We Can Do by Moshe Kai with guest Robert Levy discussing Saxon Math.

[Robert Levy]

You're welcome.  Basically, I heard an infomercial for the Phonics Game when I was driving through Central California in late 1997.  They used an example of sounding out the word "cat", as in kaa-aaa-taa.  I said, jeeze, I can do that, I don't need their product.  I used a marker board, started with that word.  In 6 weeks, at age 3.5, he read his first book (Walter and the Tug Boat), with help, of course, but he learned every word in it.  A couple of months after he was four (not 3, as someone here stated), I had him read Hamlet.  I made him nail the punctuation and play-act the parts, such as being a female when Ophelia spoke.  It was fun, and once through that, I was done teaching him reading.  He wound up being a great writer and great speller, which I have to attribute to phonics at a young age.  So that was reading.

Math started as me giving him "number sheets" as I had nothing else that I liked.  Every book that I saw was "fun" for the kids.  I didn't want that, I just wanted math.  Then he's in second grade at Christian school (age 6, a year ahead), and the teacher has a 4th grade daughter.  My wife asks her for some stuff to challenge him.  She gives us zerox's of problems (from her daughter's book) that were absolutely remarkable.  Then I figure out that they were from Saxon 5/4.  My life got a million times easier, as John Saxon did all the work of figuring out what he needed to learn.  He then raced through those books, especially the early books.  The work did get harder and take longer later on, so the pace slowed.  We also built a house at that time, and ran the project, so that slowed us down.  It was all good for him - he was simply too far ahead, so it was good that he slowed a bit (maybe a year or two).  As it was, he still took his SAT at Age 10.5 and got an 1190 in the old system (680 Math, 510 Verbal).  With those scores, the community college (San Jacinto) let him enroll (he was 11 by then) and he first took Calc-1, then the AP Exam (just to be able to prove to doubter that he knew his stuff, should there be any), and then two classes, and then he finally dropped out of the Christian school and went full time to San Jac.  After his Associate in Math, it was University of Houston, where he got has BS in Math, and BS in Mechanical Engineering.  Now he's (hopefully) in his last semester at A&M and will be done with school for now with a Master's in ME (no PhD at this point, just a good job).  I'm happy with that path.

Feel free to copy my posts if you want to start a new thread.

[Korrale4kq]

Thank you so much for your contribution. I too like math to be math and not full of games too. My son is only 2 so we do use a lot of manipulatives for now. But I think I will be phasing them out in a few years.

My son is currently a sight word reader,  however. I completely agree with the value of phonics. He just isn't getting the blending yet. He can sound out a few words with great difficulty. I know that this is something that will click in time.

I love how you accelerated your son's education by enrolling him into a community college at a young age. I think your method was brilliant. It is something to consider in 10 or so years. I can still teach him content and how to learn, but he may as well be going on and trying for a higher education diploma on the side if he is able.

[PokerDad]

I finally have a moment to go eat a sandwich and this tread goes EPIC

Great to have Robert here to answer questions...

As it was, he still took his SAT at Age 10.5 and got an 1190 in the old system

That easily puts me to shame (when I was several years older), and I was fairly strong in math relative to my peers. I have to go off to bed, but will come back soon with some questions.
Thank you Mr. Levy for your time... you're sort of legend around here, and it's pure pleasure reading your writing!

[PokerDad]

Here were a few questions off the top of my head... I'm confident that I could triple the list - but there are quite a few questions already, so here we go:

Robert,

Do you believe any parent can accelerate their child in mathematics, or does the parent need to know advanced mathematics themself before imparting to the child?

Did you use Saxson all the way up through Calc 1? If not, at what point did you change texts? Would it be too difficult to give a list of the texts that you used up through Calc 1? I ask because I've already purchased a handful of older 90s Saxson texts and if you feel the higher mathematics Saxson texts are still the best, then I'll get those too (such as Algebra, Trig, Calc)

Did you do after school teaching, or did you at some point do exclusive home schooling?

Could you walk us through a typical day (when you were really hitting the math hard)?

You mentioned David taking the SAT at 10 years old. Was this due to a requirement at the junior college or for some other purpose (such as taking the AP exam just to prove it)?

Along those lines, when did you approach the junior college for admittance and how simple or smooth was the process?

Stated another way, what sort of obstacles, if any, did you encounter in attempting to get David admitted to the junior college?

