I.

Literature review
1. Rationale
Education has always played an importance role in the development of each
individual as well as the whole society. As a teacher and a mother as well, I find
educating students and my own children a hard and challenging job but it also
brings great happiness. In an attempt to find out the best ways to guide my
students and my own kids, I have read so may books on the topic of education,
ranging from skills to teach kids by Jewish mothers to Montessori methods. In
that journey, I have found a book by Doctor Agnes Chan or Chan Mi Ling
whose three sons have successfully applied to Standford, one of the top
universities in the USA and the world. Standford is the university where many
famous entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and US presidents have
pursued their higher education. I truly admire her achievement as I once read
the children’s success is the mother’s work. Reading the book, I have
withdrawn some very useful and meaningul lessons which I think are applicable
to my teaching subjects. My purpose in writing this article is to share the
lessons I have learnt and how the book has changed my ways of thinking and
how I have applied the knowledge gained to my students and my children.
Hopefully, it will give my colleagues and all mothers with kids in school age
some useful guides in educating children physically, intellectually and morally.
II. Some meaningful lessons.
1. Be an education-minded mom.

Money or fame is similar to water that flows, which means it can be taken
away from you when things go wrong. However, knowledge, once embedded in
our mind will never be stolen and it will be our treasure. Jewish people also
attack a great importance to education. I have read an article in which a Jewish
mother asked her son which he should take with him when their house was on
fire. You may guess the answer is money. But, that is not the case. The mother
told his son to bring books with him. The mother explained money could bring
danger to us because there was always someone out there trying to take our
possessions away. Books, on the other hand, would provide us with knowledge,
which would in turn give us money. Therefore, when we have a chance to
pursue education, we should take this opportunity and try our best to study well.
Fully understanding this, I have always tried my best to give my children a good
educational background no matter how hard my life is. Educating our children
can even begin when we are pregnant by listening to classical music to
encourage the development of the brain.

2. Arrive at a consensus with your spouse as to how to educate your children.

To educate a child successfully, the parents must have the same approach.
If there is a disagreement in the way parents raise their kids, the kids would not
achieve their full potential because they are confused and they don’t know
which way to go. Consequently, it is advisabe that the spouses sit together,
discuss and reach an agreement on the way to nurture the children. That is the
most fundamental.

3. The responsibility of educating the child rests with parents.

In this modern hectic life, it is not unusual for parents to work long hours
outside the home and have very little time for their children. Small kids often
have to stay with their baby sitters and nannies all day long. When they reach
school age, they often attend school and take extra classes after school. A large
number of parents only pay fees and virtually know how their kids perform at
school. This is alarmingly worrying. According to Anges Chan, parents can not
rely totally on teachers. In contrast, parents themselves have to take this
responsibility, helping kids have confidence in their abilities and develop to
their full potential.

4. Shower your children with love and it will help them bloom.

It is a common knowledge that once people feel they are loved, they will
develop the confidence in other people. Again, once they believe in others, they
will believe in their own abilities. Therefore, when the kids were in their
infancy, it would be best to give them all our love. Kids who receive little love
when they were small will become an adult with poor communication skills and
lack of belief for others. So, how can we express the love for our kids? Agnes
Chan stressed the importance of physical contact. Such actions as hugging,
kissing and saying ‘I love you’ to our kids every day are strongly recommended.
However busy we are, we must spare some time for our kids. The author chose
to shop online instead of going to the supermarket to save time for her three
sons or didn’t go online to shop until they had gone to sleep. In a nut shell, she
tried to spend as much time with their kids as possible.

