How do I get my parents to let me quit this gay Kumon bullshit?

That’s a real quote from a kid who has been forced to attend Kumon, the “world’s largest after-school math and reading enrichment program” having served over 16 million children as young as three, to the threshold of university. Some of the rest of his post is as follows:

I go to this thing called “Kumon”. I have been going for over a year, and, well, I freaking hate it.
I did well in Math class, but its just that I didn’t turn in math homework that brought my grade down. And this is where the prblem kicks in. Now, my mom erolled me into Kumon, which has reduced the amount of time I have to do homework, which actually brought DOWN my grade even MORE.
I keep begging and pleading for my mom to get me the hell outta that program, but my moms counter-arguement was always “School isn’t enough, you can’t lose to other Asian and Indian kids. Derp.” minus the “derp”, of course.
But the thing is that she sees kids that are screaming at their parents to let them quit, but my mom thinks they’re weak, which is obviously not the case.
I ask my mom when I can quit, and she says I can quit when I get into college. FREAKING COLLEGE!!! I tell her I need to have a life, but she won’t listen, because she’s a strict Asian mother who thinks she’s always right.
“Help with math” my AS?!
Even the Kumon LOGO has a frowning face in it! Isn’t that a hint?

(Source: http://applefanatic.org/ipod/how-convince-parents-let-quit-kumon-t271786.html)

We’ll get to the logo a little later. As you’ll have noticed above, I kept the grammatical and spelling errors in the post deliberately. This, ironically, might actually betray the kid’s need for Kumon for English, rather than for maths. Haha!

I jest, and besides being quite funny to me in an “oh my god, I do not envy you” kind of way, this teenager’s assessment of Kumon might actually ring true in a lot of cases. Not that they’re gay (lol) of course, what I mean is Kumon might actually be bullshit.

Do a quick search for Kumon on the web, and you’ll quickly find countless forum posts from dissatisfied and concerned students who have been made to go to Kumon at the hands of their parents, thinking it’ll give them an edge in their two most crucial subjects; mathematics and English. Instead, what students are saying – in droves – is that the curriculum is difficult, tangential to what they’re assessed on in school, and the extra workload is such a burden for a still-forming teenage mind that they are losing the mental capacity to complete their actual school homework.

Now before you go filing a lawsuit, Kumon, this is an opinion, nothing more. It just so happens to be the shared opinion of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of other teenagers who have to go through what they conclude to be a “bullshit” program thanks to their good-willing parents.

Here’s another excerpt from another kid:

Ok so i go to that retarded place called “Kumon”. I hate it. The packets freaking pile up, and while it’s supposed to “help” me, it’s just hurting me. It doesn’t leave me ANY time for homework. I have to stay up until 1:00AM doing homework and/or packets ,_, the reason my mom enrolled me in this pointless program was because i needed help with algebra in school. Of course, finals came, and i researched algebra and eventually learned it, so i was covered for my math final. But at that time, i was ONLY starting fractions in Kumon. How useful. And since then, i STILL had to do my Kumon HW. It’s a waste of life. And when i explainto them it’s a waste of time and it leaves time for no homework, they blame my iPod use.

And here’s another, for continued entertainment purposes:

When I was in 7th grade my mom also thought i needed help with algebra. So she signed me up for Kumon. FML. They put me in ******* level B. My sister was 4 and she did the same math that I did at Kumon in SCHOOL. Now my mom has an obsession with Kumon. She will NOT let me quit until I finish all the levels, and I’m only on level J!!! There’s like 5 more levels!!! And to make it worse I’m going into high school next year, I have no idea how I am going to get a social life with Kumon. I totally understand you when you said that Kumon ruined your life because it ruined mine!!!! After I joined Kumon I didn’t have a social life anymore. My mom hates me because I hate Kumon and she thinks that it is the greatest thing ever invented.

Source: http://applefanatic.org/ipod/how-convince-parents-let-quit-kumon-t271786.html

You’ve gotta love the passion with which teens write about what they hate. Is the widespread hatred of Kumon and similar after-school learning classes always just a case of kids hating something that’s good for them, like vegetables?

Is Kumon the brussel sprout of the mathematics world? Some would argue mathematics is the brussel sprout of the mathetmatics world… which would make Kumon, perhaps, the uncooked brussel sprout of the brussel sprout world.

(I actually love brussel sprouts. But I digress.)

