August 9, 2009

• Affection and Attention for Proper Development

  Dear Folks,

   

  Affection & Attention:

  Affection is good, when you're young, if not always, but essential for proper development in the young.  My youngest one insists on me picking him up and holding him while I type, and carrying him about the house while I do chores.  It is slower, but it works, and my arms are stronger for it.   That, and for the older ones, too, I lavishly laddle loads of affection on my burgeoning brood. 

  Attention from parents to help children find ways in which they excel is critical as well.  My oldest son is really into insects.  We got him a lot of books on that.  My daughter likes art, biking and going places, doing things together. 

  I, like each of my five children, am native Asian, but probably not the kind about which you are thinking.  I teach English here in South Korea, and I therein more easily realize that most people from South Korea do not really mean "a person from Asia" when they say "Asian."  Rather, by "Asia" they mean strictly the Orient:  Japan, Taiwan, South Korea or Mainland China, which not only excludes most of Asia, but throws into the mix two nations which are islands, not even a part of the Asian continent. 

  

  Imitators to Scholarship

  The pressure from parents and teachers to sit with books so many hours here in Taejeon greatly impairs my students' ability to fundamentally learn and develop,as well as to excel in academics, in any meaningful understanding of scholarship(학식). 

  If they had more time for play and sleep, in their youth, not only would my students be more educated (and better with English), but they would go on to produce more patents and garner more coveted scholarly prizes as adults.   

  Mulling things in your head while playing, in freedom (not the rigid parameters of what you get in "playing" soccer, computer games or signing up for a dance or padook hagwon), allows your brain to absorb and use knowledge properly, and buddy it sticks, is useful for retrieval at any subsequent time.  (For example, I had a buddy in the army once exclaim to me that he couldn't say how many times he would be climbing a wall to get away from the cops, or an angry husband and suddenly remember the Pythagorean Theorem in order to figure out where next to put his hand or foot for maximum leverage ... which reminds me that the best place to buy your everyday juggling needs here in South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm, is a flower by the same name:  www.handfoot.co.kr.  Whudduyuhknow?  Small world, huh?)

  

  Au contraire, sitting in front of books all day with no sense of self in freedom makes it exceedingly difficult for the brain to make sense of any facts crammed into it, and leaves the jumble of facts virtually useless in later life, only there to foment despair. 

  Suffice it to say that here in Taejeon, South Korea, we need to learn to allow children to play, which means fathers need to come home from work on time to take kids to the parks and other places for safety in monitoring, which would require that they drink less.  And mothers would have to stay home more from coffee shops and shopping in order to be around the house when children are not at a series of hagwons all afternoon and into the evenings.  At least that is what would be needed here in this part of Taejeon.  Hopefully other places are not so bad. 

  

  Down by the River:

  Yesterday, we went out for a bike ride, down by the river.  I shall include some photos here. 

  I tell you what, my youngest son does indeed like to dance.  Whenever he hears music, he starts moving.  It's beautiful.  Maybe he got it from me; I used to dance a lot, and still do some with two of my young ones, those who took ballet.  I, too, took ballet and modern dance, my first p.e. class in college, at UNC-CH.  It was a lot of fun, but I quickly realized then and there that I had waited too long, with a body that was way too stiff to become a professional dancer.

   

   

  • 12:15 am
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