One of my star students has been driving me nuts for the past six months.
He's super quick at left-brain stuffs, so reading notes and solving rhythmic problems used to be his forte, but lately he came to lesson with so many wrong notes and bad counting. When your kids start sonata, this kind of mistake will make you pull your hair out.
I found out that since he started junior high, his school discovered that he's a genius (by IQ), and so they put him in a so called "acceleration class", which means that he will save a year in junior high and another year in senior high, and ready to go to university by the time he's 16. His parents were so proud and asked me to make allowances because his life now is all about school, school, school.
I don't get this, really.
Why do people so concern over being successful now than being happy? So this boy may be a genius, but is his education more important than his happy childhood? He's only 11 now, and instead of being confined in class with books, he should be able to play football and keep a hamster or whatever. It doesn't last long, and he will spend most of his adolescent and adult life struggling to survive, either among his peers and later to get jobs and become a CEO, and it's tough and hard and tiring and sometimes depressing, so why does he have to start that earlier? Nothing will guarantee the future. We always have the possibility of not seeing the sun tomorrow, so if we all have a chance to be happy now, why not do it?
And what really is the measurement of success? It's always different in each and every individuals, and it will always be defined by two. First ourselves, second other people. Who's right? Nobody cares. People may see you as a failure, but as long as you get a good impression about yourself, you're happy. And that's what really matters. As I said before, life is an ocean of illusion, and by the time you're 40, you don't need to really know whether you've made it or not. You just need to feel good about yourself.
