I also recommend this book review:
I noticed this book through the Facebook post of the Taiwanese Chinese edition: A firsthand look at family education at the top of the pyramid, a heart-stirring social observation!
I am eager for this different experience of teaching. It is connected to my memorable learning experience and my work-related experience in recent years. I got to know this book when I was preparing to change careers and I hoped to get a glimpse of the daily teaching routine of a tutor who has taught wealthy family students for more than 15 years. I could not buy the Chinese edition, so I read the English version this time.
To be honest, I like the writing style of this book. This is the first English book I have read while learning idioms. The first few chapters are exciting, and I have recommended this book to my friends more than once. Its writing is fresh, with a lot of phrasing and informal expressions, and many things I want to say can be described more clearly and accurately in the author’s writing. I keep logging new words on my previous blogs. The phrases I had met several times but I still couldn’t say them, so I got them italicized.
I also like many of its paragraphs quite a bit. Just like I often can’t resist the urge to write about my feelings. But I thought I should finish it before commenting. But when I read the last read, I have forgotten most of its contents.
However, there was a book still in my mind: The Great Gatsby. The author repeatedly mentions the book “The Great Gatsby” to discuss the pressure from those influents parents and the anxiety and fatigue of students. I feel like I am going to add “The Great Gatsby” to my next booklist. In addition, the author also mentions her own learning and experience about raising her own children, to compare with the parents in luxurious villas. However, this description is neither positive nor sensational but has a feeling of being stereotypical. Of course, in her words, her students are too similar. I think perhaps the author avoids indicating certain details which will reveal the real person.
I believe that the author cannot be ignorant of the students’ true inner selves. She only mentions that the students are not willing to follow her in literature and history courses. However, there would be more questions in my mind. Would there be social difficulties? Did they have a feeling of hurt and broken in a relationship? Or did they become misanthropes or outsiders in a period? I wonder, how the negative feeling filled up with some students and affected their personalities, and how did they get help and keep forward. She only says that students smoke, fool around, mock teachers, and sneak up on their homework. As a trusted teacher, in some way, she is also a trusted consider, but she revealed nothing about more details about students struggling.
Similarly, the author does not mention the thinking of the parents. She focuses on the description of the scene, where the parents threaten the school and rage against the teachers. They are arrogant and unreasonable. They either are helicopter parents or absent. But, I would like to know how the upbringing of those wealthy parents affects their educational concepts. Over the past decade, there have been parents-teacher talking, or the author has had the opportunity to have a long chat with the students. There are a lot of topics she can share with students: beautiful memories, opinions about some events, or some dark truths. However, the author said nothing.
While interacting with parents and students, teachers are willing to face the dislike of students or the anger from parents but keep the right teaching methods, which is a manifestation of their concern for student performance. In this book, the author indeed has provided very few examples (just talked about her reports about Romeo and Juliet being more adaptable than the one from a student’s mother). Or she does not mention how she tried her best to help students in their low time. But there is no chapter showing that she was touched by students, got herself improved. Or she was touched by students and got herself improved.
However, in the second last chapter of the book, the author criticized American education and talked about military competition. In my opinion, it was unnecessary. As the author said, some parents’ pressure on their kids is merely for dignity. I think, even if the American educational system will have changed, those wealthy people will put pressure on their children in other ways.
In the end chapter, the author mentioned that she was leaving her tutoring career because she was tired of that distorted education. I think she hid something. If she really wanted to leave, she could do it in the early years. If she wants to change something, with her own Ivy League identity and the Internet, she can do it.
I really enjoy reading books about education and self-improving, mainly because I like reading about real thoughts, about people facing various torments, futile efforts, and choices. Or people feel loneliness, self-doubt, jealousy, regrets, etc. I like to see how he/she overcomes the struggle with the help of friends and good teachers; the moment he/she gets self-awakening or is noticed by a benefactor.
When facing students, I don’t want to become the kind of bitch-person. I hope to be a good listener and companion. I still remember the time that I was watching Naruto or listening to Linkin Park, sending messages to a pal, sitting in a room alone, or wandering around a lake or daydreaming in trees. I don’t want to say how disciplined and passionate I am about learning. If I had some friends around me since I was a kid, I wouldn’t have had to push myself to be assiduous and hard-working (some learning is just a way of killing time and self-comforting).
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