A couple of interesting pieces lately on the subject of kids and parenting included essays from The Atlantic and The Huffington Post as well as a New York Times book review.
The longer of the two essays was by Karl Taro Greenfeld for the October issue of The Atlantic. "My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me" had some fascinating stuff about the amount of work being done outside of school by his 8th grade daughter in a selective New York City public school.
The New York Times book review was on a similar subject with Annie Murphy Paul writing "Likely to Succeed" about Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way. I've previously read solid work from both writers and am interested in reading the Ripley book.
The essay from The Huffington Post was "6 Words You Should Say Today" by Rachel Macy Stafford about a simple thing parents can do in talking with their kids and it seemed a powerful and spot on recommendation.
Showing posts with label Annie Murphy Paul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Annie Murphy Paul. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
"How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character was written by Paul Tough and a bit of a slow read at times, but which also contains some very interesting stories and information.
As part of his examination into what brings about success for children, Tough breaks the book up into the following sections: How to fail (and how not to), How to build character, How to think, How to succeed and A better path.
How to fail covers a number of compelling ideas with many around early childhood development and how success in school and beyond often predicated on what happens prior to starting. The impact of how many words a child hears from their parents early in life is noted along with the the import of a parent's nurturing and soothing a baby during the many situations of stress early in life (with this frequently described as "attachment parenting").
Following up on this idea of stress and it's potential negative impact was a significant amount of material from Tough on how childhood mental trauma often results in health problems later in life. He notes how this occurs because of the negative health effects of mental stress as triggered through the body's HPA axis system that manages our reaction to situations of stress. They're two slightly different flavors of stress management, but examples would be the stresses of living in poverty and of being in dangerous situations. What comes into play in this second scenario is the physiological fight or flight response where adrenaline builds up as our instinct is to avoid harm. While the adrenaline can be a good thing in helping deal with the immediate danger, it can also have a negative effect on the body if a common thing. It's a bit of a simple statement, but a definite point that could be taken from How to fail is that it's not just on the schools to teach children as their home environment has a big impact.
The How to build character chapter dealt heavily with the subtitle of the book, Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. The idea from Tough is that pure intelligence (as measured via I.Q.) often not as important as character traits or non-cognitive skills. He cites how important finishing high school is to success later, but not necessarily for knowledge learned there, rather for an example of how someone has the traits needed to follow-through. The basic idea is the value that can be derived from persisting at anything that can be at times boring and feel unrewarding.
They may all be just alternate for what Tough includes in his book subtitle, but some other important traits he notes are self-regulation, persistence, conscientiousness, self-confidence and optimism... with Tough's writing on the last of these making reference to the book Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.
The latter parts of How to Succeed felt to bog down a bit for me, but there continued to be some interesting material including the chapter How to think that dealt heavily with children devoting time and energy to the game of chess. Featured was Elizabeth Spiegel, the chess coach at IS 318, a public middle school in Brooklyn.
All in all, Tough wrote an excellent book for anyone wanting to read about the topic of children and their paths to success. Additionally insight can also be found from the New York Times book review by Annie Murphy Paul.
How to fail covers a number of compelling ideas with many around early childhood development and how success in school and beyond often predicated on what happens prior to starting. The impact of how many words a child hears from their parents early in life is noted along with the the import of a parent's nurturing and soothing a baby during the many situations of stress early in life (with this frequently described as "attachment parenting").
Following up on this idea of stress and it's potential negative impact was a significant amount of material from Tough on how childhood mental trauma often results in health problems later in life. He notes how this occurs because of the negative health effects of mental stress as triggered through the body's HPA axis system that manages our reaction to situations of stress. They're two slightly different flavors of stress management, but examples would be the stresses of living in poverty and of being in dangerous situations. What comes into play in this second scenario is the physiological fight or flight response where adrenaline builds up as our instinct is to avoid harm. While the adrenaline can be a good thing in helping deal with the immediate danger, it can also have a negative effect on the body if a common thing. It's a bit of a simple statement, but a definite point that could be taken from How to fail is that it's not just on the schools to teach children as their home environment has a big impact.
The How to build character chapter dealt heavily with the subtitle of the book, Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. The idea from Tough is that pure intelligence (as measured via I.Q.) often not as important as character traits or non-cognitive skills. He cites how important finishing high school is to success later, but not necessarily for knowledge learned there, rather for an example of how someone has the traits needed to follow-through. The basic idea is the value that can be derived from persisting at anything that can be at times boring and feel unrewarding.
They may all be just alternate for what Tough includes in his book subtitle, but some other important traits he notes are self-regulation, persistence, conscientiousness, self-confidence and optimism... with Tough's writing on the last of these making reference to the book Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.
The latter parts of How to Succeed felt to bog down a bit for me, but there continued to be some interesting material including the chapter How to think that dealt heavily with children devoting time and energy to the game of chess. Featured was Elizabeth Spiegel, the chess coach at IS 318, a public middle school in Brooklyn.
