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October 27, 2011
Here We Are
The other night after she got 40% on her reading test, both of us told her adamantly how she needed to score 100% on the next few tests in order to bring up the average to 85%.
I couldn't sleep well that night. The next morning, I told her that it is far more important that she likes to read, and reads whatever interests her, and that test scores are not that important. I told her not to score 0% because that would be really bad. Even when I failed my actuarial exams, I never scored 0 - I told her that. Yes I have decided to passively avoid AR testing. I didn't like it when the teacher introduced it. I thought that would be the quickest way to kill the love for reading.
And then I am not sure a good approach to raising a child. Aren't you supposed to have high expectations? I am not sure where to draw the line.
My issue with this is that her intelligence was tested above normal (if you believe in that kind of stuff), and I see that she put into lots of efforts, but her performance is not reliable. All it says to me is that she will struggle in school. It won't be fun because there are like at least 10 more years to go. It is very painful to watch your child struggle through life.
So I thought that if I saved up $600,000 in today's money, she could draw $18,000 a year to exist. That is the poverty level for a household of 3 in this country. But she could live well in South America on that money. Or SE Asia. Or go work for the state of CA like a friend suggested.
By the way, she got a 80% and 100% on her AR tests this week. And she was able to catch the ball twice in an away game last week. I haven't quite figured her out yet. I did ask her if she wanted to do more volleyball in the spring, she said yes because she wanted to keep doing it until she is good at it. In many ways, she is a better person than either of her parents.
Posted by Mike at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2011
Dark Thoughts
If I were a child today, I would kill myself.
My god, how depressing is today's childhood? She took her reading test the other day and she scored 60%. She needs to score above 85% to be considered on target.
We told her that maybe she should read the book more than once before she takes the test. So she read Seabiscuit four times. She took the test today and got 40%.
It is exasperating. I am seriously consider moving to a different country altogether. Granted, all countries test their children, but at least the teachers [in the other countries] are actually teaching the average students, not fussing over other non-education stuff.
She is really not good at anything. Her grandma thinks she has artistic talents, but I have seen other children's work, hers is average.
Then there is the dancing. She likes to wear the costumes at the recitals, so she doesn't really put in extra effort to be really good at dancing. Again average.
Chinese school... what can you exactly do there? I supposed if you are really good at Chinese, you can go work in China someday?
Volleyball... she is terrible at it. She can't catch a ball! She has been playing since August, and she can only catch a ball twice.
Oh yeah, the arithmetic... pretty lousy. She can't do additions and subtractions fast enough.
It starts to get quite depressing. I have no idea what kind of future she can have. If she decides to join Occupy Wall Student youths, I don't blame her. This country is not kind to the averages.
Posted by Mike at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)