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There are several aspects of this question I could address: how did my Chinese mother affect my self esteem, my academics. It would sound quite similar to some of the reaction I already see here, so I won't go into it further than to state that yes, she used similar humiliation tactics and enforced repetition; yes, it had a resounding negative effect in my self esteem which has been softened through the positive reinforcement of my peers; unclear how it has affected my academics, as I am still exploring what I want to do with myself professionally. Also, for the sake of background, I'll say that I have worked hard since my young 20's to cultivate my relationship with my parents into a more adult dialogue... Don't know how successful I've been, but I am on speaking terms with them.What I've not really seen discussed is how it affects you as a mother. For me, once I got over the knee jerk pit in my stomach feeling of dredging up the bad memories, i felt awful for a different reason. I felt judged. Thanks to the tone of the article, I already felt as if she/my parents were judging me for being an ungrateful daughter, (the ends justify the means, don't they? Who cares if I was scared stiff of my parents, and hated myself, I am a successful person!) but on top of that, I am judged to be a soft, incompetent mother, not willing to put in the hard work that is required to bring out the best in my 2 year old son. He's doomed.I think that is what I hate most about this article.... let me stand on my soapbox for a minute, and I'll get to how it applies to the question. We are all judged to be soft, and in turn we all judge her to be a terrible mother, and this vicious cycle just keeps going. Being a parent is HARD. It's even harder when relatives are states, countries away. To borrow a cliche, it takes a village to raise a child, and in this day and age, that village extends to whatever community parents can reach to, Internet included. I know the article was meant to generate PR for her book, but that doesn't mean it isn't contributing to the overall parenting dialogue, and this is NOT a productive way to start a dialogue about parenting techniques. Instead, it adds fuel to the already insufferable 'mommy wars'. I'm not saying that we shouldn't ever judge... Neglectful parents and downright abusive parents should be called out and those kids helped. But everyone, including Amy Chua, including us, could probably stand to take a step back and realize that one only sees through one's own eyes, and can't possibly truly stand in another's shoes.I think that is what I've learned most in my decades long struggle with my parents. I wish they would judge my actions kindly, and so I try to judge them kindly even if they are not always as charitable as me. I hope my son will learn to do the same. And, partly thanks to my son, I know with absolute certainty that my parents love me, even if they don't ever say it, and for that I am grateful, despite any old resentments I may have. And I do love them back, even if I don't exactly have a lot of respect for the whole filial piety schpiel.I wonder what percentage of first generation kids that have been raised this way in turn use this technique for their kids. Obviously, I won't be. After all, I'm married to the proof that parents who use positive reinforcement, NEVER spank, and who respect their children's feelings, do raise successful children. (and no, this is not the equivalent to the stereotypical Western parent who is tries to be best friends with the kid and doesn't discipline at all.) My husband is the eldest son of California bred Americans, was raised to have a healthy questioning attitude (not quite disrespect) toward authority, went on long camping trips with his family and boy scout troop, quit piano at 13 (his own decision), had sleepovers, played video games since he was 5, etc... and went on to do a ph.d. in the sciences at an ivy league. His resume is a Chinese parent's wet dream. And yet, his upbringing is a very stark contrast to mine. Who do you think had a happier childhood, and has a healthy open relationship with parents to this day?But there I go, judging again.Edited to clarify: If being a mother myself has taught me anything, it is that my own experience and choices are unique to me, and my husband's experiences are unique to him, and one has to have the entire story to really understand it. That is why we should all judge kindly. And so I will build on my experience, and on my husband's (since I have known him and his family for over a decade, and he is an equal partner in raising my son) to decide how to discipline and encourage my son. And only my husband and I have the right to make that decision: we know him best, and can integrate what we learned from our upbringing to apply it to his own personality. Not every parenting style works for every kid. It's up to the parent to make the judgement call. That is why being a parent is so hard. There is no precedent to your own child.

