Shame

Shame is a very powerful emotion.  Actually, it doesn't exist in the list of standard global emotions (Ekman) which can be recognized by facial expression, namely:

• Anger
• Disgust
• Fear
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Surprise

It was only added as the last in an adjusted list.

1. Amusement
2. Contempt
3. Contentment
4. Embarrassment
5. Excitement
6. Guilt
7. Pride in achievement
8. Relief
9. Satisfaction
10. Sensory pleasure
11. Shame

I'd argue that here in Asia it plays a  HUGE role, both in education and parenting.  It was something that came out of my discussion with my son's teacher today about just why he gets so worried and anxious about the times tables test, and in my discussion with my son a little later.  (He did pass the test by the way, so onwards and upwards to the 11 x table).  Apparently he'd done well on his latest standardized maths assessment, but the teacher wondered how much was due to the fact he'd been allowed to do it alone one-on-one rather than in a large group setting.  He'd also been the one child after an exercise in probability and dice throwing today who could summarize the concept of probability and why some numbers were more likely to come up than others (with 2 dice).

A lot of what happened to him in the Chinese system seems to have involved shame.    And he's carried forward all that shame and humiliation into a context where it's not the default mode of ensuring compliance.  And yet, he self reports that during timed tests all he can think about is who is already finished, how slow he is in comparison and worrying about being the last to finish, rather than focusing on the task on hand.  I've realized now that a lot of his crying and upset last night was shame based.

Talking about shame based parenting - I was sent an excellent link today of 2 Chinese girl's rebuttal of Tiger style parenting - The Complete book of Combat with Mum.  "The idea for the guide came to Leshui when she returned home from an examination in which she had performed badly.

Predictably, she faced the snarl of the ambitious Tiger Mother: a humiliating comparison with the other children in the class and a rhetorical "aren't you ashamed to bring this exam paper home?"

doing it anyway

We had a bad night last night.  It started just before bedtime as we were wrapping up the homework and my son burst into tears about the 4x table text he had for today.  It went further and deeper than that.  Why he couldn't remember things, why he learnt things and then they didn't stick, why he can't spell, why he's struggling and if he's at grade 3 standard at all.  It makes my heart bleed to hear him say these things.  How one can be so smart with so much self insight, with so much awareness and still not be able to jump the hoops required of you at what every hoop point you may be.  Then he started gesticulating everywhere "look, it's all math, the whole world is math, the computer, the keyboard, nature, everything and I'm so bad at such an important thing"  Had to go back to reminding him how he could do really hard stuff like graphs and geometry that other kids struggled with - not that it mattered right at that moment.

I tried using a path analogy.  The 4x tables were in his brain - we'd studied them thoroughly, and then the test got put off a few times and then we weren't doing them daily and now crunch time.  The problem was that his mind was in a tropical climate and the vegetation had been growing over the path, so we had to go in there and walk the path a few hundred more times to flatten it and make it faster to traverse.  Other kids paths were less inclined to grow over, but that wasn't necessarily better, just made it easier and of course they had less lush vegetation to see along the way.  Once he was calmer, we set to work.  Actually there were just 4 items that he was consistently  struggling with. But he was struggling enough that it got him into panic mode every time.

Finally I got him to bed.  We had guests who were leaving today, so it was a bit awkward, but they understood.  When I got up to bed he was lying in my bed.  Not a good sign.  Put him back to bed and he was up again around 4-5 worried and thrashing around.  Nearer to 6 he got up, got dressed and insisted I did some more drills with him.  Still the same problems and this time he was mixing them up even more.  Really anxious and worried.  I tried to explain that he had to keep calm or he'd forget stuff, had to have breakfast and something to drink in order to function.

Some schools have done away with times table and other "facts" based rote learning completely.  At moments like this I'd not mind being in such a school.  But I do think there is a point.   He's going to come out of this stronger.  It does help to be quick with maths facts when you're doing other problems.  He needs to conquer fear and anxiety and find ways to calm himself and focus.  It's better that its hard now and he learns these techniques now.  I won't be able to coach and encourage him always, I have this window while he's receptive.  But its hard.  Hard, hard hard.

HSPU

When last did you do a handstand? Can your kids do handstands? How about cartwheels? There is this sepia colored idea of youth that includes handstands and cartwheels on acres of lawn surrounded by high old growth trees. I know that is not the reality, and probably, if you got to do hand stands at all it was in a dusty sweaty gym, where your attempts may have been ridiculed into cessation Lon before perfection was reached and the naturals marched off to special gymnastics training.

HSPU means "handstand push up " which is the crossfit way of challenging one way out of your normal sporty comfort zone. There seems to be a dividing line age wise too, somewhere in the latter part of the 1970's into the 1980's it seems kids no longer had the right to learning handstands as part of their youth.

I did hand stands as a child. Coming back into them 35 odd years later it took me a couple of months to get my nerve back. The thrust upward and then allowing gravity to take you further before trusting a wall or fellow marker to stop you tumbling down the other side. Age in we have fear. Realistically there is not much that can go wrong,but it's really scary to try and trust your own body again if you've grown out of the habit. A not insignificant proportion of our class had never done hand stands as a child. It's a hard skill to learn as an adult. Are they going home and teaching it to their kids? Not just the ones doing gymnastics classes, but all the run of the mill kids?

Now I've mastered the handstand part - next goal is the combination with a push up. And yes, my kids can do handstands.... Partly at my encouragement and partly as a result of an excellent PE program at school.

Go on, I dare you, pick an empty wall and do a hand stand against it... Cartwheel anyone?