Monday's Tattler

Good Morning!

Such a nice weekend. I was talking to the kids last Friday about what a "winter reprieve" is and they got one! Too nice to stay in and post here!

This week, our little geography plane will fly from Africa to Mexico. We will look at the history, the geography, the animals, the plants, the customs and sights of Mexico. We will eat a Mexican meal at school today, and then hopefully, if the weather holds, go to a Mexican restaurant on Friday.

Lots of art projects in the hopper.

We are still working on Civil War songs and folk songs. The kids seem to be enjoying this. Ask them to sing Goober Peas - it begins "Sittin by the roadside..."

Please expect a letter and form about this coming summer. We always send this out in February because it's expensive, and needs some thought and some planning for most families.

In the event of snow this week, please watch WFIE, channel 14 for The Garden School Closing. It comes in the Ts!

Tacos today with fresh fruit. Apple muffins for breakfast and chocolate cupcakes for snack.

If you have not gotten your candy money in, please do so. Please plan to add this to your tuition.

Have a great week!

Timing a Meal by Judy Lyden

So often people ask me, "How do you do it?" And the answer is easy. It's fun; it's a hobby; it's play. For me, working in the kitchen is play. When I was a little girl, I loved to make what I called pretty salads from all kinds of plants I found in my wanderings. I would balance the colors, arrange them nicely in a pile and then add flowers and berries. I made my first pie at four and my first turkey dinner at eleven. I lured my husband in by making a blueberry stuffed capon with all the trimmings when I was seventeen. It's simply a matter of two things: interest and doing. If you have an interest, but you never get off your duff to actually do, you will never learn. I tell the children in music, "If you don't sing, you won't know the words." Same thing with all of life. If you don't participate, you won't know how to do anything.

Today, the grocery store and the kitchen are two of my favorite places. I know most of the people who work there, and I speak with them frequently about new foods and bargains. It helps. I always use the mini carts to shop because I shop with thought not habit. I buy carefully and with a plan. I spend relatively little compared to most people simply because my rule of thumb is, "If I can make it, I will buy the parts, and the parts are always cheaper."

With a scheme of what can and can't be done with and to foods, it's not hard to throw just about any meal together in under an hour with ease. It's a matter of knowing how tastes mesh, how long things cook, and what each food needs to be at its best.

Today at school, we will have an pseudo African meal. I will bake yams, mix peanuts with brown rice, serve fresh fruit, and make a kind of baked steak that hopefully will taste like it came off the grill.

So on Sunday, when I shopped for school, I made sure I had brown rice and dry roasted peanuts. I bought enough yams to bake in the oven and slice that would feed forty children and faculty. I bought enough fresh fruit to serve everyone, and then I concentrated on the meat which is the center of this meal.

I was able to buy sirloin steak cheaply at the Grocery Outlet. On Monday, I cut the steak into strips and tossed it into a re-seal able bag. I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, ketchup, pepper, Worcestershire, and soy sauce.

To produce this meal for forty children and faculty, I will put the yams into the oven first at about 350 degrees for about an hour. Then 45 minutes before lunch I will start the rice in the ricer and open the peanuts. Thirty minutes before lunch, I will put the meat on a tray and bake it. Then I'll cut the fruit. Ten minutes before lunch I will remove the yams and slice them and add a honey butter, pour the milk, mix the peanuts into the rice with some butter, remove the meat from the oven, and voila!

At home, a simple meal of slightly breaded fish, broccoli and noodle medley takes about thirty minutes. Here's how:

Thaw or open your fish pieces. Take three soup bowls. Into one bowl, place 1/2 cup of flour; into the next a beaten egg with a little milk; into the third, bread crumbs or cracker crumbs or ground walnuts and Parmesan cheese - whatever you like. Dip fish into flour, egg, and then bread crumbs and place on a plate and set aside.

Place hot water into a big pan and bring it to a boil. Add your noodles and cook till tender but not limp. Buy whole grain noodles because they are better for you and taste better.

While your noodles cook, cut your broccoli into manageable plate pieces and place into a microwavable bowl with a few drops of water and cover and set aside. If you like tartar sauce now is the time to make it. A spoon filled with mayonnaise and some salsa makes a great fish sauce. Cut some onions and mushrooms or green peppers now.