Ask a dozen people to answer this question, and you'll get a dozen different answers. You asked a slightly different and better question than most, though. Most people ask "How can we improve education" - which isn't actually quite the same thing.You want the changes that will most benefit students. Okay. Let's talk about that. I give you:Fletcher's 5 Step Model to Improve Education (For students)(Which is different than Fletcher's 5 Step Model to Improve Education for Teachers, or to Improve Education Overall)End the War of Differentiation vs. Standardization Once and For All - There's a largely under-the-radar war going on in education, and it's very rarely talked about, even amongst teachers: the higher you go in educational echelons, the more of a push for standardization you'll see. The further down towards the classroom teachers you go, the more of a push for differentiation you'll see. (Note that differentiation is defined as "tailoring the curriculum specifically to the needs of an individual student" while standardization is defined as " doing things in the same manner for everyone, assuring the same treatment for everyone" for purposes of this exercise. No politics, please.This is a very well-known image amongst educators and non-educators alike, but despite its simple logic, education tends to ignore the idea. Nationally, we have a huge drive for standardization, and every state administers a series of tests that everyone takes, usually on the same day at the same time. In many states, they're even phasing out alterations to the test for students with unusual capabilities. Yes, in two years I can look forward to my son - who is autistic with sharply limited communication skills - taking the same state standardized tests in English and Reading as a typical student, as a student who has gifts in writing that have been encouraged and tutored since age three. My son will undoubtedly plumb the bottom of the test, with no meaningful measurement possible. The middle student will get a fair and accurate reading. The gifted writer will score within the error deviation level at the top of the test, and as a result, have no more meaningful a measure than my son did - he scores so highly the test basically fails to measure his skills. (Imagine putting a pedometer on a Ferrari - I see it all the time with the kids I teach.)And yet, when this simple example demonstrates the problem, state and national education imperatives choose to ignore it, because it is politically inconvenient in the extreme for them to do otherwise.At the classroom level, when teachers sit down to talk "what's good in education" with other teachers, we discuss exactly the opposite: that you do what's best for the kid; that you meet them where they are and that you bring them as far as they can go. Differentiation is about recognizing Johnny will pick up the information faster if you explain it like this, and Suzy will assimilate the point you're making more effectively if you handle it like that.The counterargument, of course, is that "Well, as long as Johnny and Suzy both learn the same thing, we can still test them the same way." Sure. Except that while an engineer and a theorist both understand the Newton's First Law, if you ask them to demonstrate their understanding, they're going to go about it very different ways. So will a chef, a construction worker, and a politician....well. Wait. Probably not the politician.Until top-down educational directives stop trying to push factory-based educational techniques while bottom-up education tries to focus on specific, deliberate educational decisions, students will continue to suffer.Embrace Technology - It Is Not An Educational Bubonic PlagueTechnology is pervasive, spreads rapidly between students, destroys the current paradigm, and completely changes how the classroom functions....now hang on; was I describing education or a horrible, wasting disease?A big problem in education at the moment is that educators are divided sharply into two camps: those who desperately want technology to go away so they can remain teachers, and those who desperately want more technology in schools so they can continue being educators. Free admission: I'm an educator, and I make no apologies.Some adults in classrooms view themselves as teachers. It is their job to pour out the information, to interest the students in gathering in that information, and to encourage students to remember that information. Teachers, invariably, are becoming more and more frustrated with what they do. This is because while education is vital, teaching is obsolete. Google has replaced any and all need for information dispersal. We need teachers who can teach students to use the internet. That's about it. What we do need, though, are educators.An educator doesn't give out information; they show students how to examine it. An educator isn't in the business of telling you what is, rather, they're in the business of encouraging you to question if "what is, should be." An educator doesn't tell you how to find information, they provide you with the skills to check the validity of what you've found. Every subject area faces this dilemma, and every subject area is handling it differently. (My subject - English - in particular is embroiled in a veritable civil war on the topic.)For teachers, technology confounds, distracts, disrupts and destroys.For educators technology enlightens, enables, provides and pushes.One is the way of the past, and the other the future - but like so many other "Old Guard" methods in the world, the old way is not going to go quietly into the night.And until teaching stops raging at the dying of the light, youths with their natural inclination towards the new will suffer the consequences.Education Is More than Lecture/Deliver and Listen/Receive(Or why Game-Based Learning Really is a Thing)Many of the things I've said above are also true about another aspect of technology (and in fact is a large part of why so many teachers struggle to convert to becoming educators) - that of games and online gaming.Here we have a medium that makes even the most inattentive students sit with rapt, focused attention. It makes