Interesting video on Bilingualism

my week so far

Monday.
Husband leaves for Singapore in morning.  Less than an hour later my son proudly announces he has worms in his poo.  Great.  2 hour wait at hospital - threadworms, probably from his intensive gardening bouts over the vacation.
Monday night.
Trying to work in the study, feet become incredibly itchy. suspect fleas back to life from ex-tenants dog.
Tuesday.
Go to pick up the kids. Can't find them.  Find I'm an hour too early.  Discover rather large hidden homework deficit of you know who.  Nothing to be done I have to do the music thing.  Resolve all my problems with chocolate.
Wednesday.
Insomnia.  Snarky emails from certain people.
Hour and 45 minutes at dentist for crown.
Fleas still biting, spend an hour on long division.
Desktop computer doesn't want to start.  Did I mention that I'd bought a 1 tetrabyte backup disc but hadn't got around to doing a full back up.  I hope the system backup has been running as it's supposed to have been.

the war for talent ...

we finally heard yesterday that both children have been accepted at our school of choice in Singapore.  Or, rather as my husband put it in his sms to me "so many competing schools,  but only one can get our wonderful children"

Well, that's a huge load off my mind.  Now to fill in all the practical bits and pieces!

neuroscience lite...

I finally finished reading a book I've been chewing on for a while.  "The overflowing Brain - information overload and the limits of working memory"  It's quite a useful little book, bring some research and information on the brain up to date.  It is at once hopeful and helpful and a little worrying.

It seems that working memory can be the be-all and end-all for those of us in an academic setting.  Good working memory = strong correlation with conventional IQ testing = greater chance of success at school.  Poor working memory = strong correlation with ADD/ADHD / lower IQ = greater chance of issues at school.  So that's the discouraging bit.  The hopeful bit is all the new research on neuroplasticity and the fact that the working memory can be trained.

I find this bit really interesting.  "What we found was that doing simple working memory tasks produced only marginal memory improvement; it was only when the children worked at the limits of the their capacity that any real effect could be observed.  Moreover, difficulty of task was not the only factor affecting the result: the children had to exercise for at least half an hour a day, five days a week, for five weeks."
Which is both encouraging and discouraging - anyone ever tried to get a child to do something for 30 minutes a day 5 days a week for 5 weeks?  I have experience on the music practise side, and I'd say we're lucky if we hit 4 days a week some weeks, other weeks we're at 7 days a week, but sometimes it's 30 minutes and sometimes its 10 minutes.

The think about that which I really can vouch for is the thing about "working at the limits of capacity". I've been observing that with my own Chinese studies.  when you're studying there's a vast number activities you can undertake all which would fall under "studying" but some of them are simple repetitive things which serve only to salve a guilty conscience, whereas others really and truly make your brain feel like it's grinding  and creaking.  It's after the grinding and creaking sessions that I feel like I've actually taken steps forward rather than the sessions of mindlessly writing lots of characters.

round 7

Both my husband and I have noticed a big difference in my son.  He' relaxed he's happy and he's dishing out hugs (rounds one to heaven knows each day).  The difference?  He's been off school for 11 days now and counting.  In that time we've done pretty much a lot of nothing.  He's continued to take his responsibility of gardening extremely seriously.  A few weeks before the end of last term their teacher introduced the idea of taking responsability.  They had to do something everyday for 2 weeks that contributed to the house hold and we had to sign off on it.  He wanted to know what needed doing.  I said it had been dry for a long time and often I didn't get around to looking after the garden and watering it as much as it needed.  He jumped at the idea.  So every evening we'd go out and potter around.  Garden is a big word.  It's a cemented back yard with a big cemented planter section at the back.  And a lot of assorted pots with "things" growing in them, which we'd inherited from our departed neighbour, most of which at that point looked more dead than alive.

He took to his task with gusto, and I must say the results have been astounding.  Suddenly bits of dead wood have sprouted leaves and assorted leaves which I took to be rather boring have sprouted flowers.  Herbs are flourishing, seeds have been planted, slugs and snails are regularly hand picked out of the undergrowth, and I've even started lending a hand with pruning back the truly dead stuff and leading the creepers along the wires on the back wall.

We've not spent the holiday in any sort of sport or academic or any other camp.  I suddenly realised on Thursday that it would have been an ideal time for him to do some more English or Math at Sylvan.  Too late. I'm obviously just not cut out for the competitive motherhood thing.  On Friday his sister needed to be dropped off at a playdate in Causeway bay, so I sent him along to Shirley's Art Class.  He loves going there, and it has the added benefit of being in Chinese.  From what I can gather there is guidance rather than things being done for them, which is a major improvement over the Kids Gallery.  He came home with a pretty acceptable oil painting of a church and fields, plus a whole lot of confidence that he didn't just have to paint abstract style ala Pollock for the rest of his life.