Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Article: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior to Western Mothers

Yes, yes, and much more extreme.

I wonder where the author grew up/raised her children. I know many who grew up in this type of household. However, the majority are from rural areas. Also, I believe rather than "Chinese Mothers" it should be immigrant families and the first few generations.

I do agree that most like playing pieces after they become "easy." There are few students, as least the young ones, who enjoy practicing.

I was 8 when I was first taken to a piano lesson. The reason my mom took me there was because I had begun playing tunes by ear on a little toy keyboard that my Aunt had gifted me. I loved playing for people when they came over to visit. My parents didn't know a thing about Western Classical music or the tradition of piano studies or whatever. They had heard of this Anglo-Indian lady nearby who offered lessons and so I was fortunate enough to get started in the right direction. My first book was John Thompson.

I didn't have a piano at home. It was way too expensive for us. I had lessons everyday for the first year though. The lessons started 10 minutes after school closing time. My mom and I would run to the lesson (we didn't have a car then and the piano lesson was not far enough for public transportation and there wasn't any for that distance). We would run and make it just in time. The teacher wouldn't let us in if we were late by 1 minute. Needless to say, I got tired of all the running at 8 years of age after school. We then moved to another State where I found a better teacher at a music academy. I now went there every day to practice. My parents didn't even know how well I progressed. They trusted my teacher with that and he did a good job as far as I was concerned. I didn't progress as well as the students of the teachers here probably progress because most teachers in my country are not half as qualified as you guys are. However I was lucky to have the best available teacher then.

All the things I did in my life, starting at the age of 8, was the result of my own decisions. My parents supported me in whatever ways they could. I wanted to go study the piano in college but I had to go outside the country to do that (no western music programs in college in our country) and our financial situation just wasn't right (and my parents were going through a divorce) and I also wasn't prepared enough to get admitted to a decent enough music program. So that dream ended there and I went on to study Physics, also of my own accord. As a child, I had most fun doing two things: playing the piano and playing chess. I played chess competitively until the age of 14 or so and then I had to choose between them as time was limited with increasing academic responsibilities. I chose the piano.

So as an Asian kid (not Chinese though), I enjoyed my music and my chess because they were my choice completely. My parents didn't bother about my grades in school either. In our country the 10th grade and the 12th grade final exams are the most important ones in our school lives. The school conducts model exams prior to that and advises parents based on what the model exams indicate. My math teachers called up my Mother and told her that I would fail the 12th grade test. My mother was worried but I think she trusted me enough not to bother me about it. I ended up getting a 97% on that exam, and it was the second highest score in the school. From my experience, these so called "methods" employed by schools and Asian parents (as described in this article) don't necessarily represent the best approach to education. I believe in giving a lot more freedom to the students. Since I was lucky enough to experience that freedom, I intend to make that available for my kids too. I don't care if people call me lax. I know what I'm doing. I think you American parents are doing just fine!

Well, it got everyone's attention, didn't it? She has a book to sell, what publicity!

I think the author is definitely very extreme. The Asian kids that I know from my kids' school all seem to have play dates, watch TV, play video games (sometimes way too much). Most learn piano, but many stay away from violin when picking an orchestral instrument because the competition will be too fierce later on. Most do sports. So...

I am not even talking about the secondary education. Any teacher (even a bad one) is capable of teaching primary level math/science. I still think it's the curriculum to blame. Have you heard of the term "new math" (IMO a terrible curriculum)? That's the main reason we switched from the charter school to local school.
How many 4th grade kids still can't get the basic skills right? There is a reason American students' test score on math/science ranks behind so many countries.
I even read somewhere that more than half of US engineering graduate students were born in other countires.

Haha, how about this?
Being unmarried after a certain age is socially unacceptable in most Asian culture......

http://nyc.gov/html/nycmg/nyctvod/html/home/aa_marriage_pressure.html

What? You've got to be kidding me. Why would I want a "bad" teacher to teach my kids math and science? You are so joking.

By the way, the payscale is the same for primary and secondary education in the US. Both dismal compared to all the other professions requiring similar level of education.



Of course! That's the dumbest thing ever invented, beside the concept of "open classrooms." Still, I would argue that if you re-invented the payscale, public schools would attract much more qualified teachers to teach math and science.

Okay, this is getting off-topic.

