Raising perfect kids, The Tiger mom's ways!

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Rosalind Corlin and her high-achieving kids, Estephe (left) and Perrine, back in Kuala Lumpur for a short break, showing off the kids’ book, 'The Roar Of The Tiger Cubs'.

By Dr GAN SIOWCK LEE

ESTEPHE and Perrine Corlin, twins aged 10, were in Kuala Lumpur recently to visit their mum’s family, and to promote their new book The Roar Of The Tiger Cubs to help raise funds for their favourite charity project. The children reside in Hong Kong with their Malaysian mother and French father.

Estephe and Perrine shot to fame when they sat the Cambridge University International General Certificate Secondary Exam (IGCSE) Mathematics for 16-year-olds last November, and scored As!

Since then, their mother Rosalind Wong-Corlin, 43, who hails from Kelantan but grew up in Kuala Lumpur, has been unofficially crowned the “Tiger Mother of Hong Kong”, coming hot on the paws of the original “tiger mum”, Amy Chua.

Dialogue 11/06/27 Tiger Mom´s Parenting CCTV News - CNTV English

The Chinese American author and law professor’s gruelling and no-nonsense parenting approach extolled in her bestselling memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, released this year, is alternately viewed as oppressive by Western parents and effective by their Chinese counterparts.

Now, everyone wants to know the Corlin children’s story and formula for success, too. Not only do the twins excel in their studies, they are also champions and medal winners in sports such as swimming and judo. In this respect the Corlin kids are very different from Chua’s two children, who are not encouraged to do well in sports.

Here’s a chat with Rosalind, who contributed to two of the 26 chapters in the book written by her twins, during her recent trip home:

Let’s start with a brief life history of the kids ….

When the kids were born in Switzerland, we hired a nanny for the first two years. Then we spent a year in Boston (United States) and then back to Switzerland for another year before going to Hong Kong when they were five years old, where we have lived since. As my husband (a top executive of a US-based medical technology firm) travels constantly on business and my job was equally demanding, I decided that it was time for me to stop work so that I could “watch” them grow and develop.

So, you gave up a promising career in finance and a big salary to adopt an active approach to parenting? What are some of your personal sacrifices, if any, in moulding your kids into what they are today?

To me parenting is a big responsibility that should not be delegated to someone else, not the grandparents, not a nanny, certainly not a maid! Financially, it was a more painful decision as we were down to a single-income family. I soon found out that my journey in motherhood was not so easy. My children were more than a handful. I found a Chinese nanny to help out, and to speak Mandarin with them. I thought it was essential they master one more language and speak Mandarin like a Chinese native speaker.

My challenges today are different; I have to keep them motivated to do their best. It’s tough and requires a lot of time and dedication.

You exposed them to another new language, i.e. Mandarin, at an early age.

That was a good decision because research findings have consistently indicated that bilingualism enhances and strengthens cognitive development in young children.

How did you come to recognise and develop the potential of your kids to achieve what they have managed so far?

Their kindergarten teachers had mentioned that Estephe exhibited an exceptional ability in maths. My father-in-law, a specialist in tuberculosis, who spent a lot of time playing mental and maths games with my children during the holidays, said the same thing. In Hong Kong I got to know Horatio Boedihardjo, the Hong Kong maths genius who went to Oxford at the age of 15. He was doing his PhD at 17 when we started exchanging e-mail.



I asked him if he would meet Estephe and Perrine and show them some maths. When Horatio came back to Hong Kong for the winter holidays in 2007, he spent some time with the kids. He brought me some maths books and quizzes for the kids, and since then I have personally tutored them in maths and science with the help of some university students.

You found them a role model, so to speak. But how did you stimulate/accelerate your kids’ all-round development in the cognitive and psychomotor domains when they were still toddlers?

Just a couple of examples: When we were in Boston we lived at the top of a hotel so the kids would dip in the pool every day. They had floaties but I would remove one individual square foam every week so that by the end of summer they could float by themselves in the water naturally. My father-in-law is an avid reader, he bought them many books which they enjoyed.

My husband and I would read to them every day when they were little, in both French and English. Now, reading is one of their favourite hobbies.

