The Nuns: The Original Tiger Moms

Whether they be Tiger Moms (Asian moms who apply strict discipline to their children in order to focus on expectations of excellence along with a deep respect for parental authority and devotion), or Soccer Moms (suburban moms who spend an inordinate amount of time transporting their children to various sporting events in order to foster athletic prowess), when in comes to high expectations and strict discipline using a variety of methods, which by today's educational standards would be labeled abusive, no mom beats the good sisters or " s'ters."

They had a style all their own. Their goal was to transform a classroom full (and I mean full, sometimes as many as 50 children in one class) of assorted children into respectful, God-fearing, hardworking adults.

Respect was indeed the order of the day. When a nun walked into the room, everyone stood up as a sign of respect for her position as teacher and as someone on the path to sainthood. "Good morning S'ter," we all chanted together. Woe to the sleepy student who failed to instantly stand at attention. Writing out the sentence, "I should stand when Sister enters the room," 100 times would be a fair punishment. Of course, one's punishment always had to be signed by one's parents who would deal out another lecture on respect and perhaps another punishment.

Proverbs 1:7 states that "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge..." I think that some nuns may have emphasized the importance of bone-chilling, sweat-dosing and nightmare-making fear of God, to the degree that some of their students did not encounter the image of a loving Father ( Prodigal Son Dad), until later in life. This God runs to meet us with open arms when we call on him in the midst of the effects of our self-indulgent lives. Fear of mediocrity is what seems to govern the lives of the Tiger Moms, yet fear of the Lord comes from not running from God, but to Him when one realizes the depth of one's sin and its consequences. As Chevy Chase used to say on Saturday Night Live, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not."Well, keeping the fear of the Lord in one's mind can be as simple as saying, "You're God and I'm not."

Hard work. I was raised on it, not only at home, but daily in the classroom with the nuns. Drill, drill, drill. Whether it be multiplication tables or verb conjugations. There was no thought given to making our lessons "fun" or adaptive to different learning styles. Memorization and drill is just that, memorization and drill. And it is because of those rigorous drills that today I can do simple math problems in my head without the aid of a calculator compared to many of today's students who have difficulty doing simple computations without an electronic gadget.

Also, there was no attention paid to our little egos. We all knew who the brainiacs were and were often reminded of the fact that the rest of us were intellectually limited. Just think about all those reading groups. They were not designed to help us climb the educational ladder as much as giving stature, early on, to those who were academically gifted. Tiger Moms would applaud the nuns for this, since they believe that excellence over ego is the only thing that matters.

So that's it, I've stated my comparisons and invite you to let me know what you think.

I would strongly recommend any educator and/or mom, to read the article about Tiger Moms in last week's Time magazine. Here's the link:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2043313,00.html

There's lots of food for thought and discussion in terms of our own experiences and those to come of future generations.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

Proverbs 22:6