Enrichment Classes

I had the chills yesterday and it lasted from morning till late evening.

I slept at 9 pm and woke up at 2 am. Can't get to sleep after that. The backache that I got from the after-effect of epidural bothered me quite abit, so in the end I woke up to do some online chatting, surf net and eventually blog here.

I realised it hasn't been easy to get Coco to like Chinese to the extent of getting her to write Chinese characters through her own initiative. It bothers me because I find it difficult to understand what's there not to like about Chinese. And it dawns on me that it could have been a grave mistake to alienate Coco from Chinese since her babyhood. Now she is not able to recognise characters in her textbooks although technically, she should have already learnt them.

I'm starting to source for enrichment centres. For someone who doesn't believe in paying others to tutor the kid, I'm adopting the 'If you can't beat them, join them' mentality.

I'm left with little choice because it's hard going getting Coco to do Chinese stuff. It never occurs to me that she would dislike Chinese or find it a challenge to cope with. I always thought it part of our nature to like and be interested in anything Chinese ie. words and stories.

I'm starting to be afraid that it might be too late to start her on Chinese. I hope I'm wrong.

I've faxed over to The Learning Lab on English enrichment. Let's see how it turns out.

I've also enrolled Coco in the piano course conducted by Asia Music School. The Chinese-national teacher seems friendly and kind. She doesn't force Coco to do things that she resists and teaches her patiently. I hope that this time round, Coco can at least take her Grade One exam some time next year. It has been unpleasant dealing with private piano tutors, especially the last one. Private ones tend to take advantage of the fact that you're relying on them for everything from lessons to taking exams. In short, they are not as professional as the ones teaching in schools. And part-time tutors are dubious and fly-by-night. Some have been known to cheat money from parents. Even the last piano tutor I had, by the name of Fanny (yeah, she didn't even give me her surname), cheated me of $50. She was incapable of sending Coco to the Grade One exam and had the gall to say that my slot had been given up to another child, which in my opinion was dubious, and thus could not continue with the lessons. To say that I was disgusted is an understatement. It makes me seriously doubt the integrity of musical instrument learners and that was one of the reasons I wanted to stop Coco from learning piano. I didn't want her to be like these people.

Eventually, I felt that it's more the upbringing and inculcation of values that matter more rather than what you learn. Besides, she seems more interested in learning piano this time round. When I sat in the last lesson, it was clear to me that she was paying attention and asking pertinent questions whenever she was not clear about what the teacher was teaching. I asked her what made her so interested this time round. She replied that 2 of her classmates played beautiful piano pieces in class and they had Grade Five. She said the whole class was only this quiet when their teacher threatened to get the one who talked to wash the toilet.

I only realised that the previous tutors had been making the mistake of getting Coco to do a Level Three piano book when she hadn't done Level Two. It made the task of playing the pieces highly challenging as she hadn't picked up the skills at Level Two yet. I myself was put off by the difficulty level of the pieces. It was only when this current teacher showed us the Level Two book that I realised what we've been missing out. Level Two is a bridging of the skills learnt at One and Three. And the private tutors had not been able to notice that! It speaks alot of the integrity and capability of private piano tutors.

I'll see how it goes with this music school. So far, I quite like the teacher, although she is a Chinese national. A piano tutor must be able to inculcate the love and interest for playing piano, which I thought was lacking in the private tutors. Surprisingly, I found it in this piano teacher from a music school. Most people would think that private instructors and tutors are better since they are able to get business by their own virtue. However, I beg to differ for piano tutors, at least for the time being.