Knowing your place

The recent housing numbers, the fact that Arizona is one of the states where more than 50% of the mortgages are underwater, and my recent search for a home got me thinking. I am your basic middle class professional and so I have been looking at houses in that price range, houses that were most certainly owned by other middle class professionals. As I saw these houses and saw what was in them - wine cellars, that then need to be stocked with expensive wine, multiple expensive appliances, landscaping that I am sure costs hundreds of dollars each month to maintain, it suddenly struck me that these simple middle class people were living as if they were millionaires. The housing bubble and the inflated values of their homes had made them think so, and they had started living well beyond their means. There is nothing wrong with aspiring, but this was a stark reminded for me that I must also never lose sight of who I am. Of course, "know your place" seems demeaning and condescending, but as we try to chart out our path on the map of life, it is very important to know our destination but it is equally important to know where the dot labeled "You are here" is.

Confidence and Ignorance

Mark Twain said "To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence" and it is shocking how true that is. In my search for a new job, I have put out a concerted networking effort to connect with local tech business community. And very quickly I have arrived on a set of people who are trying to establish themselves as "experts" in job search or personal branding. I sat through a webinar on this and got ingenious advice such as "polish your shoes when attending an interview", "highlight what makes you unique" and "target your pitch to the person you are talking to". D'Oh! Do these people really believe that they are bringing some value here or have something unique to offer. Are they really that ignorant? Ignorant or not they present themselves with complete confidence and say really generic things as if they were offering great insights, and go about doing this with great passion. Do other people not see through that?

OK, so I am not sure how much money these people are making, maybe nothing compared to an intelligent educated professional, and for them this is better than being an administrative assistant at an office to make the same kind of money. I am still surprised that they are even out there trying and thinking this will work. I have been through graduate school and have worked with and met brilliant people, yet as Sarah Plain proves, all you need to succeed is confidence and some dumb luck, more than intellect or wisdom. Something to watch out for as we raise kids, and remember to teach our kids to not assume somebody is smart or good or whatever, just because they say they are.

I, me and myself

In a comment to my last post, my friend Valerie asked "I am curious what helped *you,* personally, to make it through the Indian educational system as a thoughtful person rather than turning into a mindless TV-watching robot"

If I didn't know Valerie better, I would have said she was mocking me but knowing her, I know she is asking a genuine question. I am well aware that I generalize, and paint all Indians with the same brushstroke, but I am a part of them, and I know they are such wonderful people and I want so much more for them - more happiness, more satisfaction, more wisdom, and hence I nag.

There is a justification I commonly hear as people make the same choices for their children, as their own parents made for them - I was raised this way and I turned out to be fine, so I will do the same. I, in fact, continue to think that I did not turn out fine at all and that is what makes me want to do something different. My parents did not push me to over-achieve but I was ambitious and competitive so I went for it anyway, and the whole system was designed to reward that. I have a lot of interests but no well-developed hobby because there was no time outside of academics to develop it. Even in my studies, I acquired knowledge to pass exams with high scores, but did not necessarily learn anything. I spent my youth chasing degrees and growth at jobs, and did not take time to experiment with alternative options. Now that I want to do something different, I find I am too old, with many responsibilities and no appetite for risk. This has left a hollow space inside me, that I do not want my kids to have when they are my age.

So the answer to your question, Valerie, is that my own sense of inadequacy is what drives me to chart out a different path for my children. And I don't want much TV because it leaves an even bigger hollow space in my time - I can spend an hour playing tennis or watching TV, and the former is so much more satisfying that it is an easy choice.

Clarification

In my last post I said "the American education system completely failed me". In retrospect I see that I have made a very strong statement without clarifying. I know blogging is supposed to be spur of the moment thing, and I try to put more thought, but not enough.

My children have been in the public school system for five years, and we have consistently met excellent teachers, whose commitment to their chosen profession is unparalleled. It is the "system" that has some issues but I have no good answers about what the best option is.