As they grow up and go to school, how do you ensure that they are NOT excluded from the normal socialisation process that takes place in schools? How do you encourage a healthy all-round development that also includes the social and affective domains?

Take swimming, for example. They have good friends in our swim club so this helps them endure the training sessions. They are popular with their peers and the kids in their school. When the National French TV M6 visited their school to film them in class, the crew interviewed their friends to ask if they were “normal” and the response was positive.

They also have many friends from the swim team, the judo club and rugby. I think sport is very important in ensuring a wellbalanced lifestyle and education for the children. It strengthens them emotionally and develops their character. In sport they belong to a team. They learn to respect one another, to have good sportsmanship, to value and build friendship, and to share. I think this is great.

I try to inculcate a positive attitude in their daily life in everything they do. There are times when they may not feel like going for swim training at 5.30am, or doing homework, but they know they have to get these things done. I instil in them the notion that life is a challenge and results or success

comes with some effort and self-discipline.

The same attitude has benefited them in their studies and helped them achieve the academic results they have today.

What else are you doing to structure a stimulating environment for them to develop in the cognitive domain?

I provide opportunities for them to master different languages. They go to the French School, currently in the bilingual section – 50% English and 50% French. They have Chinese tuition at home. The school caters for French nationals whose mother tongue is French. We will move them to the Island School in August, one of the English Foundation Schools in Hong Kong. For maths and science, they will be in higher level classes or given work at their level because they are ahead of their peers in these subjects. In Mandarin they will be in the class for native speakers.

It’s great that this school has this flexibility to cater for kids with different abilities in certain subject areas. This certainly is a way of putting Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences into practice! What about their moral and values education?

I try to inculcate good values by involving them in worthy causes. They now know they have a social responsibility. Writing the book has been a good start as this has allowed them to contribute the proceeds to a nonprofit organisation, “Bring Me A Book Hong Kong”, which promotes literacy in children (www.bringmeabook.org.hk).

It is widely acknowledged that human potential, some extraordinary, remains largely untapped in most people throughout life. As far as academic pursuit goes, what is your main focus?

When they were younger, the focus was on developing their minds, consistently encouraging them to ask questions both at home and in school. In the past year, they have matured a lot and acquired a lot of knowledge.

They can now combine both, applying the knowledge they have acquired in novel situations, to solve problems, synthesise new ideas ... they have shown this in their book.

This reminds me of what Confucius advocated, that learning and thinking must go hand in hand. “Learning without thinking leads to bewilderment; thinking without learning is futile.” One last question for the “tiger mum”: How would you describe your relationship with the kids?

I am strict with them, but there is a very warm and close bond between us. I organise both fun times and work times for them. Whatever I do they know that it is for their good. They know I sacrifice a lot of my time for them. For me the most important thing is that I will always have a close relationship with them. In my opinion, strengthening and sustaining this bond is the biggest challenge for parents as the kids grow up.

Twin power

I SHOWED up for my appointment with Estephe and Perrine Corlin at Kuala Lumpur’s Royal Lake Club swimming pool where they were training with their “tiger mother” Rosalind Wong-Corlin.

According to Rosalind, the kids were preparing for an open water meet in France in August, and their coach did not want them to miss three days of training even while holidaying in KL! So, Rosalind, herself a former Malaysian national swimmer, had to take over coaching duties here.

The children were in their swim gear, complete with caps and goggles. They were adorable and, yes, “normal”, coming across as perfectly well-adjusted, with a healthy tanned complexion and cheerful impish smiles.

Estephe is the older (by a few minutes) and more bubbly and chatty of the two, while Perrine is like a little lady, demure and sweet.

We started out talking about The Roar Of The Tiger Cubs, their new book that details their lives thus far and their drive for success.

First, tell us why you wrote the book.

Estephe: We want to share with the other kids that if you think you can, you will! Everything can be done if you put in your effort.

Perrine: Yes, I want to tell other kids that “the world is your oyster” ....

Estephe: In the book, we tell stories about our lives, precious moments that we will always remember ....

Perrine: ... and experiences which have helped us in growing up.

What’s the writing process like?

