This morning Alix Spiegel had an interesting story on NPR’s Morning Edition concerning differing attitudes about the value of struggle in education. It said that  parents and teachers in ‘Western’ countries see intelligence as the cause of a positive outcome (like a good grade), whereas parents and teachers in ‘Eastern’ countries such as China and Japan value the role of struggle in the learning process. This recalled a conversation about parenting that I once had with a colleague at DePauw, Matt Hertenstein, a professor in the Psychology Department. Continue reading »