My Chinese Mothering Mentality

At the BBS for over-seas Chinese parents, a mother posted a comment from his son's teacher:

"He gets very excited about math and he wants to give answers to each question."

The mother suspects that the teacher hinted that his son asks too many questions and therefore doesn't give other kids a chance. It beats me as to how this concerned mother would have drawn a conclusion over this otherwise very positive comment. To me, it's all positive. not a hint of negativity. it says he is very interested in math. math gets him excited. he wants to solve each and every math question that is placed in front of him. He doesn't want to skip anything. he loves math and he is very good at it. That's about how one would start to describe a math wiz, for goodness sake...

Having said that, I totally understand the underlying Chinese mentality. It's something that I bear in my soul as well, more or less. When I went for our conference with the teacher, I had to stop myself from asking anything like these, "Well, all good about her, uh? Any negative things? Any room for improvement?" Hello, Mother, I said to myself, so far, she is "Miss Perfect," in the words of the teacher, anyways. So what? What more could you ask for?!?!?!