Estephe: We worked over three months, we used materials from our diaries, our collection of photos and drawings.

Perrine: We discussed, shared ideas ... Mum always helped and encouraged us.

After these few initial questions which broke the ice, the kids opened up and there was no telling who was saying what ... each had so much to offer.

To sum it up, their outstanding achievements in both studies and sports notwithstanding, Estephe and Perrine are very much like other kids their age. They got very enthusiastic and excited once they started talking about their hobbies which include playing chess, skiing, watching DVDs and hiking with their parents, sailing with Dad. In short, just spending time and having fun with their folks.

Like kids their age, they use the computers and the Internet for their school work, but said they have no time for social media such as Facebook. Estephe loves playing rugby, and Perrine likes singing and is a fan of Lady Gaga.

Since the interview was conducted in English, I decided to test their Mandarin. I was impressed to find them speaking like mainland Chinese, and having already read quite a few Chinese classics.

They also offered to show me their Chinese names by writing them out.

Before we said goodbye, I gave them a little pocket book of Chinese proverbs and idioms illustrated with cartoons. They were quite thrilled as they are familiar with many of the phrases. At this young age they can already appreciate the legacy of this priceless language that is deeply rooted in history, culture and tradition.

* Dr Gan Siowck Lee is an education specialist and consultant, and former associate professor of Universiti Putra Malaysia. The Roa r Of The Tiger Cubs is available locally at all major bookstores.

Malaysian Universities need decolonization, relook the ratings & rankings!

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Decolonization of universities begins with us

 1 July 2011 By Zainon Ahmadnewsdesk@thesundaily.com

PETALING JAYA (June 30, 2011): They were knocked off their pedestals just as rudely as Saddam Hussein statues were pulled down from their mountings after the Americans and their mostly western allies overran Baghdad in 2003.

Among them are such gods of science and mathematics as Sir Isaac Newton, famous for his law on why apples fall.

He was pilloried for allowing his fear of the Church of England to deter him from publishing some of his best discoveries – his true masterpieces.

Others who were knocked down included people like Keppler, Descartes and Einstein. And so was Galileo who invented the telescope but was in trouble with the Catholic Church when he could see too far into the heavens.

All these bashings and the questioning of the assumptions on which human knowledge is based took place during the three-day International Conference on Decolonising Our Universities that ended on Wednesday in Penang.

It was the fourth in the series of Multiversity Conferences organised by Citizens International and Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Nicolaus Copernicus is remembered mostly as a mathematician and an astronomer but few know that he is also a monk and it was because of this that his claim that the earth moves around the sun and not the other way round as was originally believed was easily accepted by the church.

But the conference was told that he was not the revolutionary scientist he has been made out to be.
He was a just a common plagiarist. He merely translated the work of Ibn Shatir of Damascus.

It was also told that few academics, scientists, mathematicians, astronomers and other researchers were really free of the influence of Christian theology because for centuries the church was the key consumer of the products of the western university system and therefore had to remain loyal.

The conference was told that anyone who challenged the church had to suffer and it was for that purpose that the Inquisition was instituted.

Rival institutions also suffered and this was the fate of the great university complex of Alexandria, of which the famous library was a part.

Many wondered aloud whether Christian theology still influences western academicians and brought up the brilliant Stephen Hawkings whom most Malaysians know only as the writer of a small book, A Brief History of Time.

Hawkins wrote many other books and some contain quite a bit of Christian propaganda. He even attempted to reconcile the Big Bang of a few billion years ago with the Bible story of creation in seven days some 6,000 years ago.

Many other gods of science and mathematics, as the world know of them, were also called liars. The great 16th century cartographer Gerardus Mercator whose maps and charts helped the Europeans to reach the East was so fearful of the church that he did not acknowledge his non-Christian and especially Muslim sources.

Another great god of science and mathematics, Albert Einstein, was dragged down from his Olympian heights when it was disclosed that his formula on the theory of relativity was corrected by Indian scientist and mathematician C. K. Raju recently.

The expose by the scholars and participants from 20 countries help to convince those who were still hesitant about the need for efforts to decolonise universities – still very much Eurocentric – in Asia and Africa that the knowledge they had been “brainwashed” into believing as being universal was not universal at all and based on false assumptions.

