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Don't force your kids to do math

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Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#361

Post by mc3301 »

Ekaros wrote: post #160
alpaca128 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't nearly comparable. Riding a bike is one simple skill and as long as you're not racing that's enough for most people. Meanwhile learning maths is a years-long effort at best. I learned how to ride a bike within an hour by myself when I finally had a good reason to learn it. I can't say the same about maths.

Bike is fabulous self-correcting vehicle in most operation conditions. The trick really is just to learn to trust it when it is moving. And then what to do when it stops. Math is layers upon layers upon layers. And then it also branches. Never really had willpower to learn it myself alone.

It does depend on what one defines as "riding a bicycle." At a moderate pace from point A to point B, or simply a lap around the neighborhood is one thing. Technical single tracks, grueling climbs, steep and slippery downhills, racing, maintenance and tuning, trials, jumps, drafting...

Math is just splitting the bill with your friends, seeing if you have enough cash for a hotdog AND a coke, or counting how many months of savings in order to buy that 5000$ bicycle.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#362

Post by mc3301 »

imtringued wrote: post #202
CommenterPerson wrote: post #37

Compare learning math to learning to bicycle. There is some some sweat and struggle that needs to be put in, before one "gets it". After this it can become enjoyable. I encouraged my daughter with practice exercises from a young age, but tried to avoid making it a drudge. She built up confidence and did well with it. She is also very hands on creative. She decided to study engineering and is working towards her PhD.

Learning math is equivalent to learning to cycling if you had to learn cycling from scratch with every bicycle.

20" competition trials bike, mulleted DH racing machine, full-squish slope-style dirtjumps, Japanese keirin, multi-week bikepacking, ITT, freeride.... Obviously there is some overlap.

Math, for most people, is the same a bicycles, for most people. With a handful of simple concepts, you can get by daily life.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#363

Post by mrob »

milesrout wrote: post #353
mrob wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary design goal for most traditional instruments was making them as loud as possible. I was briefly made to play violin as a child, and I definitely hated it (fortunately my parents recognized this and didn't push too hard). The reason is in retrospect obvious: violins are loud and piercing and played close to the ear. Nobody considered hearing protection back then. I learned recorder as an adult and the loud…

[flagged]

I never said it was painful for everybody to play instruments. I'm saying this is an underappreciated reason for children to hate playing. Maybe you are lucky enough that it doesn't affect you.

And I personally measured my recorders with an SPL meter and found them to reach over 100dB(A) at the ear (played indoors in an ordinary room with furniture but without acoustic treatment). The meter used does not have a traceable calibration but in all respects behaves as I would expect a correctly calibrated meter to behave. I have no reason to believe it is miscalibrated. Recorders are only quiet in the bass. The high notes require much higher air pressure and can be very loud. Perhaps you are fooled by the lack of distortion. I played without hearing protection at first, but I was disturbed by the prolonged discomfort this caused in my ears. I then recorded my playing and reproduced it with loudspeakers. I was shocked at how loud I had to turn the speakers up to reach a realistic level. I think it's easier to judge SPL from loudspeakers because they do have distortion which serves as a perceptual cue. Pure sounds can reach dangerous levels without sounding obviously loud. I also think the fact that I was playing the instrument myself and not just listening contributed to my misjudgement.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#364

Post by kstenerud »

cpursley wrote: post #289
kstenerud wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like learning to sight read is a "piano only" skill... In fact, I never actually learned to sight read until I started on guitar. All I remembered from the old days was "all cows eat grass"

Learning sight reading is the most natural on piano like instruments. The notes are literally arranged in the same order. Stringed instruments are much more difficult to learn sight reading from scratch on.

That's an odd take. Sight reading is about associating the mark on the paper with the actual note, duration, style etc. How that note gets played on a particular instrument is a different matter.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#365

Post by Izkata »

mrob wrote: post #363
milesrout wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I never said it was painful for everybody to play instruments. I'm saying this is an underappreciated reason for children to hate playing. Maybe you are lucky enough that it doesn't affect you. And I personally measured my recorders with an SPL meter and found them to reach over 100dB(A) at the ear (played indoors in an ordinary room with furniture but without acoustic treatment). The meter used does not have a trace…

> I'm saying this is an underappreciated reason for children to hate playing.

