A Professor and a Boy Sit at a Counter
At the ripe age of nine years old, I struggled with fractions. Having received an early part of my childhood education in Singapore, I quickly came to understand the academic pressure that students were subjected to at a very young age.
My after-school routine was simple. Go to a few extracurriculars and then head home to do homework. My dad and I would both plunker down at the kitchen counter after dinner. He was a professor of international trade and economics at NUS (National University of Singapore). I was a third-grader whose biggest nightmare involved not finishing my assignments before 9PM bedtime (a non-negotiable deadline). I used to gaze at his stacks of papers with awe. His fingers drummed rhythmically on the keyboard as the light of an old-school CRT monitor reflected on his glasses. I thought he was a brilliant man. He had many research and teaching awards and I had no idea what any of that meant except perhaps he must have been very very smart.
One night, my dad looked down at my scribbles. He picked up my math paper, plucked his glasses down the bridge of his nose, and made a few of those “mhmm” noises. Then he looked at me and said rather plainly, “Son, you’re not the smartest kid. You won’t be. And that’s ok. Just make sure you are the…