students read FAQS and walkthroughs waaaaay above their reading level. It forces them to analyze and min-max numbers to an extreme to find the best possible way to handle things. They have to plan, analyze, deduce, react, form hypothesis, evaluate those hypothesis, form new ones....Doesn't this all sound amazing? What a great educational medium!Except for some reason it's not, because it involves cartoon characters and things going "splort" as the explode. If you described what students do with games as an educational technique and changed the word "Game" to {$RandomEducationalJargon} you could make millions selling a book on it:Until the teachers saw what you were talking about.Adults in the current age are absolutely conditioned, for the most part, to view games as valueless, largely because children act so differently when engaged with them. The average LoL Pro is doing more mental math and prediction/analysis/synthesis in a single match than most students do in a month. Planning builds and analyzing down to multiple decimals the accuracy of a choice is very much part of what they do....but for some reason, education views games as a bane. They're uncontrollable, they're unacademic, they're unsafe, etc.And yet.I can teach any gamer how to read and analyze author's intent with a gaming article, any day. I can use Kotaku and Gamergate to talk about different points of view, debate skills, logical fallacies, and societal perceptions (and evolutions of perceptions) in a way that any gamer will stay rock-solid focused on from beginning to end. It will be relevant and real to them, two of the biggest keys to increasing student knowledge retention.To benefit students, education needs to recognize and accept the tremendous power that games have to education's primary audience.We can adapt it to our dark purposes, twist it to our nefarious ends, break it to our foul, miasmic educational will, if we but try.Quickly now. Is this image related to what you just read, or what you're about to read?Keep Politics Out of the ClassroomAsk anyone to name a prominent current scientist and you'll hear Neil's name, maybe Stephen's....okay, you might have to ask a few people, but chances are those names will come up.Ask about a prominent athlete, politician, religious figure, auto manufacturer, psychologist, drug rep (even if he is a horrible person), you name it: people will generally be able to give you the name of someone prominent.Ask about a prominent teacher, and if I gave you 100 dollars for every one they named, and you gave me two-fiddy for every interviewee that gave you a blank look, I'd be a very wealthy man before we crossed half the country.Politicians of all levels and stripes know this: education is the free, safe punching bag of politics. If all else fails and you have nothing else to agitate your population about, education is the safe fallback option. Need more votes? Damn those teachers! Still need more votes? Look at these test results!Remember kids: when you make the rules determining what's passing and failing AND you can use that data to stir up motivation in your constituency, we call that a conflict of interest.You never see educators in politics - something about it just doesn't work - and when politicians get involved in education, it never goes well because they're mucking with a thing they fundamentally don't understand. So educational appointments usually go to cronies, or to vote-gathering strategies. Think I'm kidding? Check this out:Texas governor picks home-schooler to lead state Board of EducationYep. You got it. The current pick, her kids never, ever went to a public school in Texas. She's going to be calling the shots for the entire state. Even other members of the school board - Republican ones, lest you cry partisan politics - are going, "...dude? Um. Really? Hang on now."No joke. Read the article. S'good stuff. Zero interaction with the system. Running it.Gang, most teachers, if faced with a question about politics in class, will give out the specific facts and then refuse to discuss their own personal perceptions. I'll discuss the McCain-Obama election in terms of their use of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos, but I won't tell you who I think should have won. I lived in Palm Beach County, Florida, when Bush was elected over Gore, and I'll explain the confusion and the accusations. I'll even break down the Electoral College and how it works - but my students still won't know which way my chad was hung. (Yes, I meant to do that.)Are there exceptions amongst teachers that DO push children around ideologically? Sure. There are also priests who...wait. Bad example. There are cops who...no. That won't do either. Boy Scout troop lea...dang. This is hard.Here's the thing: there are bad apples in every profession, but until education stops being a whipping boy, we'll continue to have to pivot the foundations of how education works every 4 or 8 years to please whoever used us as a punching bag until the next election.If you want to benefit students, stay off the backs of the people you entrust with them, or at least involve them in the discussion when you want to make changes to how they do things.Finally, Bury the Coffin of Memorization-and-MimeographMimeographs, for you non-old-codgers amongst us, was what made the earliest versions of worksheets. There are still some teachers and some systems - more notably leading towards high school, which tends to be the most resistant to change - that place a high value on memorization and doing things "in the classic way." I've already belabored this above, but in most places, this practice is tolerated and ignored in the elder teachers who still do it. There's a variety of reasons: tenure, respected-teacher-in-the-faculty, parents-remember-learning-from-this-guy-so-we-don't-dare-push-about-it, the lack of any unified educational doctrine (despite so many different pushes), etc, etc. To be fair, administrators have enough to do that they can't really chase down every case, but tolerance of "the old ways" is much too prevalent in education.Want to benefit students? Let me lay it out for you in three words:Education must evolve.

