the Indian and Chinese kids, who he perceives are pushed by their parents to study much more than what is required of the school. The Dad's children are in private school and are doing well -but they get tutored after-school in order to excel.. Matthews assures his readers that Americans will always do whatever it takes to get to the top.
I don't know how it is in India now.. I suspect that kids there do a lot of school work.
Back when I was a kid, school was a breeze.. a bore sometimes for me.. I spent most of my childhood dreaming. I do wish I'd toiled more, learnt a little more when I had the time.. but I pay for it now, with mudiyor kalvi.
Seriously, I only understood what it meant to study when doing my BSc. and I grew out of my childhood doing my MA, where for the first time I was held accountable for everyone's mood swings.
Anyhoo.. as a videsi aka indian parent, I push my kids to study only because:
the public schools in early classes do not challenge the kids at all. Things are too easy. Some differentiation is offered to kids that've mastered the class material.
My older son, being one of the older kids in his class, one that benefitted immensely from montissori preschool (original intent for the preschool was to allow me to work and it was very close to our home), qualified for differentiated material, which was also too easy for him. Thus started my "encouragement" or "push". That's when we started him off with Kumon to help him learn something new.
I think I push mainly with sports since I found they were lacking some of the free exercises of my youth, such as climbing trees or running around playing marangotthi/mudugu puncture.
And of course, they have to have music.. That is a must in my opinion. So, having tried vocal carnatic with the older one with DK (absolute disaster since he refused to open his mouth), switching to Veena (ordering one from madras by mail) and dragged him to class an hour away.. finally figured it was too much for me.. I even did a stint at a conservatory based on a visiting musician's recommendation..
Anyway.. now they are doing western instruments locally - reluctantly- I might add. I am their practice police.
does that make me pushy? But I don't think what I do is to enable to beat others- to be the best.
I just don't think like that..
My desire is to do something for their sake, knowing the opportunity to learn is now. When they are older, it is really tough to pick up something new due to lack of time and timidness.
Anyway.. the link to the article is below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021100644.html?hpid=news-col-blog
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4 comments:
The encouragement/push part is something that I really struggle with. We can support the kids by providing the opportunities, but if there is not something within the child that makes them want to do it, it becomes a losing battle. Kumon is good example. It is a wonderful opportunity to have a better foundation in math skills but if the child resents it - then we end up paying for misery at home. :)
I call it getting their buy-in. Recently I approached the kids with geo bee since I had a friend who was urging me to put my children in. The kids declined, one outright and one politely.
So I had to pass along the bad news to my friend, but internally, I was singing!
I don't know what to say, Laks! In Chennai, while the majority of schools stuff academics down the kids' throats, ('we're in a competitive world' being their mantra) other kind of schools are mushrooming everywhere. And having spent my childhood in a school like ours, I hate to see my son growing up hating school. I suppose if learning is joy, the kids blossom better! I only go by our batch's example! But I guess its totally different for you out there.
Paddu,
actually it is rather laid-back here. Of course my older one is much more motivated than I ever was. I just like doing stuff.. the need to win wasn't there with me. My younger one is more like me in that sense...
But Americans here are reacting to the academic work done by Indian and Chinese kids here and in India/China to say "Our kids need to be better than them!".
Used to be that, Kumon program, a math enrichment program was frequented mostly by Desis and Asians (Chinese/Korean). Now I see many Black and White Americans enrolling.
I just do not like the competitive spirit. One should do something because one wants to learn. utopian? maybe... hard to convince someone who've not experienced an environment such as our school.
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