When the noodles are done, drain. Place 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1 tablespoon butter into a frying pan. Melt, add ground pepper and some chopped onions and mushrooms. Stir in enough noodles for dinner and then add 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and leave on very low temp or turn off your burner.

In another frying pan, use the same oil and butter and pepper combo and cook fish at medium high temp until cooked - probably 8 minutes.

When you start your fish, place your broccoli into the micro and cook five minutes. When broccoli is done, drain, and put a little cheese on it, cover and set aside.

When fish is done, grace your plates with your food and serve - thirty minutes tops.

Cooking is not as hard as some people think it is. It's really quite simple, and with a little thought and some creativity, it's fun and rewarding.

Monday's Tattler

Good Afternoon...hectic morning...so I thought I'd catch up this afternoon. We had our inspection this morning and it went very well. Miss Lisa is back to school and looks good. She had a very very serious case of the flu and was really down for the count. Mr. Terry was also down with the flu, but it only lasted a couple of days. It's a really nasty flu. Chills, a high fever, headache, body aches, and some delirium. Please be careful and stay well!

This week we are looking at the Serengeti Plain in Africa. This is the place where you would go to see giraffes, zebras, lions, wildebeests, hyenas, and elephants. We think the children will like this study very much. On Thursday, we will watch a spectacular video on the Serengeti Plain.

Today in French class, we learned hot and cold and the four seasons.

We have begun to watch the old movie, Swiss Family Robinson as our third choice of "Real Films."

It is a wonderful idea to remind children to listen. It is our primary job - to teach children to listen so that they will be good students in big school.

We are planning some moves up from Littles to Middles again.

Another wonderful week started...have a blessed one!

Under Saturday's Sun

Education Week: Teacher-Led School Innovates With Student Regrouping

Comment: A great plan and something that should happen in schools beginning with Early Childhood!

Heather McCowan, center right, a 7th grade English teacher a Palmer Park Preparatory Academy in Detroit, hands a "pom," or token, to Monique Whittaker, while Micah Whittaker, left, and Dezhane Norton work on a grammar lesson last week. Students are rewarded with poms when they answer questions correctly and participate in class.

—Brian Widdis for Education Week

By Stephen Sawchuk

Detroit’s troubled school system remains in emergency management, its enrollment dwindling and its labor-management relations contentious. Yet in spite of those challenges, a school there is making a bid to innovate with many of the formal structures that have long guided not just teachers’ roles, but also how students are organized in classes.

At Palmer Park Preparatory Academy, teachers are gradually assuming administrative duties to become the city’s first teacher-led school. An extended day, part of the district’s reform policy, gives the staff time every afternoon to compare teaching strategies. And finally, a new, pilot schedule for 7th and 8th graders lets teachers regroup the middle school students in different English/language arts and math classes frequently, based on the students’ performance and how quickly they are learning new material.

The changes are the K-8 school’s attempt to get concrete about the much-touted but often vague concept of “differentiated instruction” for students, especially for those who have struggled to grasp key concepts and risk falling further behind.

They are also the product of a partnership among teachers, the local teachers’ union, the central administration, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the educational publisher hired in fall 2009 to revamp Detroit’s curriculum.

In a sense, the 650-student school is also an incubator of several ideas that in recent months have caught renewed attention from education reformers around the country, including: the notion of the teacher-led school; extended school hours, a concept favored by the Obama administration; and on-the-job professional development based on data analysis. While still in its infancy, the school is being praised by district leaders as an example of organic reform.

“I think the teacher-led concept was so new it gave us the opportunity to think out of the box” on classroom scheduling, said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief academic and accountability auditor for the Detroit district. “We worked all summer to have this school up and running, and if we had not spent that kind of energy, had not pushed and challenged ourselves, this new idea would not have generated itself.”

Organic Reform

The genesis of the changes occurred last summer, after a group of teachers at Palmer Park approached the district with the proposal to convert to a teacher-led arrangement, in which the school’s teachers take on the budgeting and management duties generally carried out by an administrator.