I hope I won't get yelled at this:
Maybe we can all go and buy her book and read and make sure that we won't treat our children the same way that she suggested in her book.....

Any culture or sub-culture (not only Asian, not only American, but anywhere) that has as one of its main rules "hard work is the only way to success" has to be very careful and conscious about how it defines "hard work" and how it defines "success". Sadly, this is not usually the case.

By any measurements except stress & anxiety, learning to play the piano is not hard work. In fact, if it's hard, you're doing it wrong. Intentionally creating stress and anxiety as a means of making easy work seem hard, in order to fulfill a false prophecy, is harmful.

Either a direct personal memory, or a cultural-conditioning memory, that leads a parent to say "I did not (or, we do not) achieve success without hard work; therefore my child must be made to work hard also" is missing an extremely important point: namely, that in some fields, music among them, hard work brings only wasted time and failure. What is needed is intelligent, patient, truly productive work, without the distraction and harm that come from artificially-created pain.

There is enough legitimate pain in the world. Every child will suffer in life. It will not "do them good" for you to add extra pain, nor will it "teach them about the real world" - unless what you really want them to learn is "first, crush your parents; the rest of the world will be easy by comparison". Teach your children how to succeed, and what success is, by setting a good example. Let them decide if the work is hard.

You don't need to buy her book to learn how to avoid her methods.

David, well put. Thank you for writing that.

What I meant is with a curriculum similar to ones in Asian countries, it would be hard to screw up by a teacher (even a bad one). Primary level math is not rocket science.



With the "new math" curriculum, it would be hard to prepare kids for secondary level without any extra supplements (even the teacher is a great one). The "new math" doesn't even ask students to memorize the time table.

Just curious how do you teach your children how to succeed? And what if they decide the work is hard (like 30 min daily piano practice)?

1. By setting a good example, just as I said.

2. If 30 min daily piano practice is hard, why is it hard? Without the correct answer(s) to that question (different answer in each student's situation), any attempt to fix the problem will have a high probability of failing. Example: if piano practice is hard because the child has bad eyes and can't see, no amount of encouragement or explaining will help him.

I can see that you're a very good teacher, David!

Just curious where you are located that this "new math" is taught? We have experiences with two school districts in the area as well as a few private schools and every single one of them focuses heavily on memorizing multiplication tables.

From my own personal experience with my kids, I would lean towards having a better teacher with weaker curriculum vs worse teachers with better curriculum. We've experienced both and from that definitely prefer the former vs the latter.

The range of responses to parenting are of course interesting and diverse. Being the parent of two very different kiddos, it seems apparent to me that there is no "one" way that works best in all cases, no matter how good it sounds. Heck, as kids age a parent has to be able to also change their parenting style as necessary. I'm always dubious of anyone who says "I will raise my kids like X" as if it were written in stone that X is the "best" way, regardless of what X happens to be.

The Chicago Math method ("Everyday Math") used in many districts explicitly frowns on memorizing multiplication tables and other drills. My kids' teachers all independently supplemented the official curriculum with lots of drills and memorization just to remedy that gap.

1 piano practice may be easy, but doing it day after day could be hard. I call daily piano practice hardwork (compared to watching TV, playing video games, etc). How many kids can do daily practice on their own without reminding? My son loves playing piano once he is on the bench and he is used to daily practice (part of his routine). But sometimes I still need to remind him that it's practice time.

Anyone interested in "new math" curriculum (everryday Math is one of them), check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

There's nothing at all wrong with reminding a young student (and I mean simply reminding and not getting into a big fight) that he needs to practice. That has almost nothing to do with this topic.

In fact, once in a while there might be a fight. Kids are kids after all. But serious fights, or frequent fights, means something is wrong and it's necessary to find out what that is.

The "hard" part of piano practice is not the practice itself. The "hard" part is "sit down on the piano bench now, open your book to the proper page, and start". Ask your grandfather if that is hard work.

It does take a willingness to keep at it, and a lot of time. But in my book, that does not equal hard work. For me, piano is a heck of a lot easier, and a lot more fun, than Super Mario.

I watched with great interest (I'm also a Maths tutor at the moment). I can see what the new maths is getting at and in some ways it's quite laudable but I doubt the curriculum time is available to do anything other than hobble kids. Times tables are indispensable - all my tutees suffer from lack of fluency because of poor primary teaching in this area. It's like trying to understand music without knowing your scales and arpeggios.