All in all, Tough wrote an excellent book for anyone wanting to read about the topic of children and their paths to success. Additionally insight can also be found from the New York Times book review by Annie Murphy Paul.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
"Life After High School" Annie Murphy Paul Piece - and other life lessons
Latest issue of Time Magazine featured an interesting story with connections to pieces by a few other authors.
"Life After High School" was written by Annie Murphy Paul and looks at the idea of how important high school is (or is not) in shaping who someone turns out to be. The piece is only sort of linked to here in that Time has decided not to post it online, but I was struck by Paul's high school graduation speech notions (which she had just been asked to deliver at the commencement for her old high school). In short - be all you can be, don't be limited, dream big.
All the stuff of Successories posters to be sure, but... perhaps nuggets (or even big piles) of truth there for those of us trying to figure out what to be upon growing up. To this end, Paul's writing led me thinking on a few different concepts written on by various authors linked to on this blog...
From the linked to here on a recurring basis writer, John Gardner...
"If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns."
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From the posted on here Robert Lipsyte book An Accidental Sportswriter...
"Don't quit. Gut it out. Try to hold on till the final buzzer. It will work out, somehow."
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From the Joe Posnanski blog post "My Kansas City Goodbye"...
"And who am I now? I still love Springsteen and chocolate and reading in bed. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Winona Ryder, even after the whole shoplifting thing. But those are not who I am, not like it was then. I'm a father. A husband. A writer. Most of the things that mattered then don't matter at all to me now. Most of the things that matter to me know would have been unimaginable to me then. I am not floating. I am anchored.
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My take away gist from the Paul piece along with the words from Gardner, Posnanski and Lipsyte... should move foward towards a goal while still appreciating the present. Good things both.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Tiger Moms Writing from Time Magazine
Thought provoking cover story from the latest issue of Time Magazine.
Written by Annie Murphy Paul, "Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer?" looks at the idea of strict parenting... with the why and how practice of that described in a current bestselling book by a Yale Law Professor and mother of two.
Amy Chua loves her work in academia (as self-described), worked extremely hard while young (which she cites as the foundation for her current success), and wants the same level of career success and life satisfaction for her two daughters. Out of this, she wrote "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" about her demands placed upon the girls... including long hours of schoolwork and music practice. Additional treatment (and source of the book's controversy) included threats to burn toys if expectations not met and rejection of handmade presents if sufficient work not deemed to have gone into their creation.
The Paul story details all of this and Chua's assertions that in raising her girls this way, she's preparing them for life. As a reader of the piece, I found the whole topic fascinating and agreed in general with her. Setting aside as just plain mean some of her treatment, Chua's concept of putting in work to develop mastery does make sense... and brings to mind the "10,000 hour rule" as described in the Malcolm Gladwell book "Outliers" (reviewed here).
An additional concept from Chua is that children need to be raised not to be protected from harsh realities, but rather as people that can accomplish despite hardship. While some of her parenting techniques can be described as draconian, the premise that children gain confidence by accomplishing something they weren't sure possible does have weight to it.
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Related to the cover story was a secondary piece in Time I found of note. The one page commentary "Tiger Daughter" was written by Bill Powell and about his six year old daughter and her long hours spent on schoolwork growing up in Shanghai.
Basically, the same (but, less over the top in it's delivery) idea as Chua... it's hard work working hard, but should pay off. Going back specifically to the Gladwell "10,000 hour rule", this (perhaps forced) time spent leads to proficiency and excellence. Take that and combine it with a loving upbringing and you've got something pretty solid.
Written by Annie Murphy Paul, "Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer?" looks at the idea of strict parenting... with the why and how practice of that described in a current bestselling book by a Yale Law Professor and mother of two.
Amy Chua loves her work in academia (as self-described), worked extremely hard while young (which she cites as the foundation for her current success), and wants the same level of career success and life satisfaction for her two daughters. Out of this, she wrote "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" about her demands placed upon the girls... including long hours of schoolwork and music practice. Additional treatment (and source of the book's controversy) included threats to burn toys if expectations not met and rejection of handmade presents if sufficient work not deemed to have gone into their creation.
The Paul story details all of this and Chua's assertions that in raising her girls this way, she's preparing them for life. As a reader of the piece, I found the whole topic fascinating and agreed in general with her. Setting aside as just plain mean some of her treatment, Chua's concept of putting in work to develop mastery does make sense... and brings to mind the "10,000 hour rule" as described in the Malcolm Gladwell book "Outliers" (reviewed here).
An additional concept from Chua is that children need to be raised not to be protected from harsh realities, but rather as people that can accomplish despite hardship. While some of her parenting techniques can be described as draconian, the premise that children gain confidence by accomplishing something they weren't sure possible does have weight to it.
-----
Related to the cover story was a secondary piece in Time I found of note. The one page commentary "Tiger Daughter" was written by Bill Powell and about his six year old daughter and her long hours spent on schoolwork growing up in Shanghai.
Basically, the same (but, less over the top in it's delivery) idea as Chua... it's hard work working hard, but should pay off. Going back specifically to the Gladwell "10,000 hour rule", this (perhaps forced) time spent leads to proficiency and excellence. Take that and combine it with a loving upbringing and you've got something pretty solid.
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