Battle Hymn review

a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10173280-battle-hymn-of-the-tiger-mother" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I gave this book 4 stars because it was well written and very readable, not because I agreed with her.  I couldn't put it down.

However, it was kind of like watching a train wreck... like you can't not watch it.  This mother is the typical asian music mom times by 20.  I think we've all seen parents like these in all fields, but this book shows what happens behind closed doors.  I do appreciate her honesty.  She made no attempt to see things through rose colored glasses.  However, it was a little disturbing how emotionally abusive she is of her daughters and how proud she is of it.  I actually agree with a lot of her theories, but I think she is too far on the extreme side.

She says, "What Chinese parents  understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it.  To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences."  I agree with the first sentence...and partially with the second sentence.

She also says, "my goal as a parent is to prepare you for the future-not to make you like me."  Agreed.  Parenting shouldn't be about trying to be your kids' friend, but that doesn't give you license to emotionally abuse your children and work them to death either.

Chua has some good concepts and Ideas, but they're poorly executed in my opinion.  No wonder her youngest daughter hated her and rebelled.  There's just no excuse for calling your daughter garbage...


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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Have you guys read this book???  It is a little insane.  But insanely readable.

Outliers

I loved this book.  Loved it.

President Holland at UVU has a Freshman Reading Challenge every year to try and get the Freshmen to get into an academic mindset at the beginning of their college career (which I think is brilliant, seeing as most of the Freshmen I teach have not read anything, or if they have, it's Twilight and that's about it...yikes).  Last year this was one of the books (the other was Antigone) and I just didn't get around to it until the end of the year, but I am so glad I read it.

I have so many notes throughout the book that I wanted to go back through and discuss.  I'll try and keep it down to bare minimum here, but if you haven't read it, do.

It's not necessarily a how-to for success, but it blows a lot of the prominent theories that exist surrounding success right out of the water.

It is the study of success and abnormally successful people, and the results were very unexpected.

One of the big ideas of the book is that 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve professional excellence in any endeavor.  This is on average about 3 hours a day over 10 years.  He states that it takes the brain this long to assimilate the information, and that age 8 is the best age to start this kind of an elite training program (whether it be in music, sports, computer science, aviation, etc.).

I think this is interesting because in ballet you are told from the time that you are little that age 8 is when a ballet dancer should start serious study of the art form, and that it takes 10 years to train a ballet dancer. I, myself, tell my students this all the time.  I believe it's true... it's just interesting to think that this applies to any field.

The thing that I loved about his conclusion was that they didn't find anyone who didn't practice this much who reached a professional level.  And on the flip side, they didn't find anyone who did practice this much that didn't achieve a professional level of expertise.

To me, the message was if you really want to do something, and you are willing to put in 10,000 hours (not something anyone does lightly), you can achieve a professional level of achievement in whatever your choice is.

Obviously, unless you have an endless supply of money or an endless supply of talent, or sometimes both, then certain things might not happen for you.  But I liked that it tore down this elitist kind of attitude that sometimes exists amongst the truly successful.

The book says much about successful people who state that they are a "self-made man" and how ridiculous that thought is.  It shows several examples of people who are the most successful in their field and how they put in their 10,000 hours, and then they just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right tools at their disposal.

Another great point in the book is that intellect and ability have little to do with each other.  A study took a bunch of kids with the highest IQs in their age groups and followed them for the rest of their lives.  One would think that these people were the next nobel prize winners, etc. but for the most part, they lead average lives, making average salaries etc.

One more great thought.  The book says, "America doesn't have a poor kids disadvantage in education.  It has a summer vacation disadvantage."

Studies show that no matter a childs' socio-economical standing, all kids achieve about the same amount during the school year, if you are judging what they can do at the end of the school year as opposed to when the school year starts.  But where the wealthy children have the advantage is that they get ahead of their poor classmates during the summer months.

