Debate Wanted

According Shannon Love (while commenting on Amy Chua's article on Chinese mothers):

Noticeably excluded from her children’s activities is any kind of team activities. The secret of American’s collective success as a people is our ability to self-organize ourselves on both the small and large scale into highly effective teams The relative inability to self-organize into teams is why China and some other cultures have lagged behind in the modern world. Americans have long relied on activities like sports, theater, marching band etc to teach that one critical American cultural skill. By excluding such activities from her children’s life, Chua is depriving them of one of the most crucial skills an American must have.

On the other hand, I have seen claims that one reason for Asian-American academic success is that Asian students study together:

Their most significant finding was that while virtually all black students religiously studied, attended class and did their homework, they worked alone, in contrast to (for example) Chinese students, who most often formed informal academic networks and helped each other extensively.In response, the team developed workshop courses to assist black students to overcome patterns of isolation. Equally important, they developed a core of challenging and suitable problem sets that helped crystallize emerging understanding of calculus and fully demonstrate the beauty of the subject. They successfully demonstrated to their students that college success would require them to work with their peers and create a community based on shared intellectual interests and professional aims.

I think a debate is needed on the topic of whether Asian American students are able to form teams.

The comments on black students also apparently means success in forming teams in sports and marching bands “does not transfer” to success in forming teams in other fields.

A final snark: There isn't much of a correlation between World Cup victories and economic success.

Addendum: There's another debate that could be held on this.