Uchihakula
[Tịch thu bằng lái]
- Biển số
- OF-588145
- Ngày cấp bằng
- 3/9/18
- Số km
- 363
- Động cơ
- 138,615 Mã lực
Đây là bài viết của tôi. Vì nội dung dài và hiện nay tôi đang bận nên chưa có thời gian dịch. Khoản giữa tháng 1 mới có thời gian dịch, cụ có thể quay lại sau để xem bản dịch tiếng Việt của tôi. Tạm thời, CCCM có thể dùng Google translate dịch sơ lược để đọc trước.
Bài 4: How I would get my kid into Top 10 US universities in 12 years (Part 4: grades 7 & 8)
Grade 7: Nurture compassion
According to Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development, the Formal Operational stage, the fourth and final stage begins at approximately 12 years old or when kids are entering grade 7. Kids at this stage become capable of abstract thinking, formulating mental hypothesis and figuring systematic way to arrive at the answer.
For such, hypothetical questions such as “What would happen if I do that?” or “What if it happens to me?” surface more often than factual questions like “What is the biggest planet in the solar system?”. This budding mental capability to think in more external and fictional contexts makes it possible for parents to foster one of the most critical characteristics of emotional intelligence and later success in life, be it high school, college, or job: compassion.
Compassion actually includes smaller component feelings: first pity, then sympathy, next empathy, and finally compassion.
To illustrate the difference between these feelings, imagine you share with your kid a sad story about your friend who got into a car accident and must stay in hospital for a month.
If your kid refuses to even listen, he lacks pity. If he has pity, he would have look at you attentively to hear about others’ hardship and suffering.
If your kid pays attention but shows no concern on his face or his words, he lacks sympathy – care for others’ feeling
If your kid shows concern but did not relate on how he would feel if it was him in similar situation, for example, if he did not say something like “I once broke my finger, and it hurt a lot. Mom’s friend must have been really hurt” or “I know how bad it is unable to go out for a long time. Mom’s friend is probably really sad and frustrated.”, then the kid lacks empathy – the ability to feel the feeling of others.
Finally, if every time you mention a sad or unfortunate situation, and the kid shows concern but does not offer a visit or a help of some kind, then he lacks compassion.
All these feeling abilities matter for a normal development of a human being and serve as a motivation for your kid to act upon the need or plight of others. Without compassion, who is going to start a book drive for impoverished Sichuan school districts? Without compassion, who is going to volunteer to help autistic children or orphans?
As you can see, compassion is at the root of social club and activities, the hallmark of a holistic and strong college applicant’s profile.
So how can parents teach their kids compassion?
I have touched upon the general approach to teaching in earlier writings in this series: through examples (parents themselves exhibiting compassion) and readings (buy books on compassion for the kids). There are two other methods:
a. Work on charity/compassion projects with your kid: be it a book drive, fundraiser for charity, volunteer, or whatever, do it together and chat with your kids about your works while you were doing it (talk about the purpose and how the benefactors of such activities would feel) and even at the end of the day to review. Early practice in charity projects help get the kid familiarize himself with the operations of such projects and get head start in activity development. You won’t believe how many kids come to me asking for my opinion on the idea of organizing volunteer group in their Grade 11. My answer: it’s late, but better be late than having nothing.
b. Share stories where you help others or where others help you and ask your kid to do the same to you. By repeating and highlighting the interdependency of individuals in our society, parents and children help each other strengthen the notion that their pity, empathy, sympathy, and compassion help themselves as much as others.
Grade 8: Achieve a foreign language proficiency
Puberty is not just a critical acquisition period of motivation and morality but also of foreign languages. In fact, “there is much debate over the timing of the critical period with respect to SLA, with estimates ranging between 2 and 13 years of age. These estimates tend to vary depending on what component of the language learning process a researcher considers.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis). In general, the later one starts picking up a second language, the harder it is to master that second language and to pick up more languages later.
I personally was exposed to French and Spanish as early as 4 years old thanks to my dad’s love for music in Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Later, I started learning French officially in 1st grade (6 years old), English in 7th grade (12 years old), Spanish at 18 years old, and Chinese at 20 years old, later one picked up faster than the one before it. Of course, my situation was quite peculiar and may not apply to everyone, but it is apparent that those who learn more foreign languages earlier tend to master more foreign languages faster later.
I understood that many Chinese parents are worried that making their kids learn English too early, like in primary school, may jeopardize their Chinese cultural root and language mastery. Therefore, I would only advocate for foreign language exposure at very early age (listening to foreign music, browse foreign language picture book, watch foreign movies with Chinese subtitle) and formal attempt to learn a foreign language intensively, preferably English, by grade 8.
Mastering English may not give your kid extra point during college application since it is obviously just the mere minimum for any applicant (in the form of TOEFL and SAT/ACT). However, once he has a certain English proficiency in grade 8, picking up a third language (second foreign language after English) in grade 9 or 10 would prove to be extremely beneficial to his college application, especially for Humanities or Language majors. Based on my personal research on language usage and politico-economical value, I would suggest Spanish, Arabic, or Russian as the third language for most kids without special interest (like Korean for K-pop fan, Japanese for manga fan, or French for diplomacy/culinary arts fan).
Now, what are you parents waiting for? Go volunteer with your kids and guide them to master English or pick up a new one.