It was also meant to provoke re-thinking about the assumptions they had made based on discoveries and ideas of western scholars published in western academic journals, that nothing should be accepted as universal truth without careful scrutiny.

Students have often assumed calculus, the subject they learn in mathematics, is of western origin.
Nothing is further from the truth. It was stolen from India by the Jesuits, said Raju who said the mode of calculation was important for navigational purposes.

It helped Vasco da Gama to reach the Cape of Good Hope and Goa.

According to Datuk Shad Saleem Faruqi, emeritus professor of law and legal adviser, Universiti Teknologi Mara, who is also visiting professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, the Europeans think nothing of falsifying history.

He said everyone seems to think that the Johannes Gutenburg’s printing press, developed in the 15th century, was the first in the world when a number of western scholars were aware that Pi Sheng had already developed one in 1040 but little is said of him.

Likewise, the West seems reluctant to acknowledge scholars from India, China, Africa and those from the Muslim world and promotes the idea that the Bologna monastic school was the first university.

Thus, few know about the great universities of Taxila, Nalanda, Zaytuna and Nanjing which preceded Bologna.

On legal education, he said, it is still very much western-centric and lamented that despite the existence of local law programmes since 1972, the Legal Profession Act continues to recognise foreign (mostly UK) law degrees and qualifications.

On the Act’s permission to foreign lawyers to be admitted on an ad hoc basis to argue special cases, he was cynical to the idea of inviting Cherry Blair as a human rights expert when there are hundreds of local ones.

Fortunately, the judge was not an Uncle Tom and he rejected her application.

Because of this, the conference agreed that while the physical colonisation is long gone – hopefully so, said some – the mental colonisation is very much alive.

Thus the call for the need to purge the “West in us” before efforts to decolonise can truly begin.

VC: Relook varsity ratings

By RICHARD LIM  educate@thestar.com.my

GEORGETOWN: Rankings promote intellectual hegemony and there should be a different method of appraising universities, said Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) vice-chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak.

“The rankings are designed to ensure that universities remain on top, tapping into the best brains of developing countries in the process.

“The aging population has resulted in tremendous demographic shifts in certain Western nations and their universities need bright foreign students to fill up the gaps,” Prof Dzulkifli told The Star.

Prof Dzulkifli added that USM was one of the six core members of the Alternative University Appraisal (AUA) initiative which seeks to identify the strengths of participating universities.

Instead of ranking the universities, the initiative encouraged participating universities to leverage their strengths and share best practices for mutual benefit.

At a press conference after delivering the inaugural address at the International Conference on De-colonising Universities yesterday, Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah told academics not to “blindly ape the West.”

Saifuddin said hegemony was reinforced through subtle ways and the promotion of university rankings was one such move.

Earlier in his speech, Saifuddin encouraged greater collaboration among Asian varsities.

He said many Western theories were being used to address local problems and this sometimes made things worse as the theories were not designed to suit the local context.

Decolonising our universities

COMMENT By PROF SHAD SALEEM FARUQI

Western chemistry had its predecessor in Eastern alchemy, Algebra had African roots, and Arabic was at one time the lingua franca of science and technology.

AN ongoing international conference in Penang is examining the issue of intellectual enslavement in Asian and African citadels of learning. Luminary after luminary are pointing out that education in Asia and Africa is too West-centric. It blindly apes Western universities and Western curricula.

Our university courses reflect the false belief that Western knowledge is the sum total of all human knowledge.

The books prescribed and the icons and godfathers of knowledge are overwhelmingly from the North Atlantic countries.

Titles written by scholars and thinkers from Asia and Africa are rarely included in the book list. Our curricula exhibit lack of awareness of the Asian and African contributions to civilisation.

Any evaluation of right and wrong, of justice and fairness, of poverty and development and of what is wholesome and worthy of celebration tends to be based on Western perceptions.

Eastern ideas and institutions are viewed through Western prisms and invariably regarded as primitive and in need of change.

The imperatives of globalisation have further tilted the balance in favour of the Anglo-American world view.