The Polish Scout Organisation was officially established in 1910.My father was a member of the Polish Scout Organisation, when he was younger.Polish Scouting organisations generally follow military traditions, customs and disciplines, and are trained somewhat like Army Reservists.Older Polish Scouts formally participated in Polish war efforts as members of defense militia and engaged in Polish underground operations such as uprisings, sabotage, armed resistance and circulation of various war propaganda. Younger Scouts dropped leaflets and painted the ‘Kotwica’ sign (a WW2 emblem which represented the Polish Underground State) on various infrastructure.Kotwica:Siege of Lwów:I have copied and pasted the following article, which I have found on the Internet:Did You Know? Poland’s Boy Scouting Association formed a resistance army in WWII & fought in the Warsaw Uprising, assassinated SS officials & liberated a concentration camp?‘Gray Ranks’ was a codename for the underground paramilitary Polish Scouting Association during World War II.The wartime organisation was created on 27 September 1939, actively resisted and fought German occupation in Warsaw until 18 January 1945, and contributed to the resistance operations of the Polish Underground State. Some of its members (Grupy Szturmowe — the Storm Groups) were among the Home Army’s best-trained troops. Though formally independent, the Gray Ranks worked closely with the Government Delegation for Poland and Home Army Headquarters. The Gray Ranks had their own headquarters, the Naczelnictwo, manned by five or six persons.Since its organization in 1916, scouts within the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego, ZHP) had taken active part in all the conflicts Poland was engaged in around this time: Great Poland Uprising, Polish-Bolshevik War, Silesian Uprisings, and thePolish–Ukrainian War. After the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis recognized the ZHP as a threat. Polish Scouts and Guides were branded as criminals and banned.Under the leadership of Florian Marciniak, the ZHP carried on as a clandestine organization. The wartime Scouts evolved into the paramilitary Szare Szeregi (Gray Ranks), reporting up through the Polish underground state and the Armia Krajowa resistance.The codename Szare Szeregi was adopted in 1940. It was first used by underground scouting in Poznań. The name was coined after an early action of the Polish Scouting Association, in which boy scouts distributed propaganda leaflets among Germans from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia who had settled in the homes of Poles expelled to the General Government. To create confusion, the leaflets had been signed SS — later expanded to Szare Szeregi, a name that came to be adopted by the entire organization.Older Scouts carried out sabotage, armed resistance, and assassinations. The Girl Guides formed auxiliary units working as nurses, liaisons and munition carriers. Younger Scouts were involved in so-called minor sabotage under the auspice of the Wawer organization, which included dropping leaflets or painting the kotwica sign on the walls. During Operation Tempest, and especially during the Warsaw Uprising, the Scouts participated in the fighting, and several Szare Szeregi units were some of the most effective in combat. The Gray Ranks also included the White Couriers, who between late fall 1939 and mid-1940 helped smuggle many persons out of Soviet-occupied southeastern Poland into Hungary.In 1940, the Soviet Union executed most of the Boy Scouts held at Ostashkov prison.In 1945 the ZHP restored its former name and returned to public existence. However, the communist authorities of Poland pressured the organization to become a member of the Pioneer Movement and eventually it was banned in 1949.The Combat Schools (Bojowe Szkoły) comprised youngsters aged 15 to 17. They took part in “small-sabotage” operations. These included propaganda operations directed at the Poles, German civilians and German military units. The best-known operations were:Operation Wawer-Palmiry — a major propaganda campaign which included painting patriotic and anti-German slogans on walls (see also kotwica); distribution of leaflets, posters stickers, and fake issues of supposed German newspapers; intercepting German propaganda megaphones and using them to spread Polish propaganda; destroying German flags and other symbols; disrupting German events by setting off fire alarms; and, last but not