Also chinese culture, a lot of them come from years of extreme poverty, and under extreme dictators with severe conditions to live under, it’s going to take them time to recover from PSTD.
1 Like
I don’t mean this in anyway to insult. I do understand math is not an easy subject for all. And most of us probably could not go into advance math subjects later on in life and become math professors. But I would think most kids could be pretty good in math from elementary to high school if they put in the work? With Some more than others. I’m Not the best at math but there has never been a math class or subject before university I could not get an A in if I really worked on it.
Math is definitely something that really just needs a lot of practice and drilling. But like anything, some people are more inclined to it than others. So the amount of practice that is needed to succeed in math depends on the person.
I think a lot of it too is having a good teacher who can show you how to enjoy math. I had pretty shitty math teachers in grade school and never learned to like it. I got by in college, but I still hated it.
Was good at geometry and stats, though. But that’s not like…real math.
Before I had my daughter I would have agreed. I would have said even advanced math is something all could be good at (calculus, differential equations, trig). That was my personal experience. But I went through lots of math problems with my daughter and things were not clicking.
But with music, for example, things click for her. She can figure out a song very quickly with very few notes wrong. I mean in the way a jazz musician can play what he’s thinking. That’s somethimg I could never do.
2 Likes
No. That’s the view off my deck in the morning. My salary to slaving ratio is balanced nicely. That is also what I taught my son. Balance.
1 Like
There’s that theory that each new generation tends to raise children the opposite way to their parents. So, you have strict parents you raise your children very liberally. They in turn raise their kids more strictly. This supposedly explains why baby boomers are so spoiled and entitled.
I imagine myself being involved as much as possible in my kids’ education, and like you two would want to be more strict because I feel my own parents were too easy on me. I’d also be a lot more open minded with educational pathways and extra-curricular activities (ie. scouts, cadets) and would definitely want to push my kids to earn their own money from a young age, learn how to manage finances and get them to experience different sides of life, building up a resume early-on so that they stand out by the time they enter the workforce at an early age.
One important thing that I feel a lot of parents miss is getting other people involved in the upbringing of your children. Get them involved in after-school activities where other adults are in charge who can act as additional role models and mentors. Build lifelong relationships with real significance.
Maybe even find a kind of second family where they could learn another culture and be fluent in a third language, not just two.
It’s far too big a brush to say all Western countries or Western parents have the same educational philosophy. There is far more range of schooling in the West than in Asia IMHO, also Western systems are changing all the time too. We are talking about dozens and dozens of countries some of which are massive like the US whereas your reference for ‘Asian’ is probably just the Confucian system that dominates a few countries in East Asia.
I went to a Christian school in what was then a (small) conservative country. Things have already changed quite a lot since my time in school a few decades ago. Mostly for the better.
But one big difference that you can paint with a broad brush is hours spent in school and tutoring. Asian school systems seems to emphasise more time ‘at the books’ and from a much earlier age.
In the end is Asia doing better than Western countries across a broad range of factors including incomes, benefits, eyesight, health, environment, working hours? Usually no.
For instance Japan is the most developed country in Asia and it’s a horrific place to spend your life working (for a developed country). Korea and to a lesser extent Taiwan also have major problems.
Why is the working world like this if not at least an indirect result of a failed education system ?
2 Likes
It’s a good theory.
My kids do have positive influences, for instance from sports coaches. It definitely helps them understand how the broader world operates and that you need to listen to other people sometimes, not just your parents.
But they have no time to be hanging around with some random other folks. Nor, are there random folks or other families to be hanging out with often. Everybody is TOO BUSY if you live in the big city.
What many here in Asia do is use the maid to sponge a language off (but not so many maids in Taiwan).
Or they leave their kids for years in the countryside with the grandparents. I never liked that idea either.
1 Like
I don’t agree when it comes to maths .
I went to school with a couple of very gifted maths students.
If you don’t have ‘the gift’ you will never get beyond a certain grade . I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours at maths grinds and homework. The most I could do was eke out an honours grade. The gifted guys would often just get the solution and the logic with little effort. One became a top finance guy, another a top physicist . That were pretty much born with those inherent abilities.
But that doesn’t mean you should ever give up on kids and accept them being shitty at maths , at least to their face. Encouragement always ! 
Yeah honestly I’m not sure I believe what I said either. True math whizzes are some kind of genius.
I don’t mean to argue for the sake of arguing.
I agree it’s possible to get people up to speed with a lot of basic maths and more, probably beyond their expectations in many cases.
But these gifted people …its just like music …they can pick it up and run with it far beyond mere mortals. It’s a brain thing obviously (some maths savants acquired the skills following brain injury) whereby a minority of people are born with the genetic propensity just waiting there to be activated. It mystified me as a kid as this one classmate who I sat beside would solve the challenge fairly effortlessly after I had been staring at it and working on it for a hour or so.
Then you get some forms of aspergers and autism appearing at higher rates in the progeny of some of these couples.
Taiwan and Japan Parenting looks like a huge difference, Don’t need to go to west.
I see. I guess maybe I’ll find out myself one day. I always felt ok with math, not amazing but I could easily get by any math class before some of the more difficult ones in university. But even in math some subjects I was clearly much better at than others.
For music, I don’t have it. I always had to put in a lot more time to keep up with other kids. Although music is still a large percentage based on practice and repetition imo. Natural ear and a feel for the beat is probably something somewhat innate. I suppose most things are somewhere on that line of innate ability and time put in.
I guess my main focus is to push children to strive for excellence in their work. Even if they’re not naturally good at something, I’d still want them to put in the work and not use it as an excuse to be lazy and mediocre at it.
1 Like
1 Like
Seems some Schools are trying to mix the two things together , in terms of Education, at least . Is it good ?
yeah. in the U.S. there are many public (so, no tuition) schools that offer Chinese (Mandarin) Immersion Programs where half the day the children are taught in Chinese, while the other half is in English, starting from kindergarten.
It’s skill to balance saving/spending and the older Taiwanese (or any other formerly 3rd world nation for that matter) struggles with spending. To them money was so hard to come by that it might as well have been the goal itself rather a tool to achieve happiness. They didn’t have money for so long that to them happiness has become synonymous with having money.
Western parenting is superior to eastern parenting in every way. Including discipline.
As far as math goes, it’s overrated. The truth is that most math beyond an 9th grade level is virtually useless unless you go into sciences, and your kid most likely won’t.
So rampant drug abuse, gun violence and teen pregnancies are good things? 
3 Likes