我初中的英语老师。”其实我喜欢石蕴玉老师，她也走了，戴着一圏圈的近视镜，一个个过我们的英式英标” (我的王同学说的）。石老师有可能是解放前在上海的租界教会学校学的英式英语：这本身并不重要。她是我的英语启蒙老师：她是非常好的启蒙老师。万事开头难 – “The first step is always the hardest“。这也让我想到另外一句“千里之行始于足下”（记得当时周老师常说这句，他会把它刻在讲义里）。对我来说，美式英语大概是高中时在镇中的新的语音实验室里听托福或类似节目才开始的。
I haven’t put in much new money into her 529 plan since the early days, and for our younger daughter I did open an account for her, but I only put in couple hundreds dollars. I know I know: but it’s not because we favorite one daughter over another. It’s mostly because the money is tight, and I think 529 plan had one downside: the money can only be used for higher education (college etc.). For me flexibility is important as I was also thinking about retirement – I mean quitting my 9 to 5 job, and potentially do something else I would enjoy more: and potentially with a smaller paycheck too.
Traditionally I am under impression as in America 18 year old is considered adult (or beginning of adulthood), American parents share some college cost with the kids, in general or on average. I have seen two extremes: parents pay all; parents pay nothing. I also saw two kinds of students too: those who work hard and do their best; those who quit and had to drop their classes or get an “F”.
There is no one size fit all for the college cost (sharing cost, or not) among all the families. For me personally, I would try my best to pay off my kids (I have two) college cost (tuition plus living cost). Anything they earn: scholarship, part time job are icing on the cake.
That’s the main motivation factor behind my investing and uber driving (or other side gigs, ideally $500 an hour consulting will work out better 🙂
FAQs
Do I have to open 529 plan in my state (the state I live in)?
Better late than never in terms of saving. However, you do need to think about the investment options, your tolerance for risk and market volatility, etc. I know for my better half (my wife), she is pretty much risk averse, and hates volatility. So in those cases, you may consider the bond investment options vs. stock mutual fund.
Btw, I signed up this year’s Olivette Turkey Trot. I probably ran my 1st Olivette Turkey Trot 5K in year 2018. I signed up in year 2017 but I chickened out at the last minute. I was on and off for a few years, I recall one year, probably year 2021, I signed up but we decided to go to Kansas City for a quick trip/family vacation at the last minute. This year I hope to make it and complete the race.
Last but not least, refer to Running, jogging and walking my blog post in which I talked all my running races so far.
(Update 09-06-2025) Came across this from Ladue Middle School website.
Math Acceleration Please review this document regarding Math Acceleration at LMS. If you have questions, please contact Mrs. Sarah Schwartz, Assistant Principal and liaison to the math department, at xxxxxx
(Update 05-25-2025) It appears our younger daughter mostly caught up with her peers in this school year in terms of math. She accelerated in the beginning of 2024/2025 school year – instead of taking the 5th grade regular math, she was doing both 5th and 6th grade math in this school year.
Another note: our older daughter who is entering 10th grade in the coming school year 2025/2026, will attempt the math acceleration test again over the summer. But we as parents are asked to attend a Zoom session this coming week – probably something related to the test.
(Original 08-24-2024) I am not 100% sure how much the below section is applicable to the kids in the Ladue School nowadays. Couple things though:
1) Math is mostly a universal kind of course, meaning, there is no American math, or Chinese math, or Indian math,… there is only one math: we want our kids to learn the right math, not the wrong one (wrong math is not math, it’s probably more like a fiction 🙂
2) No pain no gain. I am not saying “work harder” is the most important. But the kid is expected to do some work, not just reading through the textbook.