Does David feel as though he missed out socially by attending college early? If not, how was he able to satisfy the urge to enjoy friendships that typically blossom "in school"?

I met my wife in college. I know many others that also met their spouse in college. I'm by no means saying that college is the only place to meet someone, but I will say that I had spent a few years in the real world prior to college and I found that meeting a like-minded co-ed is far easier to do in a college environment than grinding out hours at work... Do you think attending college at a younger age is, in anyway, disadvantageous to cultivating a satisfying and fruitful domesticated life?

[linzy]

Robert, I am so excited. to see you here. I have a son who recently turned 6 and is working on Saxon 5/4, along with some other math. We came to Saxon through a self teaching mindset and it had been recommended that they know all of their facts automatically (all operations through the 12's) before starting 5/4.

My son has all his facts mastered, but still calculates some out, for example he will skip count occasionally to get to the answer in division.

My question for you is if you required your son to have his facts mastered to automaticity prior to starting 5/4 and if not did you just have him do the recommended 100 warm up problems before each lesson or a more extensive review of all 4 operations? Right now we have Blaise do all flashcards in all operations and/or one hundred timed problems in each operation prior to his lesson. He does them quickly maybe 7-8 minutes a sheet so it's not huge commitment, but I was wondering if the Saxon program alone will get him the math fact automaticity he needs.

[Robert Levy]

I'm still in a state of shock to find people that are actually interested in how I (we) did it, rather than simply smiling and thinking my kid is a freak with a big brain.  So I'm more than happy to know parents like you guys really exist.  I shall try to answer the questions...


"Do you believe any parent can accelerate their child in mathematics, or does the parent need to know advanced mathematics themself before imparting to the child?"

I guess it depends on one's definition of "advanced mathematics".  Being an engineer, I've got the advanced math.  But I basically stopped trying to even teach David any math when he started Calculus...at that point it was just staying on top of him and making sure he was doing what was expected in class (and that he never, ever, missed class).  One thing that was pretty funny was that David got quite popular in his classes, so he rushed to get his homework done early so he could help others (obviously I advised him not to simply give solutions).  But, yes, it probably would have been tougher if I didn't know the materials.  If that were the case, then I'd only be able to tell him if his answers were right or wrong, but not really steer him.  But, again, if you got through even Algebra 2 before finishing high school, you can do wonders.  Starting him in college at Calculus 1 is not necessary, instead starting him with pre-calc is perfectly fine...and to get there, you just need to complete Algebra 2 (at least per Saxon).


Did you use Saxson all the way up through Calc 1? If not, at what point did you change texts? Would it be too difficult to give a list of the texts that you used up through Calc 1? I ask because I've already purchased a handful of older 90s Saxson texts and if you feel the higher mathematics Saxson texts are still the best, then I'll get those too (such as Algebra, Trig, Calc)

Almost.  I stopped after finishing Saxon's "Advanced Mathematics" which is their pre-calc.  That book was a lot of work to get through, and I made him start at the very beginning (earlier, I would skip 20 to 40 chapters, simply because he didn't need the review).  Once done with that book, he was good to go for college Calculus (it is an outstanding book), so I didn't bother with Saxon for Calc. 1 (although I still have the book, along with Physics, which I didn't use much either).  One thing that I did do, which is a bit tricky these days, is come up with Log and Trig tables.  I made him use them instead of calculators (until just about at the very end), which Saxon (unfortunately) starts to use at the higher levels.  I simply don't see a place for calculators in mathematics.


Did you do after school teaching, or did you at some point do exclusive home schooling?

After school.  Home schooling with him was hopeless, we tried one semester, when he had maybe 2 college classes.  We bought Abeka, but our kid was normal, and gamed the system.  My wife tried, but she wasn't born here (Asian), so it wasn't too hard for him to trick her into thinking he was working, when he wasn't.  But that was later.  At the beginning, it was before school (if you can believe that), after school, on weekends, on vacation (but only when there was nothing else to do on long drives).  Overall, his learning of reading and then math took the place of video games and TV.  It was that simple.  Young kids have a lot of time, but they also require near-continuous attention from parents.


Could you walk us through a typical day (when you were really hitting the math hard)?