To answer this question, let’s start by taking a look at their global logo:

Why is the Kumon logo a frowning face? There's a good reason it is.

Wow. Enticing, isn’t it? It’s a logo that fills you with enthusiasm and hope the moment you see it. Life will be better once I get Kumon on my team! You’ll really develop an appreciation for maths and English. That’s what this logo says.

Kumon’s logo throws a cold glass of water in our face to say, “your Johnnie, Jill or Joachim is not that smart. And by the way, you’re already way behind. SO WIPE THAT GRIN OFF YOUR FACE AND GET TO WORK!”

With four simple pen strokes, Kumon communicates just what it intends: this is going to be grim, and yes . . . your child’s face will look like the logo, but she or he will learn to subtract!

The interesting thing to note here is that the dismay towards Kumon is not coming just from pupils. Even some people who work there, hate it. One former Kumon instructor describes it as follows:

“The words that come to my mind to describe the Kumon math curriculum are “stark” and “barren”, [sic] possibly even “mind-numbing”, [sic] for the the elementary grade levels, and downright “mean” in the higher levels.

Kumon puts calculus before trigonometry. But that’s not the reason your child will never reach trigonometry; Kumon is almost certain to weed him out long before calculus. It does this with ridiculously complicated work in polynomial factorization . . . [b]ut speaking from the point of view of someone who loved math and was a physics and math major in college, I found much of it very painful and of very questionable value”.

Source: Kumon Logo Strikes Precisely the Right Note of Misery | Brandculture.com

The name itself is also seems a bit disparaging. Sure, it’s actually derived from some Japanese mathematician named Toru Kumon, and it’s pronounced “Kuu-mon”. But a lot of people, especially western teens, don’t know that. They read it as “COME ON”.

It doesn’t get communicated to me in a very positive sense, especially when juxtaposed with that shitty logo. That all-caps name is more of a berating and chastising word than anything else. COME THE FUCK ON, kid. You fucking suck, come on! You’re already a failure before you even get enrolled.

Kumon Debate on YouTube

Kumon Fight on YouTube

Perhaps I’m writing this post for the kids. Perhaps the kids deserve to be backed up for once, instead of fobbed off as complaining shits who don’t know what’s good for them.

Parents: All I urge from you is, if you’re thinking of sending your child to Kumon, just think carefully: when they complain (which Kumon know they will, the reverse psychology is deliberately perverse all over their brand) perhaps it might not all be the typical wailings of a teenager who would rather play video games and go hang at the mall. Also, for bonus points, how about you put away the belt, the wooden spoon, the ruler and the threats of grounding and violence, too, while you’re at it.

Perhaps if you have remembered a quarter of the maths topics you learned in school yourself, you should sit down and compare what they have to do in Kumon against the mathematics topics they’re covering in school at the time, in order to make a call on whether it will actually be beneficial or hindering. As much as you might think teaching a 10 year old how to do long division is a good idea, there is a reason the education system gradually introduces tougher maths concepts when they have developed the mental capacity to stomach it.

If your child is at Kumon, there’s a pretty good chance they’re already not the brightest maths student in the class, so making them jump several maths concepts early may not actually be doing them any favours.

How would you like it if you were plucked out of your current job and suddenly given all the stress, workload and overtime of someone 3-4 seniority levels higher than you, without a payrise?

Yeah, that’s how your kids feel, you monster.

What you’re actually more likely doing is destroying your child’s only chance at ever loving any job that involves mathematics when he or she gets older.

Kumon seem to be – from what I’ve read – totally ignoring proven psychology on how teenagers learn most effectively through a various mix of visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile stimuli. Simply drowning a teenager in relentless drills is so 1970s… just because you may have been forced to do it doesn’t mean it’s the best approach for your child.

The other point here is that covering other mathematics topics which are tangential or advanced beyond what the school curriculum is currently covering, is not necessarily going to make the student solve unrelated maths problems faster, or understand the topic being covered at school.

Believe me, as a guy who went through university right up to and including Engineering Maths 4, mathematics topics can be extremely varied, conceptually unlinked and cover totally separate streams of rationale. Sometimes, attempting to introduce multiple maths concepts can confuse and hinder concentration and understanding of just one. That’s why when you fall behind and have to work across chapters, you are almost certain to fall further behind because understanding one topic at a time is no longer possible.

Just think about it, parents. Your kids might actually have a good point. Come ONNNNNNN.