The bigger fear I have with this standard originates from a situation I encountered in college. During my freshman year, many of my friends started off in an introductory calculus class. Anxiously smiling, they took the first exam of their college lives under that subject. Afterwards, I heard their general consensus. “It was a massive rape.” To state the statistics, the average score on the exam was a 38% and the highest score was an 80%. This would raise many questions about the students, professors, and the whole education system. But at the end of the day, the big question is: how will students react to this? It seems intuitive that the student’s self-esteem would drop to an abyss with such previous expectations.

Let’s now put a Tiger Mother-raised student into this situation. All her life, she was told that the only acceptable grade was an “A.” A “B” would get her shouts of “Garbage!” from the phone. I won’t even try to imagine what would happen to the student who got the average score. But maybe you are suggesting that, under the expectations of a Tiger Mother, one would have the confidence to say “I can do better” and not sulk over such failures. Of course, now I am inserting words in your mouth. I would really like to know what you would say to your child, if she got a B (or dare I say it, a grade near 38%).

Best Regards,

Mr. Now Ashamed Piano Quitter

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