Day 320 - Face Painting

Thought of the day: I have been trying to teach Jasmine some math over the weekend. I have never worked through lessons with her like this before so it was quite a learning experience for me. One big discovery was the importance of the fun factor (shocking, huh?). When she thought the material and learning were fun, she learned really fast. When she thought otherwise, alas, learning turned into a boring chore or even a struggle. I was taught in the traditional way when I grew up in China so I never gave much thought to the importance of material presentation. I used to think that the elementary school teachers here wasted too much time playing games with kids and spent too little time in actual teaching. Not any more. I still think there is something lacking in the elementary school curriculum but I have developed a new appreciation of their teaching methods and a new appreciation of the teachers as well. It takes a lot of energy and creativity to keep things fun for a classroom of thirty kids. And now, just imagine that you need to do that every day, five days a week. It take a special breed of people to do this willingly and do this well - and get paid very little on top of that. They surely deserve our wholehearted appreciation.

Photo of the day:

Lila getting a face paint on the last day of Boulder Hometown Fair.  The face paint artist was self-taught and painted happy dogs on both girls' faces.  It's easier to make it fun when you're learning art but not so when you're learning something abstract like math. Luckily, the math manipulatives come into rescue and good teachers make use of them to make learning visual, concrete and fun for kids.

Day 302 - Lila

Thought of the day: Today I had both lunch and dinner with parents from our neighborhood school. As the school year had just started this week for all of our kids, naturally it was one of the main topics in the conversations. There are currents and undercurrents in the school that I am not aware of. That's hardly surprising. From as far back as I can remember, I always feel like being an outsider in any larger social circles and it's no different with this school. I can connect with people individually on a personal level but I can not easily relate to a larger group of people. This personality trait has not so far negatively affect my life in any significant way, but I am afraid that it may take a toll on Jasmine's education.  There are few things in the world that I desire more than giving my children a good education so perhaps I'll try harder to get involved in the school instead of standing at the peripheral looking and feeling like an outsider.

Photo of the day:

Lila just finished her first day at her new preschool.  I took the girls to Alfalfa's Juice Bar for a little treat after school.

Day 299 - United States

Thought of the day: Today is the first day of school in Boulder Valley School District. This day reminded me of a documentary I just watched called "Waiting for Superman". For anyone who cares about K-12 education or with kids in the public school system, it's a disturbing documentary to watch. It shows how broken the US public school system is and why. Other than the obvious issue of lack of funding, the way the schools are run is even a bigger issue. Teachers are not motivated to perform because it's not a merit based system like any other free enterprises. Bad teachers are impossible to fire if they have tenure.  Instead of pursuing a different career that may be more suitable for their abilities and temperament, the "bad" teachers just continue circulating in the system. The lack of accountability is certainly contributing to the lack of improvement in the quality of education. According to statistics, America is facing an education crisis and there's a compelling need for reform. However, there exists strong forces driven by self-interest blocking any meaningful reform. When the system is so broken, simply throwing money at it won't solve the problem. Before that can be fixed, a whole generation of Americans are being given a sub-standard education. It will certainly affect the competitiveness of the country in a long run. Of course, with the reputation of being a melting pot, the US can fill in the education gap through immigration. But that's assuming that the US will continue to be attractive to well qualified immigrants which may no longer be the case if the country can't provide good quality education to its children.

Photo of the day:

Lila standing on the map of the United States in Jasmine's school. It's certainly my hope that she and her sister will receive a good education in this country. The chance is good because we are lucky to live in a good school district but it's by no means given.

Day 279 - Tajik Kabob

Thought of the day: I am watching a segment on PBS about prison inmates getting education behind the bars. As education can help people redirect impulsive energy and maximize rationality, it has the potential of changing even a lifelong criminal's habits and behaviors.  Of course, getting education in prison is nothing new, but most of the programs geer towards training the inmates for specific jobs.  This program is different - it selects a small subset of applicants and gives them a college level education which may entitle them to a bachelor's degree in a couple of years. Instead of teaching specific skills, it encourages creativity and critical thinking and gives them the opportunity to improve and apply themselves. The selected students are among the most curious and motivated - often more so than the ones outside of the bars. After graduating and getting out of prison, many of them turn out to be motivated workers and are making valuable contributions to the society and supporting their families.  Given the chance, hope can blossom in a place that seems so hopeless - it is indeed an interesting and thought provoking story for me.

Photo of the day:

Tasty Tajik Kabob in Dushanbee Teahouse where I took Haeji for lunch before her departure flight.

Day 163 - Hammock

Thought of the day: Tonight I found more evidence that Jasmine had a pretty good taste in arts and music.  I don't think my taste was nearly as sophisticated as hers at this age.  Of course, she is exposed to a lot more arts.  It's an important part of her daily life.  She loves making arts at home and her school is also putting a lot of emphasis on it.  Come to think of it, my kindergarten and elementary school education was vastly different from hers.  It was all about academics - in a way, it was geared towards making engineers and scientists, but it limited the development of kids who were more artistically inspired.  My sister, brother, and I had very different interests but we all went on to major in science and engineering in college.  If the education system were different, the paths of our lives could have been very different from the ones we are on right now, for better or worse.  I am glad that Jasmine would not have to face similar artificial barriers so that she can develop her potential in whatever field that suits her the best.

Photo of the day:

It was sunny and warm in the afternoon - time to take out the hammock and enjoy some fun time in the sun!

Day 147 - Expert Share

Thought of the day: Jasmine did her last "expert share" presentation in her elementary school today.  In "expert share", a student is supposed to make herself an expert on a subject that she is passionate about, and then share her knowledge and observations with the rest of the class in three mini-presentations, each ending with a Q&A session.  Jasmine skipped the first step and jumped right into sharing - OK, she did spend an hour each night before a presentation to read some facts on the internet and make a poster for the next day.  It was partly my fault - I forgot to inform her that her expert share was coming up until the last minute. But in any case, I think she still got a lot out of this.  There are a number of interesting activities like this in school, for example, the Science Fair and Destination Imagination.  These activities can be both challenging and rewarding at the same time and are great for young minds that are developing rapidly both intellectually and emotionally.  Literacy and math are certainly important, but I wouldn't be surprised if these optional enrichment activities could have a broader and deeper impact on their development than the required curriculum.

Photo of the day:

Jasmine doing her "expert share" on Star, her darling betta fish, which I brought into the classroom today.  She was holding the poster on the right and her teacher was holding it on the left.  The topic of this third and last sharing was "how to maintain the tank".  Jasmine took care of Star all by herself so, in a way, she is an expert, despite the fact that she hasn't done much research or reading on betta fish.