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Harvard Girl Yiting Liu
Posted by HuiHui
on
1:03 PM
A brief mention of “Harvard Girl Yiting Liu” had summoned enough interest for me to promptly put down the book “The World is Flat” and powered up my laptop. The answer lies at my fingertips within a few seconds. How convenient is that. :)
An absolutely interesting article on this by Time:
( http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030217/harvard.html )
A Chinese high school student is more likely to be trampled by a water buffalo than to matriculate at Harvard. Out of the 6 million mainlanders who graduated in 2001, just two got into the prestigious U.S. university. The odds are dispiriting, to say the least, and Chinese parents who dream of an Ivy League education for their offspring are hungry for any insights that can help them shave the spread. They are finding plenty of inspiration in the story of Liu Yiting, a schoolgirl from the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.
Four years ago, Yiting received an acceptance letter from Harvard University, along with a note offering her a full scholarship. To find out how this feat was accomplished, some 3 million Chinese have bought copies of Harvard Girl, an unsparing do-it-yourself book written by Yiting's parents, Zhang Xinwu and Liu Weihua. The book's central theme is very appealing: correctly reared, any child can become if not a prodigy then at least a candidate for a top-notch school.
But the rigorous discipline and sacrifices involved in raising an overachiever are not for the faint of heart. The authors of Harvard Girl took their cues from the teachings of Carl Weter, an 18th century German priest whose advocacy of an aggressively proactive parenting approach was years ahead of its time. Weter's theories on raising smart kids helped his son learn six languages by age 9 and earn two doctorates by 16. During her pregnancy, Weihua—whose own educational aspirations were shattered by the Cultural Revolution—read a book outlining Weter's methods and decided to put them into action with her own baby.
While the importance of early learning is a given in the West, the concept is unfamiliar in China. "A lot of Chinese parents just let their kids play until they're six," explains father Zhang. Yiting's parents started their daughter's education when she was 15 days old. She received massages to stimulate her senses, and relatives were drafted to talk nonstop during the infant's every waking hour—a verbal barrage "crucial to developing IQ," claims Weihua.
In urban China, where families are allowed but one offspring, single children are often spoiled. Not so for little Yiting. Regular meal times were enforced, and snacks—the digestion of which, the parents feared, would divert blood from her brain—were verboten. By age 3, Yiting was doing household chores. When she sassed, she was made to write lengthy explanations of her behavior in a diary. When she had difficulty with calculation, she copied numbers from the Chengdu phone book. "If we wanted Liu Yiting to grow up to be an exceptional person," write her parents, "she would have to be able to withstand great psychological pressures and physical trials." So Yiting was assigned character-building tasks such as long-distance swims and holding an ice cube until her hand turned purple.
There is a saying in China that goes, "Academic success will give you a house with a golden roof and a spouse as pure as jade." No wonder Harvard Girl, despite its martial overtones, struck a popular chord. And what of the book's protagonist? While she might bridle at the sight of an ice cube, Yiting, who is starting her final semester in applied math and economics, says she is grateful for her parents' role in her early education. "Did it make me their puppet?" she asks. "The answer has to be no. I'm pretty goal-oriented because of them. My parents gave me the ability to create my own life and be happy." And to beat the odds.
—With reporting by Craig Simons/Chengdu
Feeding my curiosity further, I goggled “Carl Weter” as well. Nothing much can be found on this man except that his book of “The education of Karl Witte” is out of stock in Amazon and the used one are selling for USD140 and above! I think he was pretty much a forgotten man until his “education law” was cited by Yiting Liu’s mum.
Can bright children really be created through superior parenting and education? I found this question uncanningly similar to the question “Is evil born or bred?” My take on this is that every child is unique and different from the other. There couldn’t be specific rules that fit all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of discipline myself. But I do believe that you can only help a child if he/she wants to help himself/herself. No amount of caning or discipline can make them brighter if they just refuse to cooperate.
If personality can really be cultured, then why do we still find so much differences among our siblings? After all we shared the same parents.
An absolutely interesting article on this by Time:
( http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030217/harvard.html )
A Chinese high school student is more likely to be trampled by a water buffalo than to matriculate at Harvard. Out of the 6 million mainlanders who graduated in 2001, just two got into the prestigious U.S. university. The odds are dispiriting, to say the least, and Chinese parents who dream of an Ivy League education for their offspring are hungry for any insights that can help them shave the spread. They are finding plenty of inspiration in the story of Liu Yiting, a schoolgirl from the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.
Four years ago, Yiting received an acceptance letter from Harvard University, along with a note offering her a full scholarship. To find out how this feat was accomplished, some 3 million Chinese have bought copies of Harvard Girl, an unsparing do-it-yourself book written by Yiting's parents, Zhang Xinwu and Liu Weihua. The book's central theme is very appealing: correctly reared, any child can become if not a prodigy then at least a candidate for a top-notch school.
But the rigorous discipline and sacrifices involved in raising an overachiever are not for the faint of heart. The authors of Harvard Girl took their cues from the teachings of Carl Weter, an 18th century German priest whose advocacy of an aggressively proactive parenting approach was years ahead of its time. Weter's theories on raising smart kids helped his son learn six languages by age 9 and earn two doctorates by 16. During her pregnancy, Weihua—whose own educational aspirations were shattered by the Cultural Revolution—read a book outlining Weter's methods and decided to put them into action with her own baby.
While the importance of early learning is a given in the West, the concept is unfamiliar in China. "A lot of Chinese parents just let their kids play until they're six," explains father Zhang. Yiting's parents started their daughter's education when she was 15 days old. She received massages to stimulate her senses, and relatives were drafted to talk nonstop during the infant's every waking hour—a verbal barrage "crucial to developing IQ," claims Weihua.
In urban China, where families are allowed but one offspring, single children are often spoiled. Not so for little Yiting. Regular meal times were enforced, and snacks—the digestion of which, the parents feared, would divert blood from her brain—were verboten. By age 3, Yiting was doing household chores. When she sassed, she was made to write lengthy explanations of her behavior in a diary. When she had difficulty with calculation, she copied numbers from the Chengdu phone book. "If we wanted Liu Yiting to grow up to be an exceptional person," write her parents, "she would have to be able to withstand great psychological pressures and physical trials." So Yiting was assigned character-building tasks such as long-distance swims and holding an ice cube until her hand turned purple.
There is a saying in China that goes, "Academic success will give you a house with a golden roof and a spouse as pure as jade." No wonder Harvard Girl, despite its martial overtones, struck a popular chord. And what of the book's protagonist? While she might bridle at the sight of an ice cube, Yiting, who is starting her final semester in applied math and economics, says she is grateful for her parents' role in her early education. "Did it make me their puppet?" she asks. "The answer has to be no. I'm pretty goal-oriented because of them. My parents gave me the ability to create my own life and be happy." And to beat the odds.
—With reporting by Craig Simons/Chengdu
Feeding my curiosity further, I goggled “Carl Weter” as well. Nothing much can be found on this man except that his book of “The education of Karl Witte” is out of stock in Amazon and the used one are selling for USD140 and above! I think he was pretty much a forgotten man until his “education law” was cited by Yiting Liu’s mum.
Can bright children really be created through superior parenting and education? I found this question uncanningly similar to the question “Is evil born or bred?” My take on this is that every child is unique and different from the other. There couldn’t be specific rules that fit all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of discipline myself. But I do believe that you can only help a child if he/she wants to help himself/herself. No amount of caning or discipline can make them brighter if they just refuse to cooperate.
If personality can really be cultured, then why do we still find so much differences among our siblings? After all we shared the same parents.
