Lessons from Chinese Parenting

I just finished the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. As a teacher, I found it very insightful because she has a point about expecting the best of our children/students to show them how much they can achieve. I recommend every teacher read this book.

Several of her quotes are worth noting:

"What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until your good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it its crucial to override thier preference."

"I am here to prepare them for the world, not be their friend."

(I superimposed these two ideas onto what it means to be a teacher when I was at a recent interview for a teaching position.)

"Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetion is underrated in America."

(I think she has a point. I wonder if that strategy plus memorization drills would be effective in the unmotiveted, lower-achieving segment of students.)

In reference to an upcoming festival: "Instead of making kids study from books; private schools are constantly trying to make learning fun by having parent do all the work."

(Very funny. This is counter to what I have been taught about multiple intelligences and educational psychology.)

Computer Games

I have been observing teachers on different campuses and grade levels. I like their use of flash computer games on the internet. The website www.kineticcity.com has simple, colorful science games as does www.multiplication.com. These games help break the monotony of desk work in a fourth grade class. At these grade levels, the children have outgrown the classroom center approach to teaching. They are preparing for the seven period day they will have next year.

These computer games are great motivators for students to practice multiplication and other math skills. They have live competitions with students across the country much like the online poker and scrabble games.

New Wii Game My Fitness Coach 2 Offers Workout Routines and Menus for the Healthy Conscious Consumer

Here is an article I published on the Yahoo! Contributor Network

Have you ever wanted to hire a personal trainer and dietician but not had the money? Well I have and I finally got my all-encompassing electronic fitness coach when I purchased My Fitness Coach 2 for the Wii system.
With its impressive dietary planning guide and individualized fitness routines, this new program is more of a fitness tool than a game. It is eternally reusable as your overall health goals change.
Unlike Wii Fit Plus, the graphics are photographs and videos of real exercise coaches doing individual exercises. Additionally, it is very easy to navigate the program.
When I first logged on, I was surprised to see it uses a simple system of lists in the form of picture panels that line up to create a horizontal menu. Click on the profile panel and then tell the system your primary and secondary health goals. The player has twenty-five health goals to choose from such as weight loss, tone up for a trip, drop a dress size, sports fitness, lower cholesterol, detox, yoga, pilates and body shaping to name only a few. I particularly like the occasion goal After New Year’s which offers a balance of detox exercises and weight loss.
Then, the game creates a sequence of up to nine exercises in flexibility, aerobics and strength training. I didn’t mind that I could not choose specific exercises like in Wii Fit Plus. After all, I wanted the recommended sequences that catered to my specific goals.
The program uses the balance board and the remote. It also tracked my performance. As has become the standard, a scrolling bar cues the player to raise and lower the body during an exercise. However, the program additionally uses a red light-green light feature that gives immediate feedback to the player on how well the exercise repetitions are being performed. Red indicates bad performance, orange indicates improvement and green means good performance.
Unlike Wii Fit Plus, the system uses the board and remote to measure more than just balance. It also measures positions, effort, control, balance, coordination and timing. It tracks these with performance bar graphs at the end of each exercise. Also, instead of a time bank, the player earns awards, gem levels and fitness stars. One drawback is the program does not track weight loss and progress toward a goal as thoroughly as Wii Fit Plus which uses a chart and daily fitness tests.
While the choice of background location for the workout is limited, the system makes up for it by offering special challenges such as dance, army test, boxing and baseball challenges. Also the selection of male and female personal trainers is easy on the eyes.

I really like diet planning feature which is customizable and vegetarian friendly. In the player’s profile, the system first asks what kinds of protein the player eats. It then creates weekly menus with an alternative recipe for each meal in case the player does not like what is selected. The menu part includes a snack between lunch and dinner for those of us who are grazers. I particularly like the weekly grocery list feature. Also, you can opt out of meals if you know you will go out to eat and the grocery list will reflect that.
I give full stars to My Fitness Coach 2 for being a user-friendly program that provides useful, customizable exercise routines and diets.