24 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
Whew! I’ve been avoiding this blog, afraid that Jenna had a slew of posts and comments up. Good! You don’t! I’ve been busy with children, AWC, chores, and Jane Eyre. I haven’t read Tiger Mother in over a week. I’m going to read it tonight, though. Maybe even finish it. But, I will say a few words on part 2 first. If nothing else, Amy Chua knows how to create suspense. Like, I kept putting off giving Teddy and Phoebe a bath because I wanted to find out if Lulu got into the pre-College program!
I also loved Sophia’s essay on playing the Romeo and Juliet song. That is excellent writing, eh? I don’t know enough about music to really judge the type of songs they play. But, I know enough about writing to know that Sophia’s essay is very good. So, Amy’s ambitions that her daughters be #1 in their classes seem to paying off there, at least. And, again, I don’t know anything about private schools, but I’m sure Sophia’s writing teachers have usually been quite good. I do admire Amy’s idea that, since she can’t force her children to be poor immigrants, she can at least force them to work hard on their music. So many kids (myself included, unfortunately) never worked that hard in high school. I always found it difficult to write about my experiences. Part of it was immaturity, but part was that I didn’t have a story about something I had overcome: my parents were happily married, we weren’t poor, there wasn’t anything really “different” about me, and I had never really worked that hard on anything. Now, age 33, I’m much more mature and able to see the bigger picture. Motherhood has helped, for sure. It’s something hard that I’m working on.
As an aside: this evening I was sitting outside my classroom at AWC while my students evaluated me. During that time, I saw several student athletes walk by, talking loudly. I saw only two students go into the “Student Success Center.” They were both Asian.
Finally, there’s a new book on my radar: My Korean Deli by Ben (ah, yes, Ben) Ryder Howe. I think this might be somewhat related to Tiger Mother. I definitely want to read it.
