Academics | featured news

For decades, the prevailing wisdom in education was that high self-esteem would lead to high achievement. The theory led to an avalanche of daily affirmations, awards ceremonies and attendance certificates — but few, if any, academic gains.

A federal indictment unsealed today charges a Cambridge man with computer intrusion, fraud and data theft in computer hacking incidents that targeted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR, a not-for-profit archive of scientific journals and academic work.

They don't agree with all of Amy Chua's strict, controversial methods — banning play dates, sleepovers and all grades lower than A. But setting high expectations has some value, they say. In "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" (Penguin Press, 2011), Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua describes child-rearing techniques that, as she puts it, "would seem unimaginable — even legally actionable — to Westerners."

Evidence for the long-term benefits of breast-feeding — well beyond infancy — continue to grow. In the latest analysis of the academic performance of children who were breast- or bottle-fed, researchers found that breast-fed babies scored higher on tests of math, reading and writing skills at 10 years old, compared with those who were bottle-fed as babies.