None of that speaks to her criticism of the practice of focusing on rote learning over creativity. I think you can make a good argument that a creative thinker is less likely to fall behind in the real world than someone that only takes the prescribed approach to solving problems.
It provides context. Dr.Chua's article was not just about rote learning vs creativity. For instance, how far do you think rote learning can go in music?
I would suspect that children need a balanced mix of both: discipline to learn the basics in whichever field they want to get into, coupled with freedom to explore their own interests. I suspect that today's american school culture stresses creativity to the point of ignoring the fundamentals. The good thing is that there are self-correcting mechanisms built into the american system as opposed to the chinese system where the children and the parents too, rarely get much of a say.