It argues that parents who are wealthier aren't so busy just trying to make ends meet that they have the luxury of taking time to teach their children, and they have the money to send them to summer camps and get tutors, etc.  The study found that in poorer households, the parents were gone almost all day long just trying to make money to live that in the summer break months, the children were left without any kind of educational guidance... or very little.

Thus, the shorter the summer vacation, the more achievement is possible for children academically.  In America, children attend school 180 days out of the year, whereas Japanese children are in school for 242 days of the year.

Just some thoughts.  I had so many more as I was reading them, and there's so much great material in this book that I haven't even touched on, but these were my main thoughts.

Anyone else out there have other thoughts or things that influenced them from the reading of this book?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

This was one of those books that is just a classic.  It's a classic because it's well written.  It's a classic because it's historically accurate, preserving a time and culture and people.  It's a classic because it makes you think about some of the harder questions in life.  It's a classic because of the flawed and realistic characters and their relationships with each other.

I know it changed me and opened my eyes from reading it.  I know that because I find myself thinking about it still.

When I was reading it, I liked it and I thought it was good.  But when I finished it and have thought back on it since, it felt like it was an important book for me to read.  It was important for me to see how many opportunities I have been given in my life and how blessed my life is.  It was important for me to see that it is not what we are given, but what we do with what we are given.  It was important for me to see how much I get caught up in all the "stuff" in my life, even when I try so hard not to.  It was important for me to see that even deeply flawed people can be a huge influence for good in others' lives.  It was important to remind me to look for that good in everyone I see.

The content is difficult.  But at the same time, it's beautiful to see what a young girl can accomplish and become with so many hardships in her way.  I love the analogy of the trees as well:

"Don't say that. It's not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there from the grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong." 


This was probably one of my favorite quotes of the whole book:

"Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be happy; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well-dressed. Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost." 


How much do we get caught up in wanting everything in our lives to be perfect?  Why are we unhappy because we don't have enough money? The car we want? The home we want? The career we want? The life we want? The family we want?


Why can't we take the good and the bad and just live the life God gave us and be happy that we still have our freedom and the ability to choose what we want to do.  Why don't we just LIVE?

What did you think?

What did you think of Behind Rebel Lines?

I have been wanting to read this for awhile after seeing it in a reading list that all girls should read before they grow up from the Daring Book for Girls.  It obviously is written for very young children.  It was a nice easy read and an interesting story, and I think I would have thought it interesting as a young girl.  As an adult, I found myself wondering how much of this was based on research and how much was a narrative of what the author thought happened.  It would be interesting to research a bit more.

I thought it was interesting to compare this girl to girls that are growing up today.  Would any girl growing up now feel that deep desire to serve her country and want to have an impact on history in this way?  And if they did, would they be courageous enough?  I have to admit that I don't know if I could have done this. I don't know that I'm brave enough, or that I would believe in whatever-the-cause-may-be enough to leave home and family and go on a wild adventure.

What did you think?

Debate

Before discussion begins on Behind Rebel Lines, I saw a poll in the Costco magazine that I thought would be interesting to put before you all.  The question is this:

"Should Literary Classics be Sanitized?"

Recent editions of classics have been edited to remove racially charged words and other inappropriate language.  Supporters of the revised editions say that this is helpful so that the books don't need to be banned completely and allows everyone to enjoy the work.  Critics argue that this amounts to desecrating the writer's work, rewriting history and denying modern students the learning experience of asking hard questions.

I will weigh in, myself, but what do you think?

Aaaaaaand... we're back!

Hi Everyone!  (Is anyone still there?)  I'm sorry for my unintentional Sabbatical from Book Club activity! I had some family issues and had to pare our activities down to the very bare minimum in order to get through the days, but I am ready to come back to my previous life!

I am putting together a list of upcoming reads, and was wondering if you had any suggestions?  I thought we'd start out super easy in coming back from the break with a short read.  I found the suggestion in the Daring Book for Girls under the heading of "Books that all girls should read" and it looks pretty good (and short!)

If you are interested in continuing with the Book Club, the April book will be:

Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy

What else should we put on the Docket?