My own math learning journey
I talked a little on math and math acceleration on my own math learning journey on my blog post – My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子 . Here is what I said:
……Related to that, my class got a very well known counselor and he was pretty strict too. He is unconventional in some ways, for example, he was math teacher, but he rarely gives lecture. He gave us a lot of homework instead, basically we learned ourselves through doing those homework. We joked the homework is never ending. Because as soon as we finish some, he would give out new ones 🙁 I recall some kids really struggled because they are not used to the pace, the work and I am guessing due to lack of instructions. I am not saying the teacher is all bad. Maybe he was not the best teacher for some of the kids. For me I think I learned self-study in his system……
I recall I was usually one grade ahead in terms of math, for example, when I was at grade 6, I learned grade 7 contents myself,… and so on. I wasn’t the most advanced kid on math acceleration – I recall one kid in my class finished all high school math when he was at 8th grade (the last year of middle school). Again we don’t have a formal math acceleration program, but I think probably half the class (we have about 50 kids in our class, so that means 25 kids), were able to have a pace like I had. That’s the main acceleration that I did. I don’t recall do anything extra at elementary school, for high school, I may have done some on my own (don’t recall exactly), plus the thing I mentioned below. But I do recall in terms of math education, the math teacher at my 5th grader left me impression: at one time, he put up a chart that ranks all the kids’ math quizzes. I was the top student. I understand this is likely illegal here in today’s America, and I don’t know if it’s legit in China nowadays. And imagine how the kids ranked towards the bottom would feel. But at the time, it did boost my confidence on my math. Also note: I moved from my village school to this town school at the beginning of my 5th grade: so I was also a new student there trying to fit in.
At the freshman year of my high school, I was very fortunate to have a math teacher who I like, and he also thought highly of my math skills, for some reason 🙂 I think probably because I did okay in the math competition at the local level. Anyway I was invited to the training for math competition in the summer break. Basically another very good math teacher gave us (probably 4 kids) extra lesson for a week or two. That was probably the highlight of my math journey.
And the School Board documentation (power point) on Math Acceleration: so board does have some consideration on this topic. This is mostly for elementary school students.
Mainly from our two daughters, and plus other friends’ kid.
It’s relatively easier to accelerate in elementary school. Things get harder in middle school and beyond.
Prepare early: this is probably more relevant for middle school kids, as it’s harder to pass the acceleration tests. I noticed the “Advanced Geometry” test takes two days (2 hours in each of the 2 mornings).
Why Accelerate?
Or Benefits of math acceleration. Right now, the main thing I can see is the kid get to take the Calculus, and the Physics/Chemistry curriculum that requires Calculus, also some other AP courses such as AP Statistics. Most of those STEM courses have prerequisites, and if a kid takes the math in regular pace, eventually he/she won’t have much time to take the mentioned AP courses above.
But, personally I don’t think AP courses are “do or die” for kids during college applications/admissions. Note my older kid is going to be freshman in HS this fall, so take my advice for what it worth 🙂 (Update 09-03-2024): I read from another Ladue mom that she basically said similar things regarding AP courses: don’t go to the AP arms race, take some if applicable, and show that one is capable of higher-level learning during college application.
What are we hope to achieve on kids’ math
Some of the people in the Spoede Elementary School know that I was involved in the Math Fact Scholars here for quite a few years. Personally I think both the math facts and the problem solving are important. When I grew up in China, we had to memorize the multiplication table, and all that. I understand we are at different times and different country, and I came across this tweet just today – it described some of the phenomena here in the math education in the USA, unfortunately. Let me paste the image below.
Back to the topic, I think I like to see a few things on my kid’s math.
This is most important one, that is they have confidence on math and they know how to learn by themselves. If in doubt, they know how to reach out (a teacher, or a parent).
They are not afraid of the tests: the math test, the MAP test, and other tests that potentially could use math, science for example.
They know how to apply math in daily lives, be at McDonald’s or a grocery store, and college savings/budgeting too.
Please note all this is possible. Again to get to there, instead of “being dreadful of math (or substitute with any other subject”), needs the work and collaboration between, kids, teachers (school) and parents.
Last but not least, I want to leave a positive story at the end. In my recent trip to China, we go to this “bun store” quite frequently every morning, the lady who probably got education level no higher than high school, is a math or calculation wizard, she doesn’t use calculator, she can come up with a total as soon as we ordered the “bao zi”. Her mental math is way better than me: how did she get this good? Practice, practice, practice. This is also the slogan we say at Math Fact Scholars program.
Note: I also published this to Medium, and the friend link is here.
Our younger daughter turned to 10 the day before yesterday. And our older daughter is about 4 years older, so basically I have been a dad for a bit over 14 years.
