Category: Essays

I was recently browsing through a homeschooling forum that I joined and one of the members there said something like, “I really want Singapore (SG) Math for my children but I’m scared to teach it myself because I don’t know it. Do you know an instructor who can do it all for me?”

And so expectedly a lot of people posted how-to’s, some assured her that it was easy, some gave her links to Youtube, as well as actual tutors.

But I asked, “If you don’t know SG Math, why do you want it for your kids?”

And she said, “Well I think I’m convinced of other parents’ feedback perhaps.”

To which I replied, “There is no one style of learning math (or anything for that matter) and what may seem better for some may not necessarily be so for others. It’s best, I think, to understand first what your kids want.”

More than the methodology, it is important for parents to understand that motivation is what drives learning. Regardless of the technique, if there is no desire nor interest to learn, nothing will happen. But note as well that regardless of the technique, a motivated learner will learn whatever it is they desire to learn, even from mediocre sources — because they will soon move on to find other, better sources and methods.

As parents, we understandably want the best for our kids. Oftentimes though, we don’t trust our kids to make that decision for themselves. We think they are too young or too immature, and so on. But do we really understand how our kids learn? They are amazing learning machines but they have their own built-in way in which to understand the world, and that is not dictated by us.

Look back to when they were babies and toddlers. Some babies learned to walk first before learning to talk. For others, it is the reverse. Some learn to read at an early age, some later. Some learn how to write before they learn how to read. Some are interested in drawing, others in music, others in running around. All through this time, they are already learning in tremendous leaps and bounds, and nobody teaches these to them. We don’t talk about techniques and methods. They just learn in their own way in their own time, because they want to, because they are driven to.

The best educational method I can suggest is to understand what it is that your child wants to learn, and support them as best you can. It’s not about what kind of math method you should adopt, it’s about asking if your child even wants to learn math in the first place.

Also published in Sunstar Davao.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber – Aspiring entrepreneurs would do well to read this book to avoid getting sucked into the myth of ditching your job, chasing after your dream, and making a fortune. It doesn’t discourage entrepreneurship but rather lays down the hard truth on the many facets involved in starting a business, as well as the many roles one has to play. This book taught me to appreciate systems, no matter how simple — that the key to building a successful business is not so much building kick-ass product but creating systems in the business process so that it can ultimately run without you slaving away at the business for the rest of your life. The prime example here is McDonalds which certainly does not produce the best burger in the world, but has one of the best systems for every facet of its business.
  
  Favorite Passage: If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business — you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic…The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people…to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life.

• Awakening: Conversations with the Masters by Anthony de Mello – There were 2 books (or sets of books) I went deep into when I decided to reboot my religious and spiritual beliefs (the other one discussed after this). I discovered the works of Anthony de Mello which usually consist of short parables and anecdotes, usually of a student and a master — the master being “not a single person” but can be a “Hindu guru, a Zen roshi, a Taoist sage, a Jewish rabbi, a Christian monk, a Sufi mystic.” Some stories seem baffling, others pointless, and still others strange and weird. There are no apologies or explanations for them. The reader is left to take from it what he will, to reflect on them or to throw them away.
  
  Favorite Passage: The preacher was determined to extract from the Master a clear declaration of belief in God.
  “Do you believe there is a God?“
  “Of course I do,” said the Master.
  “And God made everything. Do you believe that?“
  “Yes, yes,” said the Master, “I certainly do.“
  “And who made God?“
  “You,” said the Master.
  The preacher was aghast. “Do you seriously mean to tell me that it is I who made God?“
  “The one you are forever thinking about and talking about–yes,” said the Master placidly.

• Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch – This is a set of three books which the author claims started with him being down on his luck, dismal, unhappy, and emotionally drained. He decided to write an spiteful letter to God, full of angry questions. When he was done, his “hand remained poised over the paper, as if held there by some invisible force. Abruptly, the pen began moving on its own.” And so began his dialogue with “God.” Ok so a little disclaimer here, I thought it the book was a bit iffy at first because of the call for donations and then the sequels and seminars and so on it really seemed like the author was starting his own money-making scheme. But then, separating the message from the messenger (and giving him the benefit of the doubt that whatever money he gets actually goes to good causes), I found the dialogue mind-opening and it really made me think that if there were a God, he, she or it would be more like the God in Walsch’s book than the one depicted in any other “holy” book.
  