Wow, I'll try.  I think (but not sure) that I would wake him at about 0700, we'd do one section of (early) Saxon, and then I'd go to work and he'd go to his Christian school.  He'd come home from school, and I'd come home from work a bit later.  We'd try to get through 2 sections in the late afternoon/evening, although 1 was fine for a weekday.  He'd go to sleep at about 2100, he was more than happy to go to bed and was out immediately (a nice benefit of our routine that holds to this day).  At school he was taught to be respectful and keep his hand down most of the time, so as not to hurt the feelings of other kids...but if asked, he'd answer questions.  Never a problem, and did fine making friends.  If he EVER said something to make me think he thought that he was something special, he regretted it, for I raked him over the coals for that.  It was rare, and usually my misunderstanding, but he got the point.  I've always said that if I wrote a book about raising kids, the title would be "You Ain't Shiite", except you can replace that last word with the word you're thinking of.  And believe me, I said that to him a number of times, flat-out.  He got the point, and has never been on one of those "Save the World" kicks that prodigies think they can do.


You mentioned David taking the SAT at 10 years old. Was this due to a requirement at the junior college or for some other purpose (such as taking the AP exam just to prove it)?

The SAT was required.  He needed a 500 in math to take Math classes, and a 500 in Verbal to take other clasessn (he squeaked that one with 510).  I think it's the way that Texas makes sure that little punks wanting to take college course aren't trying to game the system to get out of having to endure the public schools.  In other words, if you want to go to college at a high-school age (or younger, in this case), you need to show that you're college material.  It makes sense to me.


Along those lines, when did you approach the junior college for admittance and how simple or smooth was the process?

That was luck.  It wound up that my wife took some math classes there and then talked to her teacher, who just happened to run the department.  She wound up having to check with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (and no, I had no clue that they existed) to see if it was ok to have such a young kid.  They never specified a minimum age, so he was good to go, providing he had the SAT scores.  My suggestion to others is to have solid proof that junior is up to it, like SAT scores and be prepared to have junior interviewed to see if he's up to it.


Stated another way, what sort of obstacles, if any, did you encounter in attempting to get David admitted to the junior college?

None...just needed the SAT scores.  But this is Texas.  Overall, I think it's usually doable, if the kid can act mature and has the scores.  The public schools are a different story if you want to accelerate your kid, however, because David would be considered a "distraction" in their line of reasoning.


Does David feel as though he missed out socially by attending college early? If not, how was he able to satisfy the urge to enjoy friendships that typically blossom "in school"?

Not a bit.  He was going to church every week and had (and has) very close same-age friends.  We (wife and I) did all we could to nurture those friendships and he was happy with how it turned out.  Even so, it's tough because he's not in the same classes and lunch rooms as those kids - he only saw them once a week.  But he's keep close to them.  At San Jac. (junior college) he made some friends from their "Gaming Guild" which I never liked but he enjoyed it - you can probably figure out what it was about.  He still stays in touch with them.  At Univ. of Houston, he got very close to a number of people that were ~5 years older than him.  They would go as far as to eat out at a place where he would be admitted, before going off to the real bar scene.  One of them once said, to the effect:  "you seem like a normal college person, which is amazing considering your age".  He related great with them.  As I mentioned earlier, he has zero regrets regarding missing high school and rates his childhood as an 11, on a scale of 1 to 10.  So, in the end, if your kid is taught to respect people that struggle to learn what Saxon taugh him, he will be just fine.


I met my wife in college. I know many others that also met their spouse in college. I'm by no means saying that college is the only place to meet someone, but I will say that I had spent a few years in the real world prior to college and I found that meeting a like-minded co-ed is far easier to do in a college environment than grinding out hours at work... Do you think attending college at a younger age is, in anyway, disadvantageous to cultivating a satisfying and fruitful domesticated life?

Fair question.  I agree, he misses that chance, but he's 18 now and if he's doing good at Exxon (or whereever) in a few years, he won't have a problem finding a wife there.  Women are now the majority of college graduates (although not in engineering).  I suspect that he won't have a problem finding someone.  He also has his church connections.  But right now, he just plays it day to day, and after he graduates, he will work, and then, when the time is right, he'll look for a wife.  In my case, it was hopeless at college...so I'm not going to worry much.

[Korrale4kq]

I actually have very few friends that met their spouses  in college. In fact i cant think of any off the top of my head. I have 4 friends that met theirs spouses in HS. The rest met in other ways.

[Robert Levy]

"Robert, I am so excited. to see you here."

