I thought I knew

I thought I’m staying home for the benefit of the baby/toddler, my daughter. I didn’t want to missed the growing years of her, like I did to my now 8 year old boy after I started working after graduate school, when he just turned one. Yes I missed his first steps; I barely remembered the way he talked when he’s a toddler, and millions of other milestones. I thought by staying home when my daughter is young, I would never missed those “important” milestones. But in the end, does it matter?

Yes, baby/toddler years are the formative years. Yes mothers are encouraged to stay home if they have the means to, to enhance “bonding” with the little one. All the parenting books and magazines and research I’ve read tell you that you could “always go back to work when the kid’s in school”. I, however, had a different insight. Having stayed home while I have an older child (5-8 years) and at the same time a baby/toddler (0-3 years), I definitely felt that it’s the other way round – that it’s easier to leave babies/toddlers for the care of others, when there are less opportunities to be exposed to the media/bad language, but it’s immensely difficult to keep up what you want you older kids to be exposed to, if they spend their entire day outside of home, with other children, and adults who may not “tip-toe” around the kids in terms of their behavior towards the older children vs. cute and innocent babies/toddlers.

I already knew that my stretch of being a stay at home mom (I don’t really count working one day a week a proper job, even though it somewhat keeps me afloat in my field), benefited both my children. However, contrary to what I believed earlier, my 8 year old had benefited more. I found that leaving the 8 year old in after school program for 4-5 hours a day is just not an option for us. How’s he going to bond with his little sister? Who’s going to coach him on his piano? Teach him his mother tongue? Would he have time to read his favorite books quietly, and not be distracted by other activates/kids around him? Who could care as much about his development and well-being other than his own parents? Who will bring him to impromptus ice-cream/bookstore/park sessions?

Thanks to the time available in the afternoon to teach him, at least my 8 year old is up to speed with the 2nd grader in Singapore in terms of his Chinese and math level (at least from the exercises books we got for him from Singapore), and he’s learning the joy of being able to play the piano proficiently. The effort to keep up with the speaking/writing of their mother tongue for Chinese kids in America is especially unbearable, where none of the kids at school will ever talk with each other in Chinese, even though they might have to speak that at home. In a mono-lingual speaking environment such as America, it takes A LOT more effort to keep up with being bilingual. Parents in Singapore, you’re having an easier way in that sense.

I love the challenges of work – but I’m unsure when I could enjoy that challenges fully again. For now, though, my kids are still my center and my priority, and until there is a solution, I’d continue to spend the majority of my energy nurturing the most important people in my life.

 
(published on fb August 2009)

芬蘭驚艷 - 全球成長競爭力第一名的故事 (Finland Unveiled-A Story of No. 1 in Global Growth Competitiveness) - RE: education

If only the Singapore MOE care to study what makes the Finnish successful while not overly competitive. These kids are very fortunately to have educators writing such excellent books for them. Totally inspired. What does it take to attract knowledgeable educators, who obviously studied graphics design, child psychology, on top of the necessary knowledge to write such informative and educational text? How much resources are we going to put in to ensure such high quality text exist for our future leaders?

A page from the 3rd grade math textbook

• Canada CN Tower 553 meters. 
• A pyramid in Egypt 139 meters. 
• Finland Nasinneula Observation Tower 168 meters.
• Taiwan Asia Plaza 431 meters. 
• Malaysia Petronas Towers 450 meters. 

2/5 of the page was the proportionally correct architectural picture of the above mentioned towers, with building names and country of original. The Asia Plaza in Taiwan hadn't even been built yet *at the time of publication*, not many Taiwanese even knew about it, while the Finnish already put it into their elementary school textbook. The country's effort in opening their student's eyes to the world, especially emerging economies and third world countries, from a young age is apparent.

Another page from their 3rd grade math textbook - ten full colored flags from Ukraine, Nigeria, Libya, Poland, Peru, Columbia, etc. The teaching topic is the fraction, using the color in each of the flags. There are numerous examples similar to the above.

" 三年級的數學教科書教加減法，題目上畫出加拿大多倫多電視鐵塔，標高五百五十三公尺；埃及某金字塔，標高一百三十九公尺；芬蘭鐵塔一百六十八公尺；台灣亞 洲大廈，標高四百三十一公尺；馬來西亞雙塔四百五十公尺。版面站去整頁的五分之二，建築物名稱和所在地國家都註明其上。台灣亞洲大廈在高雄，二OO八年才 會落成，台灣都沒多少人知道，芬蘭人早已放進教科書裡了，他們對世界的了解，尤其企望下一代多了解新興國家和第三世界國家的企圖心，瞭然可知。

再 舉個例，三年級的數學習作整頁畫了十面彩色的國旗，包括烏克蘭、奈及利亞、利比亞、波蘭、祕魯、哥倫比亞…等，第十面就是青天白日滿地紅，國家的名字是 Taiwan。這個主題在教分數，各種顏色在國旗中所佔的比例。難怪作者到芬蘭還沒有遇到過一個不知道台灣的芬蘭人。諸如此類的例子，匯集成一本教科書， 這樣的教育態度和教材，從小養成了芬蘭人作為一個國際公民應有的態度。"

EXCELLENT book 作者: 吳祥輝 出版社: 遠流 出版年: 05/2006

Info about English Version of this book from Agenda Magazine, Finland:

http://www.agendafin.com/article.php?ID=71

teaching planetary science and airplane design in elementary school geometrymerry-go-around as example