Though not a new concept, teacher-led schools have gained fresh attention in the past year, with new examples under way in California, Colorado, Minnesota, and New York, among other places, and a spate of recent articles in a number of publications, including The New York Times.

Ms. Byrd-Bennett and the Detroit Federation of Teachers agreed to the arrangement with some conditions. Based on prior experiences with similar schools while she was the chief executive officer of the Cleveland schools, Ms. Byrd-Bennett insisted on formal training for teachers and a graduation transition. An executive administrator, Bessie K. Harris, is training the school’s four lead teachers on the governance process, such as how to run budget meetings.

Discussions among those teachers homed in on how to boost attendance, keep students more engaged in their work, and minimize their frustration when they were struggling with lessons, said Ann K. Crowley, one of the lead teachers who will assume most administrative duties in the school.

In consultation with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt officials, the teachers arrived at the idea of personalized schedules for all the students, varying on whether they need more-intensive instruction on basic concepts or are ready for more in-depth instruction. Using a data-analysis tool, the publishing group culled information from state, local, and classroom tests. Then the school placed students in one of three classrooms each in math and English/language arts with peers at the same level of performance.

Crucially, teachers are expected to target the same standards, but their lessons explore them in different levels of breadth and depth depending on the performance level. The extended learning time—a change that’s being tried across the district—helped usher in the final piece of the plan: professional development to help monitor students’ progress.

Teachers have common planning at the end of every school day, in addition to their regular prep periods. At those meetings, they’re able to discuss the results from their lessons and go over data generated from quarterly “benchmark” assessments. Then, they can decide whether a student needs to be moved to one of the other classes—something that can occur on a weekly or, potentially, even daily basis as necessary.

“It’s so much easier to move the kids and challenge them and address them when they need more attention,” Ms. Crowley said.

Heather McCowan conducts a grammar lesson at Detroit's Palmer Park Prep. The teacher-led school is experimenting with grouping to aid student achievement.

—Brian Widdis for Education Week

The seemingly simple idea of differentiated scheduling is one that, historically, has been difficult to execute. For one thing, such schedules essentially require teachers to take charge of far more students than is usual in lock-step class schedules.

“Scheduling is not something that, quite frankly, gets a lot of attention,” said John J. Winkler, the vice president of enterprise solutions at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “What we’re doing is scheduling based on student issues, not adult issues.”

It has taken a commitment by teachers to stick with the schedule, but teachers seem to feel that they have more ownership over student success, Ms. Crowley added.

“That kind of scheduling can drive adults crazy,” she said, “but kids can really adapt to it.”

Concerns Raised

The concept appears to be relatively new to education as a whole. Only a handful of other schools, all in New York, have used data to create personalized student schedules, and none of them is currently teacher-led, Houghton Mifflin Harcort officials said.

The idea, however, raises the specter of prior methods intended to gear instruction to different student needs, like “ability grouping” and “tracking,” that have had many detractors. Much research and academic debate occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, when such practices were said to benefit high achievers but widen educational disparities between them and their low-achieving peers, especially when the criteria used to assign students to groups were not related to instructional goals.

Even today, there is little agreement among scholars about the best way to make differentiated groupings work well for all students, according to Adam Gamoran, a professor of sociology and education policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied both practices.

He said that figuring out the logistics of constant reviews of data, monitoring student progress, and regrouping students as needed pose constant challenges.

“If you’re going to make a move like this, to use some form of differential placement and differentiated instruction, you need to do it in a way that keeps high-quality instruction for low-achieving students,” Mr. Gamoran said.

But teachers in Detroit note that the placements aren’t static, and students aren’t stuck indefinitely at a particular level of instruction. A student who succeeds in algebraic concepts but struggles with geometric ones could be regrouped for those specific lessons, while others whose performance rises steadily could move ahead.

“It is more about needing to know your objectives; it’s almost like mastery of skills—have you mastered them, have you demonstrated them,” Ms. Crowley said.

“It’s like an [individualized education plan] for each child.”

Monitoring Progress

Some obstacles have cropped up, teachers and administrators acknowledge.

The flexible scheduling, in fact, was nearly scrapped after the school had trouble attracting middle school teachers who were on board with the changes in the school.