Like I've said, I'm happy to (finally) be among parents that seem to actually be willing to do what it takes for their kids to do well, rather than trusting an institution that may or may not have have his best interests in mind.


"I have a son who recently turned 6 and is working on Saxon 5/4, along with some other math. We came to Saxon through a self teaching mindset and it had been recommended that they know all of their facts automatically (all operations through the 12's) before starting 5/4."

Agree and actually we were far beyond that.  I had David dividing fractions and doing huge multiplication problems problems prior (and he hated me for it).  That was more because I had not heard of Saxon, rather than thinking it was needed.  I simply didn't have a plan at first.  But, yes, if you start at 5/4 arithmetic facts must be automatic first.  There's a lot to 5/4 that goes way beyond just number manipulation.  I think the biggest problem is that kids struggle with stuff that they should have learned earlier...which is tragic.  Just teach them that stuff before pushing ahead, and they're never behind.


"My son has all his facts mastered, but still calculates some out, for example he will skip count occasionally to get to the answer in division."

Sorry, don't follow.


"My question for you is if you required your son to have his facts mastered to automaticity prior to starting 5/4 and if not did you just have him do the recommended 100 warm up problems before each lesson or a more extensive review of all 4 operations?"

5/4 does contain the warm-up, but I'd get him through them first.


"Right now we have Blaise do all flashcards in all operations and/or one hundred timed problems in each operation prior to his lesson. He does them quickly maybe 7-8 minutes a sheet so it's not huge commitment, but I was wondering if the Saxon program alone will get him the math fact automaticity he needs."

Maybe the earlier years of Saxon might, but we didn't use them.  I'd recommend that junior be able to do those basic problems first, prior to hitting up 5/4.  But I don't consider myself expert in that area.

[Robert Levy]

"I actually have very few friends that met their spouses  in college. In fact i cant think of any off the top of my head. I have 4 friends that met theirs spouses in HS. The rest met in other ways. "

That was my case.  Indirectly through work.  I had a coworker that moved to another city.  I went to visit him, told him that I was looking for a wife (LOL).  He found me one.  I know one couple that met in high school (maybe earlier), still married.  I know one other in college - long since divorced.  I tend to agree that Mrs. degrees are not what they might have once been.

[Robert Levy]

(whoops, missed this post)

"Thank you so much for your contribution. I too like math to be math and not full of games too. My son is only 2 so we do use a lot of manipulatives for now. But I think I will be phasing them out in a few years."

You're welcome.  We did nothing beyond the alphabet at age 2.  It wasn't until age 3.5 that we started reading.  As far as math, one thing I figured out early was that the kid does not need to know the meaning of what's being taught.  I tried for weeks to teach David that 3 apples plus 2 apples meant 5 apples.  He simply couldn't get it.  I finally gave up and went abstract - I didn't care if he knew what "3" or "2" meant, all I cared about was that 3 plus 2 equaled 5 and that was it.  I figured that he would backfill the meaning of the numbers later.  He did.  It worked great.  As I mentioned earlier, we after-schooled, so I figured his day school would fill in any blanks that I left (like that gaping one).


My son is currently a sight word reader,  however. I completely agree with the value of phonics. He just isn't getting the blending yet. He can sound out a few words with great difficulty. I know that this is something that will click in time.

I'd recommend jettisoning sight-words, completely (since I was invited here for my comments).  I took a very basic Russian-language class at work.  They don't even have letter-names - everything is sounds there.  I think that sight words simply mis-wires the brains of the little guys.  If I wanted to get political (so feel free to ignore), I'd say it's intentional - to assure that the kids never become good readers.  I base that on my understanding that in 3rd (maybe 4th, grade), they then go to phonics.  Sight words almost seem to be designed to delay the onset of actually learning to read, and that is inhumane (in my opinion).  But, at age 2, it probably doesn't hurt - but I strongly recommend you get clear of that approach.


"I love how you accelerated your son's education by enrolling him into a community college at a young age. I think your method was brilliant. It is something to consider in 10 or so years. I can still teach him content and how to learn, but he may as well be going on and trying for a higher education diploma on the side if he is able."

Thanks.  We were also out of options.  At one point he was 8 years ahead of age in math.  He either would have been doing nothing most of the days, so on to college.  One thing we did do, that kept him there a bit longer, was to make sure that he had biology and chemistry, just as if he had been in high school - we didn't want him to miss that stuff, even if he really didn't need it.

