I just read, and enjoyed(!) - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. If you haven't heard of it, it's one Chinese-American mother's account of how she raised her two daughters. And the book was, well, controversial to put it mildly. At this time there are 835 Amazon reviews....yielding 3.5 out of 5 stars. I would [...]
As a math tutor, I'm routinely summoned by frantic parents, "My son/daughter has a big test this week....can you please come to help them study?" Sure. That's my job - or at least one of them. But all too often I'm disgusted by the test material. Schools and "certified" teachers torture these poor kids with [...]
That's right. And it's not just a trip either. We will be spending next year, ALL OF NEXT YEAR, in Europe. We are temporarily moving to London this January, for 12 months or so. And we'll use it as a launchpad to see as much of Europe as we can. (Flights are much cheaper to [...]
Fast forward to about 4.5 minutes into the clip: I myself am not so optimistic about his ultimate forecast.
Have any of y'all see that terrific film - Searching for Bobby Fischer - the real-life story of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin? Well it was great. And Washington Square Park (in NYC) is where the young boy cut his teeth grappling with world-class chess hustlers. John played against "Omar" nearly 1.5 years ago. The video [...]
My kids both LOVED this book - The Girl Who Could Fly. I haven't it read it myself yet, but as I understand it: "Piper" could indeed fly. And there were many other kids who also had special powers... But they were all sent to school and they apparently LOST all of their extraordinary abilities [...]
A few weeks ago my son solved the Rubik's Cube! No, he certainly didn't figure it all on his own. He followed the instructions on their website. Nonetheless, it still took several hours, some sweat, and certainly some tears. I would say it took him one 4 hour session - which was interrupted several times [...]
Wowsers! (Read the graphic above.) All my math students (and their parents!) whine that the questions I give them are too hard....that they can't do them. I fire back, "I'm not hard....your school teachers are just TOO EASY." Most any adult will tell you that they learned the most in life when they were thrown [...]
More times than I can count I've met young parents who are very "warm" to the idea and the benefits of educating their kids completely outside the system. BUT they simply can't pull the trigger. Despite the 19 positive reasons they admit, all too often a single negative reason or unwarranted fear stops them in [...]
In continuing with my review of The New Global Student, I would like to highlight the following informative excerpt: Really, you’ve got to feel bad for our students; in our modern culture there just aren’t too many great opportunities for them to show the world their independence. Get your driver’s license? Big deal. A new [...]