Although the city’s collective bargaining pact allows certain schools’ staff, including Palmer Park Preparatory Academy, to select the teaching force, a mass retirement of many middle-grades teachers the previous year had reduced the number of eligible candidates. And other teachers were initially concerned about the changes, said Ms. Harris, the school’s executive administrator.

But the school’s lead teachers have held firm to the concept, believing that it was crucial to better outcomes. Students appear to be more engaged and focused on the task at hand; some have asked of their own volition to move to a different class, Ms. Crowley said.

The changes, especially the school’s new schedule, are still so new that there’s little hard evidence to suggest they’re working, but the district will be monitoring its progress closely. To gauge the school’s success, it will rely on the data from a variety of indicators the district collects, which include several that go beyond standardized-test scores. If they show progress, the district is considering expanding the concept.

“Is attendance up? Are expulsions/suspensions down?” Ms. Byrd-Bennett said. “If at the end of the year, our data and numbers moved in the right direction, then there’s no reason why we would not think of this for our scheduling the next year.”

Coverage of “deeper learning” that will prepare students with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in a rapidly changing world is supported in part by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, at www.hewlett.org.

Thursday's Thought

I know it's a pain in the neck when our regular schedules can't be maintained, and we are given the added burden of finding care for children when we absolutely have to go to work and schools are closed.

I always think of January as the rest month. It's the month following three months of holidays and frantic rush. It's the time when nature says, "slow down and take it easy." It's too cold to "play outdoors" and it shouldn't be a time of racing around. It's a hibernating month with long nights and short days. Nature is saying something - look at the trees; they are as dormant as death. My cat runs out at 3:45, is out an hour and then spends the day curled up on a pillow. He's telling me something.

Illness has abounded these last weeks. Teachers have been out days at a stretch. We send home children every day who are kindling fevers and who have fallen asleep "on the job."

With the snow, I think nature is telling us to stop look and listen, and when you do on a day like today, it's just beautiful outside. It's crisp, clean and pristine, and for a couple of days, we have a new earth to admire and to watch. All the seasons are beautiful and rich, and that includes winter and its snow.

Last time it snowed a majority of the children did not go out and play in it, and that was a shame. I hope more kids get to experience this bigger fall today for the memory and the knowledge of what winter is all about and what snow means. Too often we lose this teaching moment for TV.

For Garden School parents who are reading this, please have your child draw AND color a picture of the snow and bring it to school on Friday or Monday for a treasure box pass! Have fun with your children today!

Wild and Wonderful Wednesday

Go Here:

Food Shortages and Food Waste

Focus on food waste for future food security, says Worldwatch

Post a commentBy Caroline Scott-Thomas, 17-Jan-2011

From Food Navigator.com

Comment: This is an interesting article. It's amazing how much we take food for granted and how much we waste. It's especially confusing when the Health Department, restaurants and grocery stores advocate food waste in practices that they think increase sales.

Related topics: Financial & Industry

Waste prevention strategies and promoting self-sufficiency could be key to feeding the world’s fast-growing population, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute.

Finding ways to increase global food production has been increasingly in the spotlight, as world population is on target to hit the seven billion mark later this year, and is forecast to reach nine billion by 2050. Food shortages and high prices sparked riots in many countries around the world in 2008, and served to underline the urgency of the situation.

But in its annual State of the World report, the environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute suggests that the focus should shift away from producing more food, toward encouraging self-sufficiency and reducing food waste in rich and poor nations alike. It draws on case studies from across the world to illustrate how local initiatives can have broad implications for improving the food supply and tackling hunger, and underlines that increasing food production does not necessarily translate to hunger prevention.

Senior fellow with the Worldwatch Institute Brian Halweil told FoodNavigator-USA.com: “Of course it’s not a completely either/or situation. Production has been our main focus for a long time, but if you look at various links in the food chain, such as food waste on the farm, in processing, in the household, and having very inefficient water use, how we currently use food is quite wasteful.”

Estimates vary as to how much of the global food supply is wasted, from a quarter to a half, even in some of the most sophisticated supply chains.

