Two families choose different paths to academic excellence

Teresa Watanabe
"Two families choose different paths to academic excellence"
Los Angeles Times
May 4, 2011
URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tiger-20110502,0,3390356.story

Summary: This article is about how parents arrange their children's summer in two different families, one from Mexico and the other from China. Summers for eighth-grader Jade Larriva-Latt are filled with soccer and backpacking, art galleries and museums, library volunteer work and sleep-away camp. There is no summer school, no tutoring. While for 10th-grader Derek Lee, summer is the time to sprint ahead in the ferocious race to the academic top. The Lees and Larriva-Latts reflect the opposing philosophies. But despite the different paths, their children are succeeding.
Intended audience: All readers
Key points: 1. They need their childhood," says Jade's father, Cesar Larriva, an associate professor of education at Cal Poly Pomona. "It's a huge concern of mine, the lack of balance from pushing them too hard."
2. "You give your kids pressure so they can learn to handle it," says Derek's mother, Meiling Lee, smacking her fist into her hand. "Because finally they have to go out into the real world, and the real world is tough."
3. At first he hated the regimen, longing for more free time to shoot Nerf guns and play video games.
4. Today, Derek, a lanky sophomore, powers through, generally without complaint.
Relevance: It was so common in China that such situation happened to my generation. For me, I don't agree with the Chinese mom at all. Maybe that is because I am from such culture in which studying is much more important than playing, as scores are so important to get into a good university. But I understand the mom who pushed her son to study during summer time, as she said the reality was tough. Anyways, I would not do that to my child in the future.