The Latest From The University of Puerto Rico

A story that has been going on for months and months, barely covered here on "the mainland":

The New York Times:

Months of unrest at the University of Puerto Rico seemed to be reaching a finale over the last 10 days. Scores of students were arrested or injured by riot police officers. Faculty and staff members held a two-day walkout. The president of the university resigned Friday, the police who had occupied campus were withdrawn Monday and an interim president arrived Tuesday.

But there were only three days of peace.

On Thursday morning, students blocked the stairs to classrooms in the social science department with trash cans and chairs, and also closed down the humanities department. At the social sciences building, students said only one professor had tried to get through the blockade.

The spark for the university’s problems was a budget cut that required students to pay a new $800 fee, increasing their costs by more than 50 percent.

You can find some of the best coverage over at The Huffington Post on Dr. Maritza Stanchich's blog. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Take a read.

Tuition at the University of Puerto Rico is cheap. And there are campuses all over the island. You can live almost anywhere, and be within a commuter's distance of an excellent higher education.  Young people can go to school and if they don't have the means to live on their own, commute while continuing to live with their parents. And given the lack of jobs on the island, it is not uncommon for people to go to graduate school because they can't find jobs. The result is a lot of very well-educated people in the work force. Many jobs that only require a college degree are filled with people who have an MA degree or a PhD.

Campuses of the University of Puerto Rico

I have visited many Head Start centers all over Puerto Rico, and can honestly say staff qualifications are much, much higher than those working in the lower 48. Some of the most highly educated early childhood professionals. True of health and social service staff as well.

From Dr. Stanchich's latest blog entry:

"I'm conservative and I work for this government," said one woman wearing a floppy hat to protect herself from identification and reprisals. "But I grew up in a small town, and I owe my economic betterment to my UPR education, and my children were also educated here," pointing to the campus where heavily armed policemen were stationed. "What the government is doing is just plain wrong."

Glad some people still remember their roots.

On "Chinese Parenting"

Seems like everyone was writing about Amy Chua this week. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. I dare you to go ahead and google her. You’ll be overwhelmed.

Her latest book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was published this week. Roughly speaking, it is part memoir and part how-to-guide for those interested in employing so-called, Chinese methods to raise Western children. She is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, holding two degrees from Harvard. She is the author of two books on globalization and the law.

But it was this essay in the Wall Street Journal that started the controversy – Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. And yes, the title says it all.  In it, there is something for everyone.

For those of you who like facts and figures, there is this:

Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

For the arm-chair anthropologist, this:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

And for the voyeurs among us, this:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

I actually have a great interest in this topic. I worked for a number of years in a management-level position for Head Start in San Francisco’s Chinatown. For those of you not in the know, Head Start is a federally-funded pre-school program for low-income children and their families. In addition to early education services, programs are mandated to provide health, social services and parent involvement components as well.