“On a regional and national basis there is potential to reduce waste,” Halweil said. “There is no question that on a global level there’s enough scope to feed everyone…The problem in the chain is not a lack of production. Even in hungry countries there are often crops being produced in abundance.”

The institute’s report said that from 1980 to 2009, the production of barley, corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat increased by nearly 55 percent, but countries’ food self-sufficiency and hunger has also increased during this period. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are nearly a billion people in the world who are chronically hungry.

Industry’s role

Halweil said that the private food sector has an important role to play in making the world’s food supply chain less wasteful and more efficient – for example, in sharing its knowledge about efficient distribution with the private sector, and in sourcing ingredients from closer to home.

“Any food business that isn’t looking at ways to regionalize its supply chain is really behind the curve at this time,” he said. “And there are certain other benefits to this regionalization, including preventing large scale food safety disasters. That is not to say that outbreaks don’t happen in local and regional food systems but the outbreak will not be on the same scale as we saw with spinach and peanut butter.”

Halweil pointed to the rapid rise of the local food movement in the United States as evidence that consumers are willing to demand change through their individual food choices, adding that school districts and government institutions are now also looking to source foods locally.

Monday's Tattler

Good Morning...yes, we are in school today and we open at 7:00 a.m.

This week we will be working on Australia among the other wonderful things we do at school.

Please check your Flower Box to keep abreast of all the things your child will do this week.

We hope to get out for at least a few minutes this week. We expect lots of rain this week, but perhaps it will only be sporatic!

We continue to renovate. Our next project is to include a ball pit and a Calico Critters Corner. If you know anything about Calico Critters, please see Miss Judy or Mrs. St. Louis.

Please remember that if your child is ill and requires OTC meds in the morning, you are expected to keep him home. It is a state requirement. Bringing an ill child to a child care facility breaks the state codes for childcare. If your child becomes ill at school, he will be required to remain out of school for at least 36 hours.

Please take notice of your child's medal and how many silver, black, and gold beads he or she has on their medal. Children receive a gold bead every week they keep their medals all week.

We will be taking medals for deliberate disobedience, harmful play, and deliberate disruption this week. When it is time to clean up, everyone cleans. When it is time to wash hands, we don't play in the bathroom. When it is time to listen, we all listen.

On the other side of the coin, we will be rewarding our wonderfully obedient and helpful children all week with toys, prizes and candy.

We hope you have a great week!

Sunday's Plate

Some of our parents asked for the recipe for Chicken Curry. This is one of my favorite dishes - it's my "comfort" food - the thing that seems most like growing up food.

You can "curry" just about anything. I use curry and mayonnaise for a steak dip. I curry rice, and put curry in lots of soups and even my tomato sauce for spaghetti. It's not something everyone likes, but to me it's about as familiar as salt.

Making curried chicken is not only about the easiest thing to do, it's one of the healthiest things you can eat. Served on brown rice, the chicken dish has very few calories, and the fresh condiments added to the dish just before eating add lots of different vitamins.

Before making your curry dish, arrange your sideboys. A sideboy is a small container like a pyrex glass cup or teacups or tea saucers that will hold your "addons" to your cooked dish. Adding extra raw and fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables add a distinctive taste to your dish. With curry's every bite is supposed to taste different from your last bite.

This makes a wonderful and easy party dish. Imagine a big ring of rice on a platter. In the center of the rice is a great bowl of bright yellow curried chicken. Surrounding the platter are two dozen "sideboys" of pretty vegetables and fruits. You don't need a salad, bread, or anything else. It's a quick and beautiful party fare.

Here are some examples of good additions for chicken curry:

cooked bacon bits
crumbled egg yolks
almonds
peanuts
walnuts
celery
raw onions
apple bits
raisins - dark and light
date bits
dried cherries
pickle relishes
coconut
Chow chow
Chutneys
dried apricots cut up
green peppers
mushrooms
cauliflower
pineapple bits fresh or dried
cubed cucumbers

Here's how to make your curry: cube your raw chicken. In a low pan like a saute pan or a frying pan, saute in olive oil or butter onions, apples, and celery. Add the chicken cubes and a heaping teaspoon of curry powder. As the chicken cooks, stir fry to mix the spice with the chicken and the veggies.

When the chicken is done, add two cups of water and a heaping tablespoon of chicken bouillon. When the bouillon is dissolved, add a roux of 1/4 cup water to a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch. When the dish has a nice thick soup consistency, it's ready to serve.

Enjoy

Friday's Tattler

Friday was a great day for up, and for parents visiting for International Feast. We had a nice turnout of parents. Thank you all for coming and for bringing such great treats for the kids. The children had a ball experimenting with different tastes. They ate just about everything. Several of the children actually sampled the curry with all the condiments. I think the favorite was Connor's Australian biscuits, Miss Lisa's homemade fortune cookies, and Avery's and Edan's egg rolls. Miss Nita's Chicken Paprikash was a big hit as well. Mrs. St. Louis made the poppyseed chicken and Dillon's parents brought shrimp and noodles. We had spiced peaches and a nice Chinese chicken dish -- all delicious and scrumptious.

The children were great right through lunch, and then got rowdy. Not sure why. Usually we attribute this to a weather change. We had some rough customers yesterday, and a faculty decision has been made to send continuous offenders of ordinary rules home.

Ordinarily, we have few rules, but the ones we have create order from chaos. One rule we have for the safety of the children is "no talking in the bathrooms." When children visit in the bathrooms with breakfast or lunch waiting for them, two things happen: visiting becomes playing and playing means someone is pushed and hurt. Meals get cold on the table while children dawdle in the bathroom.

Another rule we have is: there is no playing after the bell rings. When fifty percent of children are continuing to play, the day just halts.

We ask that no child bring the following to school: food, drink, jewelry, toys, or money, and that no child take toys home with him from school.

These are simple things every child can learn. When they know the rule but don't abide by it, the discipline goes down the drain.

In the morning we gave away a lot of golden beads, and those beads were given to children who typically behave and don't break the rules. If you want to know if your child is a rule breaker or abide-r, just look at his medal. Lots of the beads have turned silver and black from age, but each bead represents a week your child did not lose his Honor's Medal.

We also had some winners of the Knowledge Bee -- Savanna and Phoenix. This was a great Bee and the children all did very well -- amazing what they know.

In the afternoon, we finished our Davy Crockett movie and did some Japanese art. Mrs. St. Louis showed the children how to paint in the style of the Japanese. Some of them "got" it and some did not.

All in all it was a nice little week!

Thursday's Thought

From the Wall Street Journal
AMY CHUA

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

View Full Image
CAU cover Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal

Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.
[chau inside] Chua family

Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.
Weigh in
div

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently. For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A. Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

In China, Not All Practice Tough Love. Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms. Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off."Get back to the piano now," I ordered. "Oh yes, I can." Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility? "You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age." But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts. Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming. "Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.

Appeasement Never Works by Judy Lyden

It's a whole new world of raising children. Used to be we raised vegetables and reared children. Nobody knows what the word "reared" means any more, and probably because the word "rear" means to erect by building and to raise upright. The meaning of rearing a child is to make him a substantial (upright) adult by means of formation (building). Formation comes from a whole set of ideas that are implemented by loving and thinking families.

Out of economic necessity, today's busy parents don't spend all day with their children. Children go to school early, and at least some of the formation becomes the project of hired help. Who is helping to "rear" your child? It's an important question to ask, re-ask, and ask again. What are the implemented structures of this hired help and how will they influence your child?

Formation took a giant nosedive when the policy at early childhood centers suddenly became: "A provider never says 'NO" to a child." Instead we "redirect" that child to do something other than what he would ordinarily be told "no" about at home. When Johnny is crushing the skull of Sam because Sam broke the Lego structure Johnny had spent an hour building, we redirect Johnny because Johnny has become the culprit. Sam is taken away from the crushing and his tears are appeased. That sets up some really unreal and confusing struggles inside and out for both children.

In the natural un-parented world of child's play, a child who is destructive would be firmly put into his rightful place - he would get his head crushed for a short time by Johnny for trespassing upon Johnny's project. Sam would learn, "Oops that's a wrong thing I did." And then he would figure out what he should and should not do and what the punishment is when he breaks the kiddie rules.