Mục lục các bài viết trong chủ đề này: https://www.otofun.net/threads/chia-se-kinh-nghiem-du-hoc-my-vui-long-mien-thao-luan-chinh-tri-va-nuoc-khac.1640096/
Bài 4: How I would get my kid into Top 10 US universities in 12 years (Part 4: grades 7 & 8)
Grade 7: Nurture compassion
According to Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development, the Formal Operational stage, the fourth and final stage begins at approximately 12 years old or when kids are entering grade 7. Kids at this stage become capable of abstract thinking, formulating mental hypothesis and figuring systematic way to arrive at the answer.
For such, hypothetical questions such as “What would happen if I do that?” or “What if it happens to me?” surface more often than factual questions like “What is the biggest planet in the solar system?”. This budding mental capability to think in more external and fictional contexts makes it possible for parents to foster one of the most critical characteristics of emotional intelligence and later success in life, be it high school, college, or job: compassion.
Compassion actually includes smaller component feelings: first pity, then sympathy, next empathy, and finally compassion.
To illustrate the difference between these feelings, imagine you share with your kid a sad story about your friend who got into a car accident and must stay in hospital for a month.
If your kid refuses to even listen, he lacks pity. If he has pity, he would have look at you attentively to hear about others’ hardship and suffering.
If your kid pays attention but shows no concern on his face or his words, he lacks sympathy – care for others’ feeling
If your kid shows concern but did not relate on how he would feel if it was him in similar situation, for example, if he did not say something like “I once broke my finger, and it hurt a lot. Mom’s friend must have been really hurt” or “I know how bad it is unable to go out for a long time. Mom’s friend is probably really sad and frustrated.”, then the kid lacks empathy – the ability to feel the feeling of others.
Finally, if every time you mention a sad or unfortunate situation, and the kid shows concern but does not offer a visit or a help of some kind, then he lacks compassion.
All these feeling abilities matter for a normal development of a human being and serve as a motivation for your kid to act upon the need or plight of others. Without compassion, who is going to start a book drive for impoverished Sichuan school districts? Without compassion, who is going to volunteer to help autistic children or orphans?
As you can see, compassion is at the root of social club and activities, the hallmark of a holistic and strong college applicant’s profile.
So how can parents teach their kids compassion?
I have touched upon the general approach to teaching in earlier writings in this series: through examples (parents themselves exhibiting compassion) and readings (buy books on compassion for the kids). There are two other methods:
a. Work on charity/compassion projects with your kid: be it a book drive, fundraiser for charity, volunteer, or whatever, do it together and chat with your kids about your works while you were doing it (talk about the purpose and how the benefactors of such activities would feel) and even at the end of the day to review. Early practice in charity projects help get the kid familiarize himself with the operations of such projects and get head start in activity development. You won’t believe how many kids come to me asking for my opinion on the idea of organizing volunteer group in their Grade 11. My answer: it’s late, but better be late than having nothing.
b. Share stories where you help others or where others help you and ask your kid to do the same to you. By repeating and highlighting the interdependency of individuals in our society, parents and children help each other strengthen the notion that their pity, empathy, sympathy, and compassion help themselves as much as others.
Grade 8: Achieve a foreign language proficiency
Puberty is not just a critical acquisition period of motivation and morality but also of foreign languages. In fact, “there is much debate over the timing of the critical period with respect to SLA, with estimates ranging between 2 and 13 years of age. These estimates tend to vary depending on what component of the language learning process a researcher considers.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis). In general, the later one starts picking up a second language, the harder it is to master that second language and to pick up more languages later.
I personally was exposed to French and Spanish as early as 4 years old thanks to my dad’s love for music in Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Later, I started learning French officially in 1st grade (6 years old), English in 7th grade (12 years old), Spanish at 18 years old, and Chinese at 20 years old, later one picked up faster than the one before it. Of course, my situation was quite peculiar and may not apply to everyone, but it is apparent that those who learn more foreign languages earlier tend to master more foreign languages faster later.
I understood that many Chinese parents are worried that making their kids learn English too early, like in primary school, may jeopardize their Chinese cultural root and language mastery. Therefore, I would only advocate for foreign language exposure at very early age (listening to foreign music, browse foreign language picture book, watch foreign movies with Chinese subtitle) and formal attempt to learn a foreign language intensively, preferably English, by grade 8.
Mastering English may not give your kid extra point during college application since it is obviously just the mere minimum for any applicant (in the form of TOEFL and SAT/ACT). However, once he has a certain English proficiency in grade 8, picking up a third language (second foreign language after English) in grade 9 or 10 would prove to be extremely beneficial to his college application, especially for Humanities or Language majors. Based on my personal research on language usage and politico-economical value, I would suggest Spanish, Arabic, or Russian as the third language for most kids without special interest (like Korean for K-pop fan, Japanese for manga fan, or French for diplomacy/culinary arts fan).
Now, what are you parents waiting for? Go volunteer with your kids and guide them to master English or pick up a new one.
Mục lục các bài viết trong chủ đề này: https://www.otofun.net/threads/chia-se-kinh-nghiem-du-hoc-my-vui-long-mien-thao-luan-chinh-tri-va-nuoc-khac.1640096/
Chỉnh sửa cuối:
