Date:  Sep 23, 2017

Two week before July 28 – Jay has non-stop practicing the three pieces of music required by ABRSM grading.

July 28, he took the test.

July 28, is also the day he quit learning Piano.

The reason is simple.  In this house, if you decided to take up a enrichment class, you have to make sure you got 1) interest in it, 2) you practice it.

I think Jay had too many other enrichment class and now he is in P5 and he has to do more homework every day, and his piano teacher actually asked him to skip Grade 2 and go right into Grade 3 grading.  I seldom see him practice.  So, 2 weeks before the grading, I asked him to play for me, he is still struggling in his third piece.

I have to teach him how to use divide and conquer method to break the music piece to smaller pieces and practice and keep practice.

On July 28, he took the grading, and was not sure if he can passed.  He barely passed during one of the mock up grading his instruction gave him.

And he passed.  (too bad also he chosen to stop his piano lessons).

13 points above passing, and 7 points shy from Merit.  Not too bad.  Good Job Jay Jay.

As for Mr. Kay, he still likes piano.  So, he decided to continue on.  But he also decided not to participate in any grading.  So, the teacher were told to teach him how to play the songs, etc and no grading.  🙂

As for Mr. Jay, I of course got other ways to help him learn more music.  So, he is playing my Jamstik now, to learn how to strum the guitar.  This is learn on your own.

Still a good job to reach Grade 3.   Good job Jay!!

We gave a lot of freedoms to kids to take up their enrichment classes.  I always believe going to school is not purely for academics.  So, as of now, they still doing their Taekwondo, badminton, robotics, swimming, and abacus.  During holidays, they will learned more programmings.  If they love Minecraft so much, I don’t mind sending them to more Minecraft modding class too.  The most important thing is 1) they make friends, 2) they interacts with friends, 3) they have fun, 4) they are happy.  Happy children, happy parent.  Simple theory.

So, if they get bored wanted to quit Piano, we let him quit lor.  But there is another rule which is whatever enrichment class they picked up, they must stay in it at least for a semester or a year.  So, Jay has been learning Piano since P2 until now.  So, I think it is good already ya.  Me and my wife don’t even have a chance to learn when we were young.