[Korrale4kq]

I never taught my son letter names at all. I have always only taught him the phonic sound. Letter names are fine for spelling but we are a few year from that. Much to my detriment he does know the letters names from a toy and a few apps that he has played. It confused him for a little bit because he started to sound out some CVCs by saying the letter name. However he has compartmentalised this well. He just is stuck on blending right now, it is very hard for him.  He gets a little better each day, so I have no doubt that he will be a predominantly phonics reader by the time he is 3-3.5.
I don't think whole words will drag him down though. And honestly although being taught phonics at a young age I am now a whole word reader from lots of practice. When I come across an unfamiliar word I read it by pulling out the known whole words. For example, phono/logic/al. I certainly don't do ph/o/n/o/l/o/G/i/c/a/l.

And your input is greatly appreciated. you will find that this forum is filled with many parents with different teaching methods. What we have in common is loving our children, exposing them to early learning and respect for differing views.

[Robert Levy]

I figure I'll indulge and put in plug for this bunch, as this was the most amazing thing that I saw when my kid was going to his Christian schools, while I was after-schooling him, and a lot of people can learn from them.
There is an association of Christian schools, called ASCI, that have their own Math Olympics, Spelling Bees, Speech competitions, etc.  David's schools participated, and needless to say, so did David.  David usually won his competitions (he may have lost a few, I don't remember), but this bunch kept popping up, and they were absolutely awesome:
http://imanischool.org/
First, they were absolutely angels regarding behavior, much better than any school.  They came in, sat down, and were quiet - until their one of their own won, and then they would cheer as loud as could be.  And they won a lot...and when they didn't win, they were right up with the best.  There were a lot of schools at these competitions.  David's school, for example, was completely trounced by Imani - only David did well, and no thanks to his school (we never looked at it as anything more than daycare, anyway).
Imani's best area is speech, where they dominated the other schools - in this case 11 other schools.  They wiped them out...
http://imanischool.org/499241.ihtml
My point is that had these kids gone to public schools, or even conventional Christian schools, they would have wound up like most blacks in this country, but instead they dominated.  We're told that quotas are needed for these kids - I was there, there were no quotas - they were spelling the same words and doing the same math problems as well as any "advantaged" group.

Imani uses Kumon Math, which is a lot like Saxon - no fluff, just the basics.  They also teach pure phonics.  With just doing that, they are able to take kids that would otherwise be considered disadvantaged and have them trounce the competition.  That's essentially what I did.  One of the (few) benefits of having an education system designed (in my opinion) to "leave behind" kids is that it is very, very, easy to properly teach an average kid math and reading, and watch him clobber the competition, right through college, as I hope these kids did (although the school only went up to 8th grade).

[Robert Levy]

"Much to my detriment he does know the letters names from a toy and a few apps that he has played"
There's nothing wrong with letter names.  He'll learn them no matter what.

"And honestly although being taught phonics at a young age I am now a whole word reader from lots of practice."
This one you will never, ever, get me to agree with (but you're welcome to ignore me too).  I've had this debate before.  If you ask David whether he sounds out words, he'll tell you he doesn't, and probably hasn't done it since he turned 5.  I don't do it and I don't know any adult that sounds out words (other than hard ones).  But everyone who reads had to learn phonics - they may have forgotten that they did, but try memorizing 100 Russian words by sight (heck, just try learning 10 words), without being able to make a sound out of them, and then consider capitalization, different fonts, etc, and still ask yourself if you can memorize them all.  And then multiply that by 100 times, at least, to have a basic grasp of reading.  I doubt any kid can do that...certainly not mine.

But it's a free country, and you're welcome to disagree with me...

[Korrale4kq]

I am in no way arguing that phonics is not essential. I was a huge advocate for it for many many years. My son is the 5th child under the age of 4 that I have taught to read. All of the children i have taught had vary degrees of phonics instruction. More so than my son.
 I just don't believe that whole word reading is detrimental.  I belive it is a limited method but a great stepping stone into higher level reading.   Giving a child a foundation of 300 or so words they can get a jumpstart reading abut 65% of what is printed. Even more so if you cater the words to their young age level interests.