But under the watchful an not necessarily understanding eye of early childhood hired help, the perpetrator switches places with the victim. The destruction becomes OK, the builder is removed from his project, and the lesson learned is: "I can smash anyone's work and they can't get me" along with "What's the point in making anything, it's just going to be smashed."

Are we really watching the shop? Or have we all succumbed to the appeasement mode of the new age idea that peace and harmony are best served by ignoring what is really going on.

Children haven't changed over the years; they are still primitive and learning about the world. They test one another as well as every adult in their path. Their sense of justice and fair play is other than the adult world. They see things unadulterated by modern ideas and modern slogans. They are and continue to be "The Lord of The Flies" boys and girls.

Civilization takes years of work to convince a child that civilization is better than anarchy and the natural state of man against man. And often it doesn't work. That's where criminalization comes into play. When we fail to form a child, to convince him that the natural state is lesser than civilization, we lose him to a world of "It's only wrong if I get caught" and there will be someone to appease my mistake" and that becomes the game.

Trust of civilization does not come with "removing the builder from his work." It comes with removing the destroyer from the play altogether and firmly telling him what he has done that is unacceptable. That means a big "no" and correction. But it also means that the provider has to have an investment in both children as human beings and be willing to teach both children what civilization demands in the way of fair play, destruction, and punishment.

But too often, we get appeasement as the name of the childcare game. We appease the moment to create a false sense of harmony and peace. We end conflicts and fights anyway we can often letting kiddie justice fail and lessons be trashed. "I don't want to put my coat on, Mom, because I'm hot." The teachers stands back to allow the parent to parent - there is a conflict and "we never say 'no' to a child."

"It's 14 degrees outside," retorts the mom looking helplessly toward the provider who has worked with this child all day.

"I don't want to," says the child, and begins to whine and snivel.

"Leslie, put your coat on."

The child throws herself onto the floor and kicks and screams. The mother sighs. She's worked hard all day and now she has this additional hurdle to manage before driving home. "OK, but you have to run really fast to the car, because it's COLD outside, she appeases."

"I don't want to run," sobs the child.

"OK, Mommy will hold you."

"No, don't hold me."

The child has backed her appeasing mother into a corner and is holding the evening at emotional gunpoint while the hired help stands back.

Johnny is leaving school at the same time as Leslie. Johnny's mother is furious with him for crushing Sam's skull. Sam stands back and sticks his tongue out at Johnny. Leslie, who is still lying on the floor says, "Johnny is a bad boy."

This world is upside down, and the only ones who know it are the kids.

Let's correct the day.

When Sam destroys Johnny's building, the teacher separates the boys. That's her job. But instead of blaming Johnny, Sam is sent sharply away to spend some time with his head down to think about what he has done, and then he is told to appologize to Johnny. That's the only way a teaching adult is able to compliment the children's play. The teacher helps Johnny to put the building back together which demonstrates to Johnny that his building is important. That also demonstrates to the other children what is important.

Later, when mother comes for Leslie, the teacher helps the parent who has been absent all day by saying, "Leslie, I can help you with your coat while your mother, who has worked hard all day, waits for you in the car." If the child balks, the provider should encourage mom to do just that - leave without her - and if she does, Leslie probably won't do that again. Lesson learned.

This is formation, and it belongs to all the adults responsible. It requires that both the parent and the provider have agreed that civilization is more important than chaos. When parents hire adults to help "rear" their child, they are not buying slogans and convenience. They are buying a partnership and that partnership should never amount to appeasement.

Monday's Tattler

Good morning! This week we have a tentative snow storm. If there is snow on Monday night, and the public schools are closed, we will be closed as well. Please check with WFIE either on line or on TV. If there are several inches of snow, I can't get to school, and neither can a majority of the faculty. In addition, getting children out in the car on ice is never a good idea.

This week is International Feast week. We invite parents to eat with us and to bring an entree from a foreign country. Good examples would be Italian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, French, German and Indian. If you are coming, please bring the entree so that it would feed four.

This week we are going to work on Japan. We are also going to look at volcanoes and we hope to make one and execute it! The kids are going to love this.

Art on Wednesday will be an exercise in Japanese painting.

