TOK Homework

Danzell Knight
Amy Chua Assignment

Knowledge Claims, Knowledge Questions and Truth

Chinese Mothers are Superior (Wall Street Journal, January 8th, 2011)

Amy Chua is a Wimp (Wall Street Journal, January 14th, 2011)

The purpose of this assignment is to take two interesting articles and examine/analyze

them through a TOK lens.  As you read think of the idea of “knowledge claims” and

“counterclaims”.  You will analyze each claim based on your understanding of truth and

knowledge.  Finally, you will generate some deep, knowledge issue style questions based

on the ideas in the two articles.

As you are going through the articles, picking out various claims, remember to focus on

the interesting ones that are more general in nature like “Western parents come in all

varieties” (p. 1) rather than “I taped the score back together” (p. 5).  

1. Finding and analyzing knowledge claims:  use the following table to organize your

work:


Knowledge Claim (can be a Type of Knowledge (Personal Justified? If yes, cite

quote) or Shared) evidence used, if not, write
“not justified”

1. nothing is fun until you’re personal it is justified, her kid was

good at it having a lot more fun when she
finally knew how to play the
musical piece

2. western parents are personal not justified

extremely anxious about
their children’s self-esteem

3. chinese parents believe personal not justified

that their kids owe them
everything

4. western parents have to personal not justified

struggle with their own
conflicted feelings about
achievement
 Knowledge Claim (can be a Type of Knowledge (Personal Justified? If yes, cite
quote) or Shared) evidence used, if not, write
“not justified”

5. western parents have to personal not justified

tiptoe around issues

1. Relationship to truth:  complete the following table:


Degree of truthfulness to you and your group Counterclaim? (find one in the other article,
(1-10, where 10 = most truthful) if it does not exist, make one up)

7 her kids can’t possibly be happy or creative

5 her kids grow up skilled and compliant but

without the audacity to be great

3 she’s protecting them from the most

intellectually demanding activities because she
doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult
and what isn’t.

1 Amy Chua is a wimp

10 She is a torture to her children’s childhood

1. Try to encapsulate the overall “belief” of each writer in relation to the “best” way to

raise kids.  Try to do this in a sentence or two for each author.  Here your groups

will try to get at the “big idea” of each article.


Amy Chua:

The “big idea” in Amy’s article is that she follows a specific sets of rules on what her

kids should do and what they shouldn’t do. Amy wouldn’t listen to her kids’ opinion

as she believes she knows what is best for her kids and she knows how to make

them successful in the future. Her kids essentially lost their freedom to pick what

they would like to do.

David Brooks:

He believes that kids to an extent are to be able to make their own choices as it is

their life. He does not believe in dictating the lives of children in terms of what they
are to do but rather insists in the idea of freedom and independence to an extent on

the side of children.

1. What evidence/reasoning does the author/speaker provide or explore?  Include the

WOKs and AOKs that underpin the claims made and consider how they might be

interconnected.

The evidence that Amy Chua provides are her personal experiences and the end

results. She is applying her personal experiences that she’s had from childhood

onto her daughters, because her parents did the same thing with her, so Amy has

done the same thing that her parents did. When she was practicing piano with her

daughter and keep drilling her until she gets it, the end results are what prove to

herself that this technique does help.

1. What frames or filters could be at work here with regards to the authors or people

involved?   Consider such things as language, gender, race, culture, religion, etc.

 Do you think these frames/filters help explain the viewpoint?

Culture and race has definitely impacted the way how Amy Chua is thinking and

how she is training her kids. These filters does help to explain her viewpoints and

the way how she thinks.

1. What are the implications (So what?  Why is this important?  Who is it important

to? How could it affect these and other WOKs/AOKs?)

The frames and filters play an important role in how a person thinks and acts.

1. Write at least three Knowledge Questions that relate to the articles.


• To what extent does Amy Chua fill the gaps in the view of a “perfect parent” in

todays society?
• What does it mean to be the perfect parent for ones children?


• What is the exact definition of being a successful parent?

Taking it further as a knower:

1. In terms of each argument, whom do you think made a more convincing case (you

do not have to agree)?  Explain.  What is your personal feeling on this matter?


In my opinion, I think Amy Chua is more convincing gin her argument as she

provides a lot of evidence which supports her knowledge claims. Even though

I personally am not raised how she claims she was raised or how she raises

her children I believe she does indeed have some valid points in her reason

for growing her children in the way she does. Looking at myself I realise some

areas where my parents may have been a bit too lenient. On the other hand

David Brooks does not support his claims as strongly as Amy supports hers.

David also seems to be basing his claims of parenting more based off of

personal appeal rather than factual evidence as this is seen in the way he

calls Amy a wimp and only proves she is a wimp based off of what he believes

a parent should do rather than any third party evidence.

1. What does your response to the question above tell you about yourself as a

knower?  What filters or frames are at work here and how might these affect your

personal knowledge about this information?


Culture plays an important role in Amy’s personality as a parent. This is seen

as she makes reference to her childhood and how she was raised in a similar
 manner to how she raises her children. This is what she referred to as the

Asian parenting style. However, this places a filter on my view to her actions

as we do not share similar backgrounds or culture thus, I may not agree with

her parenting style especially when it comes to the emotional support on her

children’s side. My parents baby me in some aspects of my life where I

believe it is necessary where as Amy is very rough on her children and even

her husband has to step in to tell her when she is going over board with her

parenting. For example when her daughter was learning the piece she refused

to allow her to to get up or even use the bathroom until she perfected the

piece. This to me seems a little too extreme as the child was barely seven

years old.

1. What kind/sort of evidence would it take for you to change your mind?   What

WOKs would this evidence likely involve, given the context of the knowledge

claims?


In order to change my mind I would need evidence such as surveys or

studies carried out on a large scale to prove which parenting style is

“better” and sows better off children intellectually and emotionally.