Encapsulation: It was my privilege to point out that all human beings are encapsulated by time and space. We are all susceptible to narrow religious, racial and communal perspectives.

Our whole life is a process of expan-ding the horizons of thought and adding to the islands of k

On the same score, North American and European world-views are also limited by their own social experience.

However, due to their colonial ascendency (which has not abated and has simply taken on new forms) and due to their military and economic might, their perspectives pass off as universal, transcendental and absolute.

Politically free, mentally enslaved: For instance, legal education in this country is primarily British based.

It is profession-oriented not people-oriented. Despite the Asian context, it does not emphasise need-based programmes.

It does not highlight the burning issues of the times the plight of the marginalised and the downtrodden and issues of corruption and abuse of power.

Students are not trained or encouraged to walk in the valleys where the rays of justice do not penetrate.

The syllabi are fashioned on British LLB and Bar at Law courses. Education is textbook based rather than experience based. The structure of the course, the topics covered, the books prescribed, the icons of knowledge are mostly from outside Asia.

The expatriate lecturers and external examiners are mostly from the North Atlantic countries. Asian books, Asian theories and Asian scholars are generally not regarded as fit for such recognition.

This is despite historical evidence that Chinese, Indian and Persian universities predated universities in Europe and provided paradigms for early Western education. Cultural and scientific renaissance flourished in the East long before the European renaissance.

Everyone knows about the Gutenberg printing press. Very few know that Pi Sheng developed one in 1040. In science, Galileo, Newton and Einstein illuminated the firmament but not much is known about Al-hazen and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.

Western chemistry had its predecessor in Eastern alchemy. Algebra had African roots.

The philosophical musings of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Satre and Goethe can be matched by Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Mulla Sadra, Yanagita Kunio, Shenhui, al-Mutanabbi and Kalidasa.

Durkheim's and Weber's sociology must compete with Ibn Khaldun and Jalal Al-Din Rumi. Freudian psychology had its corrective in Buddhist wisdom. The Cartesian medical model has its Eastern counterpart in ayurvedic, unani and herbal methods.

Very few are aware that Arab Muslims were central to the making of medieval Europe. From the 8th to the 13th centuries, Arab and Islamic cultures were at their zenith and were renowned for their science and learning. Aspiring scholars from all over the world flocked to these citadels of education.

Arabic was at one time the lingua franca of science and technology. A large number of texts written in Arabic were translated into Latin without acknowledgment.

Plan of action: So what should be done? It should not be part of our agenda to try to ask European and American universities to include the treasures of the East in their syllabi. Whether their worldview should be enriched by the insights and reflections of the East that is their problem.

Our concern is that our own universities should first of all shed the slavish mentality of blindly aping Western paradigms.

Secondly, we must embark on a voyage of discovery of our ancestors' intellectual wanderings. We must seek to rediscover the intellectual wonders and heritage of China, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and other Eastern and African civilisations.

Our aim should never be to shut out the West or be insular. Let the wearing of blinds be the speciality of someone else. Our aim should be to be truly global, to give our students a bigger picture of knowledge and to increase their choices.

In the background of pervasive Western intellectual domination, indigenisation would assist a genuine globalisation.

Also, this discovery of our treasures should not be as an exercise in flag-waving nationalism. Its aim is ameliorative.

Diversity and pluralism of knowledge systems is vital for meeting many of the moral, social and economic challenges of the times.

For example, Asia should offer a critique of the ethnocentrism of Western scholarship by pointing out that a middle class Western lifestyle and what that entails in terms of the nuclear family, the consumer society, living in suburbia and extensive private space may neither be workable nor desirable in the modern world.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell and some brakes on “development” policies and some reconsideration of what amounts to the good life is in order.

Humanity is living on the verge of a precipice, afraid both to climb and to fall. But the ground is slipping beneath us. It is time for a dialogue between civilisations, a mutual process of learning from each other and a building of a garland of wisdom with blossoms from many Eastern and Western gardens.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM.

Check related links: http://multiworldindia.org/events/
Penang Conference
Fourth Multiversity Conference
“Decolonising Our Universities”
June 27th – 29th 2011
Venue: Paradise Sandy Beach Resort, Tanjung Bungah, Penang, Malaysia

The new anarchists - Are Hackers The 21st Century’s First Revolutionary Movement?