5. Instead of scolding, try appreciating.

People often mistakenly think that scolding will help the children change
their bad behaviour, but that proves to be fruitless. There is a very meaningful
saying that let the child grow up in praises. However, it is important to give
compliments appropriately. When the kids are well-behaved or do something
they are expected, it would be a good idea to give them some praises because
they will be motivated to repeat that action again and again. In reality, investing
legendary W.E. Buffett shows wholehearted approval of the strategy-praising
by names and criticising by criteria. That is to say he avoids to reveal the name
of the person who makes mistakes, but he will publicise the names of those who
have done a good job. Another important point to remember is that it is
forbidden to tell lies when complimenting. It is essential to be honest and
sincere in our praises. Children are very sensitive. My own son once told me not
to flirt him when receiving insincere approval.

6. Help children to have a heart big enough to accommodate others.

Kids who have a big heart are more likely to know how to put themselves
in other people’s shoes and think from others’ perpective and have high self-
esteem. When there appears a more excellent person with greater academic
achievements, they tend to show their admiration. They don’t feel envious or
ashamed because they are fully aware of their own value and identity. In fact,
each person has their own strong points. Those kids may be openly and frankly
ask others for advice about education, sports or games. They are willing to learn
from the outstanding to improve their own knowledge and skills. Similarly,
children with a big heart often have a tendency to give the needy, the helpless or
the disadvangted a helping hand. On the contrary, those who have low self-
esteem tend to show lack of confidence in themselves and have a low opinion of
their own abilities. As a result, they often feel uneasy or even envious when
interacting with the more superior. Gradually, they may develop a sense of envy
and more extremely they may even act out of malice or have the desire to do
harm to others due to the feeling of hate. For those who are less powerful, they
often prefer bullying them to offering sympathy and care.

7. Encourage children not to be afraid to be different.

Difference is in deed a gift that God sends us. Society does need talented
persons feeling free to show their own identity. Parents must tell kids not to be
afraid of how other people will see you or judge you. Billionaire Elon Musk
also has a similar viewpoint. He once said ‘if something is important enough for
you, do it’. Investing legendary, W. E. Buffett often stresses the importance of
having and supporting our own stance. He said we are neither right nor wrong
just because the majority share our ideas. We should believe only in our own
analysis. Agness Chan herself often encouraged her kids to stand for their own
ideas and beliefs even though they are bullied or be laughed at by their peers,
helping them not to turn themselves into a replica of someone else. Instead,
children should be strongly advised to become the best version of their own
selves. No comparison between kids should be made in the process of child
education. It may be inadvisable to say things like ‘Look, your brother is so
excellent. You should try to be like him’

8. Give children the first priority.

As a working parent, we are often overwhelmed by workload and often offer
some kind of delay when kids come to us for consultancy. From my own
experience, when my eldest son asked me if he had done his exercises correctly,
I sometimes refused to check his answers, asking him to wait until I finished my
evening classes. After being rejected several times, my son tended not to make
similar requests. Instead, he did it himself. In the book, Agnes Chan said she
even turned the cooker and gave her kids a hand with their homework and she
only started cooking again after she had helped them to work out the solutions
to their problems. That is really a big lesson for me.

III. Application and Evaluation.

The book does open a new horizon for me. It helps me realise the vital
role of parents in children education and it has also changed my teaching
approach a lot. In fact, before reading the book, when correcting my students’
papers, I often said aloud the name of students who made mistakes with a view
to attracting others’attention to those errors, hoping them to avoid making
similar ones. I repeated the same act in my extra classes at home. And I noticed
that some of my students were hesitant to hand in their papers for teacher’s
checking because they were afraid of being named. If they did give their papers
to me, they would beg me not to show any facial expressions if they made any
mistakes. In the light of the book, I have changed my approach. Since
September 2022, I have no longer revealed the name of students who haven’t
done their exercises well. Instead, I just correct their mistakes. And surprisingly,
each time I ask students in 11A11, Vinhphuc High School for the Gifted to give
me their papers so that I can mark them, almost the whole class (nearly 35
students) want to be individually corrected. I have had much greater workload
and sometimes I have to take the papers home and give the marked ones back in
the next class.
Another big change I want to mention is that more and more students are
coming to me