  Favorite Passage: There are those who say that I have given you free will, yet these same people claim that if you do not obey me, I will send you to hell. What kind of free will is that? Does this not make a mockery of God — to say nothing of any sort of true relationship between us?

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki – I was teaching high school mathematics and one of my students came up to me with a book that had a garish purple, gold and black cover and he asked me if I had read it. That was Rich Kid, Smart Kid, which I later learned was the fourth in a series that started with Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Kiyosaki introduced many financial concepts with a creative twist. It was mind-blowing and quite relevant for me at that time when I was also struggling with finances, a new baby, and trying out new ventures with my wife. A warning though, when reading Kiyosaki, is not to get too caught up by the stories and thinking that you can duplicate exactly the same thing with the same results. The concepts are good and solid but you still have to approach investments with proper risk management and assessment depending on the specific set of circumstances you face.
  
  Favorite Passage: Rule #1: You must know the difference between an asset and a liability, and buy assets. If you want to be rich, this is all you need to know. It is rule number one. It is the only rule. This may sound absurdly simple, but most people have no idea how profound this rule is. Most people struggle financially because they do not know the difference between an asset and a liability. Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities that they think are assets.

• The Entrepreneur by William E. Heinecke (with Jonathan Marsh) – The simple cover of this book attracted me, and though I had no idea who Heinecke was, I decided to pick it up from the shelf and buy it. And then I read a fascinating story about this American teenager who decided to start two companies in Bangkok, armed with only a high school diploma and a little over a thousand dollars that he had borrowed from a moneylender. He later on became responsible for bringing Pizza Hut to Thailand, for opening luxury hotels and shopping malls, ice cream franchises, restaurants, manufacturing operations, and so on.
  
  Favorite Passage: Brands are only as good as their people and their passion for excellence…While a powerful tool, a brand is only as good as the people using it — and if you have chosen the right people, they can just as easily create a new brand and even, in some cases, fashion a better one if asked. In a nutshell, people build brands, brands don’t build people.

• What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey – I grew up in a strongly Protestant family but I went to Catholic school, and my father, who was an elder in the church, would alway warn me not to be swayed by Catholic doctrine and practices. I must have been around 10 or 11 when I found a book in the house. I forgot the exact title but it was about what Catholics believe and why they were wrong. That was probably the start of my being quite a legalistic and doctrine-centric Christian, and I was always so fond of debating and discussing this or that issue. I was out to dominate, to win (“for Jesus”), and to be right. So this book by Yancey was completely different because it conveyed the very opposite of what I was doing — which was to offer grace to those who thought and acted differently. Even today as a nonbeliever, I still hold that the world would be a much better place when we display grace, kindness and compassion. One of my favorite quotes, which goes well with this book, is by Wayne Dyer: “When you have a choice to be right or to be kind, choose to be kind.”
  
  Favorite Passage: On the surface the word [“grace”] may seem a shorthand expression for the fuzzy tolerance of liberalism: can’t we all just get along? Grace is different, though. Traced back to its theological roots, it includes an element of self-sacrifice, a cost…Grace dies when it becomes us versus them.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell – The second business book I read after The Greatest Management Principle in the World, which I discovered was a lot more than being just about business. Leadership is a principle that can be applied in all aspects of life, even if one is a very private person. The first person you have to lead, after all, is yourself. A story in this book that has stuck with me all these years is how Ray Kroc took the hamburger store started by the McDonald brothers and turned it into a worldwide phenomenon. The brothers sadly did not have the vision that Kroc had and sold the company and all rights to him, missing out on one of the most lucrative businesses in the world.
  
  Favorite Passage: If you can’t influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow, you are not a leader…No matter what anybody else may tell you, remember that leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less.

• Robert Frost’s Poems by Robert Frost – I fell in love with Robert Frost in high school. We studied a couple of his poems and then I went and looked for more of them. I liked the easy rhythm and the unforced rhymes. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said that good prose is about putting words in the right order. But good poetry is putting the right words in the right order. I think that is a fitting description for Frost’s poems — the right words in the right order. His ‘The Road Not Taken’ has turned out to be sort of a roadmap of my life, with me always wanting to take the road less traveled. 
  