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Hackers’ efforts to fight the power may lead to a backlash

By Trevor Butterworth

Peter Steiner’s now famous cartoon for the New Yorker, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” first appeared in 1993 but didn’t, according to the artist, receive much attention until the Internet became more familiar to people. It was a rare instance of a cartoon doing what it’s not supposed to do, gaining relevance over time as people understand just how pithily it captured an essential truth. This, surely, elevates it to one of the most important cartoons in history (Steiner told the New York Times in 2000 that he felt a little like the person who invented the smiley face).

History has shown Steiner’s vision to be much too benign, and the cyber events of the past year — hacking and theft on the scale of 18th-century piracy — demand an update, perhaps along the lines of, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re China.” But even that may have been spoiled after the events of this week, which saw the appearance of an alliance between two groups of clandestine hackers, Anonymous and LulzSec, both of which have been implicated in numerous high profile security breaches.

In a statement announcing “Operation Anti-Security,” LulzSec declared that “the government and white hat security terrorists across the world continue to dominate and control our Internet ocean … we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path.”



This was accompanied by “an open letter to citizens of the United States of America” on Anonymous’ news site, which sounded uncannily tea party-ish in its call on Americans to “wake up” and take back their liberties from a corrupt government.

To judge from the reaction of some information security experts, the alliance was on the scale of Germany teaming up with Japan during World War II. Except by the end of the week, LulzSec was apparently calling it quits, alarmed, perhaps, by the arrest of an alleged member in Britain and the attempts by other hackers to expose their identities.

With subterfuge as the name of the info-war game, the virtual equivalent of smoke and mirrors makes it difficult to say what’s true and what might be misdirection, especially with organizations that are leaderless and decentralized. But here’s the upshot of this recent cycle of cyber shenanigans: On the Internet, one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.

Technological prowess has given hackers an extraordinary sense of political entitlement. It’s easy to theorize about how the world should work if your only engagement with it is through a computer and you’re in your teens or 20s. But weaponize your theories through hacking and you’re all but certain to lose the public, who will demand ever more stringent crackdowns and restrictive laws that, in turn, will push some hackers to even more extreme responses.

At the same time, the hacker collectives do possess a technological prowess that is beyond the imagining of most people, and with a deep understanding of how technology works, there is the privilege of insight. The explosive development of the Web raises serious, complex questions about ownership, privacy and freedom. And if these are ignored by politicians, or dominated by commercial interests, or dismissed by a mainstream media averse to complexity, then hacker frustrations will turn to direct action as a way of getting attention.

This is, after all, what non-governmental organizations and other advocacy groups do on a much more limited scale to promote their interests. (Still, it’s one thing to disrupt traffic with a protest march; it’s another to disrupt Internet traffic with a denial-of-service attack.)

The question is what kind of politics is this technology empowering? If you don’t acknowledge genuine concerns or even good faith in the info security community, if government is irredeemably corrupt, then you haven’t just abandoned politics, you’re anti-political; all that’s left is a war of attrition.

Oddly, the most useful insights on hacker culture may come from a re-engagement with the politics of anarchism, as noted in a review of new books on the subject in the summer issue of BookForum by Columbia historian Mark Mazower. While Mazower makes a mistake, in my view, in seeing revolutionary politics as still being mediated through academic leftism rather than through technology, his point — that the anarchist theories of the 19th century are more relevant than Marx to explain the present political conditions — is timely.

“Anarchism’s combination of individual commitment, ethical universalism and deep suspicion of the state as a political actor mark it out as the ideology of our times,” writes Mazower, before ending his piece with the claim that “we are all anarchists now.”

But we’re not. We are disenfranchised because today’s anarchism belongs to the hackers — and they have the means to make much better bombs. Whether the alliance between LulzSec and Anonymous was ever real or not, it defines the new ideological reality of our times: the network as an emerging anarchic state actor. Whether we like it or not, this politics of technology forces us toward libertarianism, to maximal freedom, because the alternatives — anarchy and control — are dancing toward disaster.

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