The state of Arizona has certain standards for education listing exactly what a child coming out of each grade should know. My daughter did not meet those standards in math at the end of 3rd grade. However, there was no consequence attached to that. If there was a threat that she would not be allowed to move on to the next grade, we would have smartened up and done something about it sooner. That would have been a good consequence for my family. But what about a child who has a genuine learning disability - I know children who couldn't read in third grade and it wasn't for lack of trying. It would be completely unfair and demoralizing to hold such a child back grade after grade.

In there lies the challenge of the public school system - there is a huge diversity in the learning abilities among all of the children in any grade, and one teacher and one set of standards cannot cover it all. But what is the solution? Establish a meritocracy like Singapore - only the smart kids get a comprehensive education, the ones with lower IQ go to trade school? Of course not. Or do what a home-schooling friend of mine suggests - abolish the public education system completely and let groups of like-minded parents start their own schools to teach their children how and what they want to teach. But what about those children whose parents are not at all involved in their education? Would it be fair to deny them an education? Maybe the current 2-tier system with public schools and specialized charter schools is the solution - all children get a good basic education, but if parents think their child needs something different, they go to a charter school.

Kumon and the ugly monster

If you visit a Kumon math center, you will find it chock-full of children of Indian origin who start at age 4 and are doing algebra by the time they are 10. I cannot decide whether starting children in Kumon at a young age is the best way to build a strong foundation or the surefire way to teach them to hate math early. One thing I am sure of is that many parents have brought their children without any such thought - all they hope for is for their child to get ahead in the academic world because their reference point is the survival-of-the-fittest academic world of India. This saddens me because that world often produces academically brilliant people who haven't a clue about what their passion in life is and never know what to do in their free time besides watching TV. There aren't many other choices in India, but it does seem rather bizarre to be applying the same model in the US where there are so many options available.

I had resolutely decided to never enroll my children in Kumon until the American education system completely failed me. By end of 4th grade my daughter was still doing additions by counting on her fingers. It turns out that the school system does nothing to instill basic math skills that are the building blocks of further learning, unless parents do drills a home. I am well aware that knowing your math facts and times tables is not proof of intelligence or analytical abilities, but it is a skill as necessary in academic life, as being able to read is. The last person my daughter wants to take instruction from is her mother, so I had no choice but to enroll her in Kumon to get the basics right before it was too late. It was amazing what a difference two months of rigorous drills made. She can now whip through one hundred division problems in under three minutes.

And then the other day I discovered another more important reason why most children at a Kumon center are Indian. I ran into a friend at Kumon whose daughter is same age as mine. I noticed that the other girl was at level G whereas my daughter is at mere D and this monster raised its ugly head in me and took hold - a feeling of inadequacy that my child wasn't equally advanced and a desire to push her more to get her higher, and to enroll the younger one right away. My conscious mind had to beat that monster hard and remind me that the other girl has been doing this since kindergarten and mine just started, and get back to thinking about the bigger picture. So now I wonder how many children are at Kumon just because their parents' saw other children doing better than theirs. Oh my! Her 4 year old can recite the 9 times table, I better get in my child in there too!. Sigh. Will the Indian community never leave that ultra competitive world behind us no matter how far we get away from it?

More tricks of indirection

Bedtime has become another daily struggle in my household. This problem comes back at regular intervals to haunt me with new and creative forms. I repeat again and again that I will turn the lights out at such and such time. If they get in the bed before that they get reading time until the lights are out, and that my kids consider a big reward. Yet, I find myself tagging behind, repeatedly reminding them that their time is almost up, and still they dawdle. They will get involved in time-consuming activities such as rearranging all their stuffed animals, and then keep begging for "one more minute". Needless to say this is very frustrating, esp late in the evening when I am running a short fuse.

Tonight, just because I simply felt incapable of tagging behind without losing my temper completely, I picked up a kitchen timer, set it to fifteen minutes and said "I will come back to turn out the lights when the timer tings". They asked whether they can read if they got into bed earlier than the fifteen minutes and I said "of course". Then I walked away.