Being dad is not an easy job. Last few years are getting a bit more challenging, as my older one is becoming a teenager, and also with pandemic, we were worried about the lack of social activities etc. Below is some of my observations and thoughts on the topic of “raising kids”, which is my main task or job at this stage of my life. In theory I can do auto pilot too, but I am just not that kind of cool or laid back dad. I was trying to stay away from the other extreme as well: aka the micro-management, or sometimes people call the practice “helicopter parenting”. I am by no means perfect, and I had my setbacks and failures in many aspects, from big to small. I recall in my recent trip to China, we met a dad, and he said he never missed or be late for the morning drop-off for his son (that’s 7 years of no late or tardiness).
I do believe he is a quite dedicated and meticulous dad, for me I tried but I think I failed here and there in terms pickup. Quite a few times: my 14 year old would text – dad, where are you? I would answer: 5 minutes away. And honestly sometimes I don’t know whether it’d going to be 5 or 10 minutes. But for the most part, my 14 year old still thinks I am a cool dad. And sometimes if I am not cool, she would say: chill 🙂
Adolescent / adolescence:
I have some reflections here on this topic, see below
PS, corresponding to this Zhenhai Middle School; 镇海中学) piece above: I felt this summer our 14 year old seriously got into the math self-study. She wanted to do the math acceleration even since she got this idea from her 8th grade math teacher, and she was working hard on it since our summer 2024 China trip). From my perspective, I have zero complaints, and the main thing I need to remind her is “don’t sit in your room” for too long, go out and stretch, and “get some sleep” 🙂
(Update 08-09-2024 am) In terms of self motivation, and learn math on her own, I felt our 14 year old is at “friction point of the clutch“. But this morning, the hell broke loose. I think at about 6:10 or 6:20 am, I got up and heard my 14 year old sobbing. I didn’t go and ask why (as I know that alone may make things worse). Turns out she was studying for the math acceleration, and she planned to go to bed at 12 am last night, and again to get up at 2 am and study – except she didn’t woke up to the alarm. She slept through. I know she really could get some more sleep in last month, because she is exhausted studying math most of this time. I went out and was going to walk/jog in the neighborhood – but I had my 2nd thoughts and quickly came back home and went to Bread Co. and get some breakfast. A while later, I asked our 10 year old – did big sis wake you up early morning? Our younger daughter replied: yes, at 6:52 am, because I looked at the clock 🙂
So there is our 14 year old’s growing pain. Not to mention I dropped her off the high school (for test), and came back getting banana/water for her 🙁
I am not complaining actually – I think in terms of I enjoy what I am doing, if I compare myself to an empty nester: a lot of my high school or college mates are empty nester now, because I had my 14 year old when I was 39. But one day if I get lucky enough to be an empty nester, I would try to be happy too – just need to find something meaningful or interesting to fill my day.
(Update 08-09-2024 pm) So our 14 year old didn’t pass the day 2 session of the math acceleration (Advanced Geometry). But I am glad she is not giving up. She said: I am going to get the Algebra 2 book and study this year (aiming for a similar acceleration next summer). We just ordered the used book at eBay.
Each kid is different
What a novel concept or idea. Of course we know everyone is different, and child is no different. But at the same time, may I ask: don’t we used to do things like: for a guy (or a girl) with hammer, everything is a nail. No? Congrats that you already do much better than many other parents.
My 14 year old chose to do both Health and PE from Launch, an online program from Springfield MO school district. And she was doing camp or camp counselor duty as well, with Before Care responsibility for the counselor job. It seems this is more like regular school in steroids or turbo-charged.
I think I failed as a parent that I didn’t do the due diligence on those two online courses. Earlier I thought me sweating over the USPS shipping (potentially losing) the Garmin heart rate monitor was a bit stressful. Now I think about it – my 14 year old trying to make the heart rate monitor happy is much harder. She needs 7 or 7.5 hours per week of physical exercises, with heart rate needs to be above a certain threshold. Hope she can get some more sleep over the weekend and after the camp counselor duty soon.