  Favorite Passage: I shall be telling this with a sigh; Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

• A B N K K B S N P L A K o ? ! by Bob Ong – As a rule, I do not like reading Filipino books. I hated the subject in school and my lowest grades were always because of it. I failed a Philosophy class in college partly because it was in Filipino (and partly because the teacher was an ***). So a whole lot of credit goes to Bob Ong for making me read this book (and even buying the ones that followed), and wildly recommending it to others. For the Filipino readers wondering about the title, you are supposed to read it in abakada fashion (“a”, “ba”, “na”, and so on). It’s a hilarious tome recounting Ong’s school days and antics in the classroom. It was highly relatable and I even spent time in my class reading passages aloud to my students and we all had a good laugh. I never thought I would enjoy a Filipino book in my life but this one changed that notion.
  
  Favorite Passage: Pero hindi biro ang pagbabasa, rite of passage ‘to pag natuto ka. Ibig sabihin nabinyagan ka na bilang “literate”. Kaya mong magbasa ng mga kasinungalingan sa dyaryo, ng mga subtitles sa foreign movies, at ng mga vandalism sa upuan ng bus gaya ng “Bobo ang bumasa nito!”

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

• The Toastmasters International Guide to Successful Speaking by Jeff Slutsky and Michael Aun – I became a high school teacher right after I graduated from college. Public speaking was a relatively new thing for me as I was not particularly the talkative type during my school days. I had a stuttering problem from way back in childhood that I had only begun to overcome in college. So I joined a local Toastmasters club to improve and hone my public speaking skills. And it made a tremendous and lasting impact on me, aside from gaining me lifelong friends. I was delightfully surprised when I saw this volume in the bookstore and reading it reminded me of the many tips, tricks and techniques shared in our weekly meetings, and so much more. If there is a single book you have to read about public speaking, look this up because this is it.
  
  Favorite Passage: If you are going to use your communication skills to convey your message, make sure you have a message to communicate. Don’t leave a mess, leave a message.

• Looking Good in Print by Roger Parker – This is a technical book dealing with layout and graphic design. When I was teaching, I was also tasked to be the adviser for the school paper, so my friend and co-teacher lent me a copy of this book and I liked it so much I eventually bought my own. This was my introduction to the world of graphic design which eventually became a side-hobby of mine for the past 2 decades. I like conceptualizing layouts and logos and things like that. This book contains basic and lasting principles of design as well as clear before and after examples that I have used ever since.
  
  Favorite Passage: Part of the challenge of graphic design is that it has no “universal rules.” Everything is relative; it can’t be reduced to a set of “if…then…” statements. Tools and techniques that you use effectively in one situation won’t necessarily work in another…Good design stems from a thorough knowledge of the building blocks of graphic design and specifying them appropriately, based on the format and function of an individual project.

• The Greatest Management Principle in the World by Michael LeBoeuf – The typical stereotype of Chinese people in this country is that we are extremely business-minded. I did not fit that particular stereotype. In fact, I was the complete opposite of it. I had little interest in running a business or learning more about sales and marketing. My good friend, Arthur (the same co-teacher mentioned above), however, had a keen interest in it and would always inject some principles in his dealings with students or co-teachers or the administration. So one day I decided to educate myself and borrowed this book of his mainly because it was very thin (around 100 pages) and I figured I could finish it quickly. I was very pleasantly surprised to find it an interesting and intriguing read and it opened my eyes to a new aspect of business — that it was not just about amassing wealth but understanding human psychology and behavior as well. And yes, it was the gateway that led to me reading more business books after that.
  
  Favorite Passage: You get more of the behavior you reward. You don’t get what you hope for, ask for, wish for or beg for. You get what you reward. Come what may, you can count on people and creatures to do the things that they believe will benefit them most…A young machinist asked for three days’ vacation to go deer hunting. His supervisor refused the request because the department was very pressed and was being forced to work overtime and on Saturdays. The machinist, who had a record of tardiness, came to work thirty minutes late and the harassed supervisor told him: “If you are tardy one more time this month, you’ll be suspended for three days without pay.” Guess who was late the next day? The machinist saw the monetary threat as an opportunity and showed up late. He was suspended, went deer hunting and got what he wanted. And management applied the proper disciplinary procedure. But the work didn’t get done.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.