I tutor using the kumon method and frankly I love the worksheets and the mastery method. I used to do math exercises for fun, how some people do the snday crossword 
However I have found that the kids get burn out. And sadly they just flat out refuse to do them. Did you ever have this issue with your son with Saxon? Or was your son doing them at such a young age that the heavy worksheet and drilling was just something that was expected.  Or was it more about your expectations for him in general?
I recently read Amy Chau's Tiger Mom and I see a lot of merit in how she raised her daughters.

[Robert Levy]

" I just don't believe that whole word reading is detrimental.  I belive it is a limited method but a great stepping stone into higher level reading.   Giving a child a foundation of 300 or so words they can get a jumpstart reading abut 65% of what is printed."

That's fine...one thing you'll find is parents in my situation have zero respect for what "the experts" believe in.  We've seen these 'experts' systematically destroy education in this country.  People like myself have no training, nothing, in my case just an infomercial, and I had my kid reading fluently by age 4 - we have a tough time being convinced that phonics doesn't work, or that there is any merit at all in other methods.  For "Sight Words", it looks very much like the latest morphing of "Whole Language".  California lost a generation of kids to Whole Language.  You'll see the carnage if you look up in Google:  "California Whole Language Honig".  Bill Honig was the Education Czar and rammed it through in the 1980s, when I lived out there (but before I had kids).  He later, much later, said that he had been tricked by some ideologues under him.

As to your case, with a 2 year old, and with phonics being used - it may not do as much harm.  I'm on this site because I was invited here, and that because my kid did well, so pardon my bragging, but when a kid can get a 510 on his Verbal SAT at age 10.5, and never saw a Sight Word in his life (not to mention winning just about every spelling bee he participated in), any person would have a very difficult time convincing me that anything could improve results.  But my anger regarding Sight Words is not what you're doing and if the schools did the same, the country would be much, much better off.  My anger is the way they are using Sight Words to delay teaching phonics - with the certainty that the kids will never be good readers, unless they're lucky enough to have been taught outside of that system.  Anyway - let's leave it at that - you're being kind, and it's just as well that I stay off of that soap box - because it's very difficult for me to not get worked up.  So on to the next...


"However I have found that the kids get burn out. And sadly they just flat out refuse to do them. Did you ever have this issue with your son with Saxon?"

YOU BET!  He hated it and would scream at me.  He had his toys and he wanted to play with them and not get near reading or math.  Well...reading yes, once he could read, you couldn't separate him from books - but he definitely didn't enjoy the early phonics work...until words started coming into focus - that was pretty neat.  Math he hated all the way through...again, he didn't simply didn't want to learn and saw no practical reason to have to deal with that stuff.

But I made a decision early on - which was that he wasn't going to have a say in what he learned, or on what schedule, when it came to math and reading - it was simply too important for him.  So he had a choice, either do his math when told with a butt that didn't hurt, or do his math when told with a butt that did hurt.  He often picked the latter, probably testing me along the way.  It was tough for me as a parent (and for my wife), being screamed at, particularly with the early phonics, as I didn't even have a clue if it would work...I had nothing to go on, no support group, etc.  For math, at least I had Saxon later on.

As it was, teaching a kid math right up to (but not including Calculus) takes time, obviously.  Reading was a flash - I was done with him in something like 7 months and most of that was him just getting better and better, but math took 5 years, pretty much solid.  But he was rewarded along the way, with a laptop for finishing Algebra 2 and smaller rewards each time he finished any other Saxon book.  I also helped him feel better by explaining that he only needed to learn math once - and then it was over and there was  an end to it (i.e., I'm not able to teach Plasma Physics because I don't understand it and Saxon doesn't cover it)....so that helped.

He was just a very normal kid, and the last thing a kid wants to do at that age (or at just about any age) is sit down with a pen and paper and do numbers.

I agree with you on Tiger Mom, in general.  You can see from above that Ms. Chau and I agreed that the kids are the last ones that should be setting the agenda.  But it wasn't like life was pure hell for David, he had a lot of fun, even sleepovers with friends, did get to play with his toys a lot - but did not have much television - that was where I took his time from.

I think her (Amy's) fixation with music is overkill, and I had to deal with the exact same thing, as my (Asian) wife also insisted that David learn Piano and Violin.  He did, pretty well, but screamed about it...and I, at most, reluctantly supported my wife (to keep the marriage together), but never thought it was worth a dime.  And it wasn't - no one that I've ever interviewed with has cared about whether I can play music (and I can't)...and David had reading and math down-cold well before playing those things - so that rationalization didn't work either.

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