I once shocked my mom by clearly hearing what she whispered from across a quiet room. And not like a room in a home, this room was about the width of a house. I think people massively underestimate how sensitive hearing can be for some people.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#366

Post by vel0city »

laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

I agree. I got frustrated a lot being forced to practice the piano as a child. Not a long practice, just like you mentioned, about 20 minutes a few days a week and an hour lesson every other week or so with someone in the neighborhood.

I look back at the memories very fondly now. As a pre-teen I got invited to play at my cousin's wedding and everyone still talks about it. It gave me a good foundation and I performed well in highschool band and small ensembles. I now play my instruments for my kids and it brings us all a lot of joy.

Both of my parents weren't especially musical. I'm not amazing or anything, but I've got enough skill to hear a tune from a show or someplace and play it at home for my kids reasonably enough. But I wouldn't be able to if my mom didn't make me practice.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#367

Post by anon-3988 »

blitzar wrote: post #145
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kid isn't enjoying the piano lessons, will forcing them to do it for 20 minutes every day really be beneficial? Sure, they will now be able to do something - something that they absolutely hate... (also, why is it always piano that parents try to force on children?)

> they will now be able to do something - something that they absolutely hate A valuable life skill if you want to ever have a job or get paid.

Teaching them piano is probably the worse thing you can do if you want them to get paid lol. You should be teaching them plumbing instead.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#368

Post by anon-3988 »

eastbound wrote: post #128
paganel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world needs less Asian kids being forced to play piano since a very early age and it needs more kids (Asian and not only) that are left to explore the world. Without that exploration the kids won't make the world their world, at best they'd only make it a bad approximation of what we, our (older) generation, best think that that world should be.

Any proof of why it is best? I prefer to live among educated people, thank you. I prefer my peers to go through forced history lessons, forced math lessons so they don’t tank my government, and biology lessons so they don’t tank the health system. Yes they won’t be able to determine their gender, but that will give me grandkids, thank you very much. Same goes for piano or sports. Yes we need to pull people upwards, o…

> piano

This is such an arbitrary and random choice. I don't give a ** if your child can play piano. It's negligible if you compare it with other hobbies.

Teach them (and me) how to pay taxes, do community service, partake in social events instead. I also don't want to live in a world where robots go to work for 40 hours, go home wasted and repeat for 40 years as they do in so many East Asian country. Its a stereotype yes, but you can't deny its unhealthy.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#369

Post by tshaddox »

laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

How do you know that the conclusion you’re drawing from your experience raising kids is correct? There are alternative conclusions that sound like they match your experience, such as “most kids won’t do difficult things that don’t interest them if you don’t push them.”

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#370

Post by musicale »

NalNezumi wrote: post #251
rerdavies wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really important thing is to teach kids to find their joy. At the end of my second year of piano lessons, my teacher took me into her living room, and we listened to Glen Miller records for most of the hour. And then we had a cup of tea, and she told me, "this is the music that I love. I play piano because I love that music, and I want to be able to play it myself. What kind of music do you like?" I didn't really…

A counter argument is simply the observation that some stuff, it takes time (and effort) before you find the joy in it . Following your recepie, unless (as you say yourself) lucky teacher or wealthy parents, anything that doesn't incite immediate reward will be of low interest. A kid will probably pick up that general pattern too: if joy can not be found in My brother (now an professional artist) told me at teenage y…

> "some stuff you just won't understand the beauty and the joy until you've at least put 100 hours in it"

Terrific quote and advice. 100 hours seems doable for a lot of things (even if it's not enough time.)

If you practice things, often you become better at them, at which point they become more enjoyable.

There's definitely a point of fun - the point where something challenging enough to be interesting, and where you can make progress, but not so punishing as to be discouraging. Games often target that fun point.

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