We are trying to get a snow disposal person to come to school to talk to the kids about how they clean the roads and streets.

Have a wonderful week!

Sunday's Plate

One of our young teachers asked last week if I would help her with some recipes and guide her through some of the processes of cooking. I was delighted to have another convert!

In a too fast world that's begging for instant gratification, cooking often gets traded for instants and "store boughts." Yesterday, as I was filling out a questionnaire for Schnuck's, the question, "How often do you use prepared food" appeared many times in different forms. I answered "Nearly never, never, never again, and lastly, practically never!" Prepared means: processed, expensive, possibly contaminated, and not my ingredients. And therein lies the difference between cooking and place and press tiles. It's food of a sort, but not the best food.

So helping someone to understand that making a spaghetti dinner does not entail picking out a sauce, is the first step. The other thing to remember is that if you have canned tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, spices, and pasta and cheese, you don't need to go to the store to make a dozen different kinds of meals quickly and tastefully.

Quick weekly shopping list to include several "red sauce" meals: ground beef, ground pork, sausage, chicken, 3 cans tomato sauce, 3 cans diced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, cottage cheese, gnocchi, whole grain pasta of choice, and pasta sheets for lasagna, 2 onions, 2 green peppers, and some mushrooms of choice.

Here are some of the meals you can make with this shopping list:

1. Lasagna
2. Spaghetti with beef sauce
3. Pork meatballs and gnocchi
4. Pizza
5. Chicken caccatore
6. Meatballs and spaghetti
7. Stuffed shells and meat sauce
8. Pork patties, pasta and sauce
9. Soup
10. Chicken and gnocchi

And the ease of prep? It should take no more than 30 minutes to make any of these meals.

Making a red sauce is easy. You cook your veggies and your spices in olive oil, and then add the canned tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and then spice to taste. Da, da! Perhaps 10 minutes if you take your time.

Meat? That depends on what you are cooking. Chicken caccatore? Cut chicken to desired pieces and slide into bubbling sauce.

Gnocchi? That's a potato starch. Boil gnocchi for about a minute and it's ready to slide into sauce or have sauce poured over it.

When making lasagna, mix cottage or other drippy cheese with eggs and Parmesan cheese. Place your pasta sheets in the bottom of your baking dish. Add a little sauce, the cottage mix, another layer of pasta sheets, your sauce, and your shredded mozzarella. Bake 25 minutes.

Soup? Dilute sauce with chicken or beef stock made from bouillon. Add baked or quickly stir fried meat.

See how simple? And the name of the game is choice. Today I really feel like lasagna, and tomorrow pizza. It doesn't take a lot of effort to always buy 2-3 cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and to keep cheese on hand. Buy meat that's on sale and looks great!

Once you've practiced your sauce, you can be creative and inventive. Bon appetite!

Wacky Wonderful Wednesday

I love this. Happy New Year!

HANDBOOK FOR LIVING

Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants..
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others. Yo! u have n o idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13 Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.

Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...

Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come..
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Tuesday's Tattler

Good morning. Should have done this yesterday, but like so many other things I forgot...actually I had to leave for school early because Amy was out and I needed to do her stuff too. But I got a wonderful surprise. Nita came in early -- 6:15 -- and she drove all the way from Owensboro to do that for me. I just love our teachers.

We are jumping right into the new year with a lot of school work and a lot of learning. Our regular classes are honing our reading, writing and arithmetic skills and that means making sure our children are where they are supposed to be for the best learning. Because we group by desire and ability, we don't pay a lot of attention to age or age cut offs. If a child is ready, willing, and desiring to learn, we teach him. We have several children moving up into new groups. And this is not a once a year thing. If your child is ready any time of the year, UPPPPPPPPP he goes!

We will be tackling the Polar Regions as a kickoff for geography. This is a great way to get acquainted with the earth. Did you know that the South Pole is a continent and actually has dirt under all that ice? Did you know that the continent actually increases its size in the winter time because of freezing oceans?

We will also start our film festival this week with National Velvet. It's the old version starring Elizabeth Taylor as a child.

Next week we will be having the International Feast. A letter will be sent home about this. It is optional and always around lunch time.

Have a great week!