Date: Oct 22, 2011
This blog entry going to be a bit lengthy. It's about my son, Jay. It's about education. It's about parenting. It's about decisions.
Meet The Phonics Teacher
Yesterday, we went to see Jay's phonics teacher. She is a caucasion. The teacher likes Jay Jay a lot. In her word, "Jay Jay is a very funny, funny, funny kid." In school, Jay always put a big smile on his face. He is such a lovely kid, and a happy kid. Jay loves to joke. His joke never failed to make the whole class laugh.
However, the phonics teacher is a bit worry about Jay. As Jay's learning of phonics and understanding of phonics is way behind the class. The teacher said Jay always makes an effort to learn phonics, but he just could not focus enough to grasp the idea fast.
She recommended a 10 min phonics revision at home every day. She also recommends Oxford Children Picture Dictionary. And so on.
I asked the teacher, is he the only one in class? She said, there is another little girl also in the same situation. But that little girl at least will worry about it. But Jay, does not seems to be worry at all. And that worries the phonics teacher a lot.
My Explanation To The Phonics Teacher
1. Firstly, I apologize to the teacher, and then I own up the problem. I let her know it is probably our fault. I told the teacher, back in 1970's children only learn simple English in Primary 1. Yes, when we are 7 years old, then, we learn how to spell Apple. That was in Malaysia. There was no K1 back then. Not to mentioned about N1, N2 or PG class. So, we didn't think that it is that important to master the skill of language, especially phonics at this young age. So, as a parent, I do not pay any attention to this. However, what I want Jay to be is, to have a wonderful Childhood.
I am happy to hear that, Jay Jay is like a "Clown" in his class, and always makes his classmates laugh.
Children at this age, should not be burden by school works or learning. They will learn at their own pace. I certainly do not want to force Jay to go to a lot of enrichment classes and burn out the whole weekend.
2. Children at this age, should not be burden by school works or learning. They will learn at their own pace. I certainly do not want to force Jay to go to a lot of enrichment classes and burn out the whole weekend. Weekend is very important to our family where we spent lots of quality time together and have fun together. Jay will only picked what he wants to learn, i.e. Violin class, swimming class, and now, just today, he felt very interested to learn about art, drawings, colors.
3. We are Chinese. We are bi-lingual. After we sent Jay to Lorna Whiston, slowly we discovered that, his "mother tongue" slowly switched to English, somehow. We have to accept that fact, that which ever school we sent, our kids eventually going to speak English to us at home. So, as a parent, as a Chinese, I want my kids to keep his Chinese root in tact. So, at home, we tends to speak more Madarin. We tends to explain things using Madarin. Hoping that Jay will understood his Chinese roots. I am glad that at home, Jay Jay now speak to us using Madarin. And I am sure that he is one of the few that can command very good Madarin. And we must admit that we have put in a lot of efforts in teaching him Madarin.
Jay is lucky that he is not in Malaysia. Where he will need to handle 3 languages at the same time. I always look at myself in the past and try to teach Jay of the present day. So, sometimes, our thoughts will be... "Aiya, my English is also very ciak-lat, but I still graduate from Canada University".
I have spent 7 years studying in Canada. I tutor high school kids and Uni-kids too. I see how the education was taught in Canada. I used to think they are slow. I used to think I am quite superior, but, that is only at the beginning few years in the University. But later in the higher years, I felt totally inferior as my thought process are not build to solve problems.
So, I told the phonics teacher that, if Jay had to learn only English, I am very sure that he can command the phonics very well. But because he has to master his mother tongue as well, so, his small little brain was cut into half. And thus, that is probably one of the best excuse I can think of.
The Outliers.
In statistics, an outlier[1] is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data. Grubbs[2] defined an outlier as:
An outlying observation, or outlier, is one that appears to deviate markedly from other members of the sample in which it occurs.
Lastly, the last excuse I have is Outliers. This is a very good book by Malcolm Gladwell. It examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. He digs into what the statistical data shows about success and explains why they are so. He challenges the belief that "inborn" talents make a successful person and expounds on how much culture, connections and opportunities come to play in one's sucess.
The books started telling the story of this wife of a phschologist, notice a very strange statistics across all the players in a NHL (National Hockey League). She notices that almost all the players are born in Jan/Feb & Mar. And it is not only NHL, NBA, NFL, Premier League, and most of the sports leagues shows the same statistics.
Are the players born in Jan/Feb & Mar always talented by nature? Well, it is not true. One year has 12 months. A kid that is born in January clearly has difference compare to a kid that is born in December. What is that difference, it is very obvious, the January kid is 12 months older than the December kid. In the same level, same year, that 12 months different makes the January born kid more intelligent, simply because he is 12 months wiser than the December kid. So, what do you do, if you are in a star search team searching for the brightest star in NBA. You will see what skills he poccesses, what thought process he has handling the ball. And clearly, the 12 months older kid will have the advantage, as they are more mature in handling the ball, or they simply have 12 more months of training compared to the December kid.
So, the answer is straight forward. Select the kid that is in January, put him into more superb training group with the elite. By doing so, the January kid will have more specialized training, and will have more time training, and his skills will become better in a shorter time frame. And this is not born by nature, it is an opportunity given to him. And this opportunity has in fact widen the whole gap of the learning process between the two kids. So, the January kid excel in this sense, and become better and better.
You read the book, and you will understand that fact. So, when the phonics teacher tell me that Jay is a bit behind the rest of the students, this is where I recall that most of his classmates are already had their birthday in Feb, April, May, etc. So, they are at least few months ahead of Jay. And if at home, their parents sent them to the enrichment class, then, they will widen the gap too.
So, today's way is very competitive. In order to survivie, you got to made it to the top elite group. If not, you will always be hanging around at the average group there.
So, there is a decision that I have to make is whether to make Jay an extra ordinary kid. Most of the parents wanted their kids to be successful. And it is the opportunity that you have to build and give to the kid.
I recall how my sister got into one of the top Primary and Secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, i.e. Kuen Cheng. That is why I got into Kuen Cheng Primary School. My dad happens to know the president of the School Alumni Club of Kuen Cheng. A letter to the head master from the president settle it all. I recall how I got into Foon Yew. Again, thru some relationship. And I happen to have the opportunity to get into Foon Yew in Johor Bahru, again one of the top Chinese school in Malaysia. And I also recall how mysell went into the Elite morning class (2 classes out of 21 classes). Being into the morning class in Secondary 2, it creates more time for the students to participate in more activities and widens the experiences.
The Resolutions
All these are special arrangement and opportunities given by my parents to me. So now, I have to make some modifications to my daily routine in order to give a fun teaching of learning phonics to Jay Jay at home.
It has to be done within 10-15 minutes. Not more than that so that he wont feel stress.
It has to be fun! And rewarding.
And Jay still have to have fun childhood after that.
Let me see how am I going to do this!
I will share it out once I am on to something. It's going to be challenging, but I think it is doable. I
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