Reading Time: 3minutes1006 N Warson, original built in 1894, probably one of the 1st houses in Olivette, not sure if Warson road existed then
Gentrification:
The process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process. Oxford Dictionary via google
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has been used to describe a wide array of phenomena, usually in a pejorative connotation.Wikipedia
I don’t know how you think, personally as I lived in the area (Creve Coeur, Olivette) for almost 20 years or so (since April 2005), I saw quite a bit development in the city of Olivette recently, both commercial and residential, and government as well (the city hall, police/fire station, and the new community center, Five Oaks on Warson). That pushes up the home prices in the area too (see Zillow), which has both plus and minus. Keep in mind Olivette also has one of the fastest population growth from 2010 to 2020 in the St. Louis county, per the census.
History of Olivette (old PDF file from Olivette website, copied something I liked here, “diversity”, page 10):
In the late ’60s and early ’70s a fair housing commission called the “Freedom of Residence Program” helped stabilize the community. Core values such as good education for children, high housing standards and safeneighborhoods brought different ethnic and social groups together around a common cause. It is partly due to this program that Olivette today enjoys a diverse yet cohesive population.
The PDF file above talked about this building, note I took picture from the back road (opposite of the main road Olive Blvd). It’s still the tallest office building in Olivette as of Feb 2024. I’ve beeing to the building once or twice (Gateway Tour Travel Agency)
Jacob Peistrup is a realtor in St.Louis, I just noticed his YouTube Channel and the above video is about Olivette
Noticed Jacob has a nice and comprehensive video introduction on YT the St. Louis city, St. Louis county, St. Charles county and Jefferson county, mostly from residential real estimate point of view. The video is 43 minutes long: in the order of St. Louis city, county, St. Charles county and Jefferson county.
PS: gentrification is a new word I learned over last few years… it has both good and bad. For example, in Frontenac they used to have a trailer park, it was developed into new homes in recent years. I read an article on the topic, and I hope the families (people) especially the kids got impacted are doing fine.
The 208-unit apartment complex now known as Irvington Place, located off of Alice Pl. between Hilltop Dr. and N. Price Road and the new Aldi grocery store and the multi-tenant Lot 3 of Olive Crossing should begin initial construction work this spring.
Flashing Heart – MakeCode – this is the one that’s currently on my Microbit, I will switch back and forth, also I will explain the code a bit, both the block code, and the Python code.
(Update 02-10-2024) Just went there to drop her off for the Saturday event, afterwards I went to Chick Fil A to get some food for the rest of family. I got Starbucks for the 13 year old. We were the 1st to arrive – the teacher said 7 am, and I think we arrived at 6:45 am or so. Saw lots of familiar faces.
(Original) Our 13 year old (soon to be 14) is going to participating the Science Olympiads at Lindenwood University over the weekend. This is something we didn’t expect at the beginning of the school year. For my wife, this is probably a big deal.
One fun fact, Serenity likes to say Science Olympiads in short form: it sounds like Sci-o-ly (it seems this is actual a real word, notice this organization website is here). And finally I was able to grasp it, but my wife could not. For that matter, because Serenity usually speaks very fast, my wife usually could not get what she was talking at the 1st pass. I think there is some mindset (or expectation) going on here too: for me understand 70% of a native speaker’s talking is good enough, for my wife, I assume she usually strives for 100%, which is unrealistic in many cases.
Anyway, Serenity beat our expectations on Science Olympiads this year. We hoped she would do this in last 2 school years, but she was busy in St. Louis Children’s Choir – the 7th grade was especially challenging for her as she was in the concert choir, which has more rehearsals (twice a week, lasts 2 hours each, also there is a 30 min music reading class before one rehearsal) and performances. This year we asked her to pull back from choirs, and focus a bit more on 8th grade sports as well as extracurricular activities in the school (such as Sci-o-li). She followed our advice. She did the Ecology subject for Sci-o-li. And now she is going to attending the event as a training team member. She asked if she could hang out at Lindenwood U after her event, and we said sure.
Also, our younger one recently competed in her elementary school spelling bee contest. Last year she was runner-up. So we were hoping she can move up this year. It didn’t work out, she got stuck at the word hitherto. Later she told us she actually knows the word, but she just spelt it wrong during the contest (she was probably both nervious, as well as not extremely familiar with this particular word). I was on the Zoom watching her and felt bad for her. But it’s okay. She won another contest instead: the yearbook cover drawing contest, which is somewhat unexpected for us. I think my wife was very happy to say the least 🙂