least, stink-bombing German-operated movie theaters. Probably the best-known action was the removal of a German-language plaque that had been attached by the Germans to theNicolaus Copernicus Monument in Warsaw, claiming the astronomer for the German nation.Operation N — the distribution of propaganda newspapers and leaflets among German soldiers stationed in Poland.Operation WISS (Wywiad – Informacja Szarych Szeregów — Grey Ranks Intelligence) — an operation on behalf of Home Army intelligence, in which Combat Schools groups carried out surveillance of German military units and their movements. The information that was gathered was passed on to the Allies. The operation provided the Allies with complete lists of German units, their insignia and approximate complements, including units down to battalion size.Other famous operations included marking street lamps as “Nur für Deutsche” (“Only for Germans”), implying that those who hanged people would themselves be hanged (from street lamps). Other operations occurred after the Germans began destroyingmonuments to Polish national heroes and historical personalities. These included a monument to Jan Kiliński, leader of an 18th-century Warsaw uprising against the Russians during the Kościuszko Uprising. The Germans dismantled the monument and placed it in the cellars of the former National Museum, for delivery to a German steel mill. The scouts were notified of where the monument was hidden and overnight marked the walls of the former museum, “People of Warsaw! I am here. Kiliński”.As part of their secret training, the Combat Schools boys and girls prepared for service with the Home Army as members of commanders’ troops, communication units, and reconnaissance units. During the Warsaw Uprising, Combat Schools units in Warsaw’s Downtown District formed a company; in other districts, they formed platoons.The Assault Groups (Grupy Szturmowe), comprising youngsters aged 17 and up, were directly subordinate to the Home Army’sKeDyw (Directorate of Diversion). The groups trained at secret NCO schools and officer schools for commanders of motorised and engineering units. Most members also studied at underground universities, to gain knowledge necessary to reconstruct Poland after the war. The best-known NCO schools included Warsaw’s Agricola.The assault groups took part in “major sabotage”, including armed struggle against the occupiers. The assault groups formed the backbone of the Home Army’s special troops. They liberated prisoners from German prisons and transports, blew up railroad bridges, carried out executions ordered by special courts, and fought pitched battles against German forces.The assault groups in Warsaw were organised into several battalions, including the famous “Baszta“, “Zośka“, “Parasol” and “Wigry“, which later took part in the Warsaw Uprising and were among the most notable and successful units on the Polish side. Other units, mainly in the Radom-Kielce area, joined the partisan units operating in the forests of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains.Notable assault-group operations included:Operation Arsenal (March 26, 1943), the liberation of the gravely wounded Jan Bytnar and 24 other prisoners from a GestapoconvoyOperation Schultz (May 6, 1943), the assassination of SS-Obersturmführer Herbert SchultzOperation Lange (May 22, 1943), the assassination of SS-Rottenführer Ewald LangeOperation Belt (August 1943 – February 1944), the destruction of thirteen German border outpostsOperation Bürkl (September 7, 1943), the assassination of SS-Oberscharführer Franz BürklOperation Kutschera (February 2, 1944), the assassination of SS and Police Leader Franz KutscheraStorming and liberation of Gęsiówka concentration camp in Warsaw (August 5, 1944)Older Emblem from the 1950s:The current Emblem design:Scouting Anthem (Hymn Harcerski):PolishWszystko co nasze Polsce oddamy,w niej tylko życie, więc idziem żyć,świty się bielą, otwórzmy bramy.Rozkaz wydany: Wstań! W słońce idź!Ramię pręż, słabość krusz,ducha tęż ojczyźnie miłej służ!Na Jej zew w bój czy w trud,pójdzie rad harcerzy polskich ród!Harcerzy polskich ród!EnglishEverything we have we give to Poland,She is our life, so we go to liveThe dawn is rising, let's open the gates,We have our order: Stand up! Into the sun!Toughen yourself, crush your weaknesses,Exert your soul to serve the homeland!On her call to the battle or to help,Glad goes the kindred of Polish Scouts and Guides!Kindred of Polish Scouts and Guides!