The results couldn't have been more different! The girls were in bed quickly, and there was no more imploring for "one more minute" when I turned out the light. They have a digital clock in their room so when I say lights are out at 8:30, it is not that I am leaving them clueless - they have an easy way to check how they are doing with time. Somehow, the tick-tock of the kitchen timer coupled with the countdown effect seems to have been a better persuader.

The bigger question is what kind of technique do I need to invent to keep myself using this new found wisdom, and not regress back to nagging the kids!

Power of indirection

You would think that if past ten years of mothering experience would have taught me anything, it would be that children do not listen to their mother, and that if you want a child to do something the last thing you want to do is to straight-out ask them to do it. It has never worked, at least not with my children. And yet, that is the method I employ most - "Please pick your clothes off the floor", "No, no, no...do not stuff them under your bed", "The laundry hamper is right there!", "YOU KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO DO - JUST THROW ALL THESE CLOTHES IN THE TRASH BECAUSE THAT IS HOW YOU TREAT THEM. WHY IS IT THAT I HAVE TO KEEP ASKING YOU THE SAME THING EVERYDAY!" As you can see that the only thing I achieve is convincing my children that their mother is a banshee.

This problem was magnified once summer break started. Being a a big believer in the power of unscheduled time, and having the luxury to work from home, I have let the girls roam free for most part except imposing restrictions on how much time they spend with electronic media. I, however, have basic expectations that they will brush their teeth and take a shower every day. I would also like them to practie their musical instruments daily. My only "educational" goal for this summer was to teach the girls to take care of themselves so that they don't grow up into adults whose beds are forever rumpled with clothes piled high on them, and whose normal method of storing their belongings is on various piles on the floor. I do believe that there is a 'baseline' to everything in life - what we think is 'normal'. Girls who grow up seeing their mother being abused often assume that certain amount of abuse is normal in a relationship. I hinted at this in my last post as well that girls who see their mothers doing all household chores automatically assume all household chores when they get married. I grew up in a house where all beds were made every morning. To this day, I cannot sleep in an unmade bed. Even on the rare occasion that I do not get around to making my bed in the morning, I make it just before getting into it which seems ridiculous but then most of our actions are controlled by our subconcious mind. Coming back to the point, my hope is that by the end of the summer break the girls will make their beds every morning, keep their room and bathroom neat and do their own laundry which also includes putting clothes away in their dressers.

These "chores" shouldn't take more than an hour during the day, and I and the girls had agreed on these. Yet, trying to get them to do them was driving me insane. I kept requesting and reminding them often, and driving myself insane in the process. I am firmly against giving children any kind of reward for doing their share for the family, so I did not have money as a motivator. Then I remembered a tool I had used years ago when I had initially started imposing restrictions on TV time. When the girls were preschoolers they were allowed an hour of TV time a day (That sounds a lot when I think about it now). That hour was represented by a circle, divided into 12 sections each representing 5 minutes. I drew this on a whiteboard attached to the fridge every morning. After the girls were done watching TV, even for a few minutes, we filled in the sections for the time used up. Whenever the girls wanted to watch TV, I would say "check the chart" and the chart would tell them whether they had used up their daily quota or not. This method worked beautifully because it wasn't I who was telling them not to watch TV, it was the chart. After a couple of weeks of frustration with the chores during the summer break, I remembered this, and started to make a "to-do" list on an index card for each girl. Every morning I handed them a checklist with items such as "brush teeth" and "make bed" on it and it was amazing how well they took to it. They enjoyed doing their jobs and checking off the items on their list. When we struggled with getting everything done a few days in a row, I asked them how we should solve the problem and they came up with a wonderful solution. The suggested that once the tasks were done to my satisfaction, I was to sign off on the list. If the list didn't get signed off one day, the following day the list had to be completely signed off before they would be allowed to watch TV. This seemed fair. It doesn't seem like a big change - instead of verbally telling them what to do, I give them a written list, but the outcome couldn't be more different. Wow!