Recently I visited the classroom of Jeremy Coleman, a music teacher. Coleman was preparing for a fresh group of students at his school in Austin, Texas.

Coleman has taught classical guitar at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) for many years. “Everyone should be given a chance to learn music and guitar,” he said.

The TSBVI was founded in 1856 to provide a specialized education for young Texans who couldn’t see clearly. In the early years, students made brooms(扫帚)and other products that were sold to pay for the school’s operational(运营的)costs.

Since then, the school has developed, and hundreds of students from across the state live and learn there. The educational focus has changed from vocational(职业的) training to academic(学业的) and life skills. Students also take part in sports, music, and other after-school activities.

Coleman brought classical guitar lessons to TSBVI in 2011. “Teaching guitar to students with poor eyesight isn’t easy," Coleman said. For one thing the music course has to be translated into Braille, a form of printing for blind people to read.

“Instead of sight reading, these students will read Braille music and remember it,” Coleman said. “Once they realize what they can do, they love making music.”

Coleman said that after kids leave his program, they often find it difficult to continue their study of music. “The real difficulty is when the students return to their own communities," Coleman said. “Finding a proper teacher for lessons is sometimes impossible.”

For that reason, Coleman and some other TSBVI teachers developed an online program called “Let’s Play.” The program serves as a guide for classical guitar training for students with poor eyesight and their teachers.

“The program continues to grow," Coleman said. He hopes that it will help musicians with poor eyesight continue to develop their skills.

For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge , a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012："iGen". She says, “Members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less they learn to drive later. " "But psychologically," she argues, "they far more easily get hurt. It's not an overstatement to describe iGen as being on the edge of the worst mental health crisis in decades.''

Today's teens are just not spending as much time with their friends face-to-face where they can really read each others' emotions and get that social support. And we know from lots of research that spending time with other people in person is one of the best predictors for psychological well-being and one of the best protections against having mental health issues. They're more likely than young people just 5 or 10 years ago to say that they're anxious, and that they have symptoms of depression.

How much of a factor is parenting? “Parenting is playing a role. Many parents are worried about their teens driving, and going out with their friends and drinking. Yet parents are often not worrying about their teens who stay at home on their phones all the time. But they should be worried about that. I think parents are worried about the wrong thing," Professor Twenge remarked.

She proposes several helpful solutions, "The first is just awareness that spending a lot of time on the phone is not harmless and that if you're spending a lot of time on the phone, then it may take away time from activities that might be more beneficial for psychological well being, like spending time with people in person. And then for parents, I think it is a good idea to defer giving your child a smartphone as long as you can.”

Looking up at the celling, Na He Jeon pours porridge into her mouth. She carefully dips the bowl forward, dropping the porridge directly down her throat, careful not to touch the 15 ulcers (溃疡) in her mouth. But it was the week before midterms, so she still had to study. Jeon was 1st out of 330 students on her exams that year. “Thank god I did,” she says. “If I hadn’t done well I would have been regarded as a failure.” At the end of the week, 14-year-old Jeon weighed only 83.6 pounds.

Like Jeon, there are countless numbers of first generation Asian-Americans who make great efforts to go beyond at everything. Yet the children themselves cannot all be put to blame for their efforts. Typically, it is the parents who are designing a life which they see as perfect for their children. One such occurrence is when I was at my hotel in Beijing. It was roughly around 8:00 p.m. when I decided to take a dip in the pool after dinner. I jumped into the pool that was already spotted with a few Chinese children and I hadn’t realized what was going on until I took notice of the parents calling out orders and instructing their children. I saw various children all under the age of 10 taking laps across the poor trying various styles. If a child’s foot was too bent, her parent would demand that he straighten it. If a child was kicking too slowly, his parent would order that he go faster. I couldn’t help but pity the children whose parents were taking the opportunity to give a swimming lesson, rather than just let them enjoy their time during the holiday.

Either because of their parents or their own desire, first-generation Asian-Americans put forth their 110% in order to be accepted into one of the best American colleges. Asian-American students want to see A’s, 100%’s, and perfect scores. According to Jeon. Asians complain that students with a 4.0 GPA and 2400 SAT simply cannot be rejected from top schools. To their disappointment, however, they often are.

The ethic of this aggressive work also exhibits itself via sports and other after-class activities. What sets Asian-Americans apart, however, is that they fight to be excellent in whatever it is that they do. Be it playing the piano or performing in math competitions. Asian-Americans look to be in first place. Often blamed for lacking in creativity. Asian-Americans can actually make up for the absence of imagination with their determination. The average American can dream creative dreams, but that only matters if he or she can make it happen in reality. Asian-Americans, instead, can gather creative ideas to produce something concrete.

Yet with such a drive to succeed, Asian-Americans have somehow twisted their definition of success. Rather than looking at personal achievement, they refer to numbers, statistics and scroes to rate their success. It seems as if desire and the sense of free will are nonexistent in certain Asian-American students as they mercilessly drive themselves to an inevitable burnout. Their desire to be the most-talented is an impossible dream. In a fruitless attempt, they try to be the best in a world already full of winners.