These last few days of school...

[Written by Tharini of Winkie's Way.]

Hi Everyone...

I am woefully late in my submission for last month's theme of 'Which School?'. However, I take it as a positive sign that since this month's theme is yet to be revealed, I still have the chance to post our little story of school. It also happens to be Winkie's last month at this school before we head off for India and subsequently kindergarten in the public school system. So a little write up about that to express my sentiments...

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April 3rd already. And this is the last month that Winkie will be attending school with Uma. The very thought of it heightens all my sentiments surrounding the institution that my son has been a part of for the past 2 years.

Its been a journey of many colours. A shy Winkie blossomed into a more assertive young fellow. A partially potty trained 2 and 1/2 year old, came to grips with complete body control. An illiterate little fledgling entered the unlimited realm of words and reading. A 4 year old with no sense of time and minutes, began to read the clock and now dictates terms to us. A little recluse of a child is now the center of all the attention and the little dictator of his playmates. He even has a best friend! A fussy and highly dependant eater discovered the deliverance in wielding his own spoon and appreciating the health factor better. Someone of very limited vocabulary found the joy in expression and can say to me now...I don't think that makes any sense, Amma. In the process he also left behind his mother tongue, but this post is a focus on positives, for the time being. :)

2 years. 360 degree changes. But 100% satisfaction in the experience and journey of it all.

I can still remember clearly that time when I first contacted Uma. I had seen her ad in the Indian store and tore off that little chit of paper containing her number. That first conversation itself left me with so much of energy and clear hearted vibes that when I think back, I find it rather amazing. Winkie was around 20 months at the time and I was looking for a part-time baby sitting option. He was still not potty trained however, and couldn't join her school right away, as a result. There was a feeling of disappointment, mingled with a sense of excitement that I had come across such an amazing individual. She explained, so very patiently, the beauty of a Montessori system and all that it could nurture in a child that young. I was completely entranced. When I hung up some 20 minutes later, I very carefully added her number to my phonebook and resolved to potty train him soon, and get back in touch with her.

That happened some 6 months later in November of 2004, just before I was to leave for India with Winkie. Preschool admissions would be closed by the time we got back and I wanted to enrol him in something before we left. I cursorily listed down the names and numbers of some of the local Montessoris in the area, but the first person I called was Uma. Winkie was about 60% potty trained and I was confident we'd accomplish it full scale during the India trip. Speaking to her again was like a breath of fresh air and we made an appointment to go see her right that very evening. She runs her school from the basement of her home, so the setting is very cosy and not very intimidating. This, I thought was important to ease my reserved little Winkie in.

We liked the school, we liked Uma even more in person, and we liked her family. It was complete comfort right from the start and that is how it has always been. At the back of my mind, I wondered whether Winkie would need more exposure to the American kids and a bigger place and such, but all that got overruled and I settled for a great teacher in a simple setting instead. My father is a teacher. And I know, firsthand, what a difference it makes to be under the tutelage of someone who lives and breathes his work. I have seen the transformations that a kind but firm and loving hand can effect in the most hopeless of cases. And what my father has been to a countless many of his students, Uma has been for my son. The first person to hold his quivering hands and lead him out into the sunlight.

She has been more than a teacher. She has been his biggest well-wisher. She has understood his nature thoroughly and discovered the right means to nurture it. And in the process she has taught me as well, his mother, his carrier and birth-giver, how to nurture him too. What more can I ask for from my son's first alma mater? She has taken care of his initial major potty accidents with a cool cheerfulness. She has fed him his lunches when he had trouble doing it efficiently himself. She has given him time outs when things got out of hand, and he never repeated them again. She has gotten annoyed with him when he couldn't seem to progress beyond a certain point of learning, and that was the annoyance that came from the emotional investment she had in her young charge. She has delighted unabashedly, and with a grin stretching from ear to ear when he first began reading, and every time he excels himself. My pride in him is still a muted one in comparison to her very evident thrill at his accomplishments.

There are a great many words that come to mind to describe what Uma means to us as parents. But somewhere along the way, in the 2 years of dropping him at 9:00 AM and picking him up at 1:00 PM, in all those 10, sometimes 15min and sometimes 1/2 hour or more of naturally flowing conversation, we became friends as well. And I cannot think of a happier situation than finding a friend in the heart of your child's teacher. The doors of possibilities this opens up to how you can, together, mould your child, is very exciting. It is a process in which education flows unhindered, from home to school and school to home, until it begins to draw out the best that lies as a latent promise in your child.

Is it any wonder then that I would feel so sentimental about the last 30 days of his time there? The clock that he learnt to read is now ticking in a different way and each stroke brings us closer to the point of farewell. It brings us speedily to the day when I will probably host a farewell lunch for all his schoolmates, and click many pictures in different poses with all of them and his teacher. It will be the day of the last chance for recording things for posterity, before we leave this cosy fold of simple beginnings, and be swept away in the maelstrom of huge change. This last month feels like the exact point of quiet calm, just before Marlin and Dory got sucked into the dizzying joyride of the East Australian Current on their quest for Nemo. That little quiet time before we are also carried away in a sea of change...of people, of places and situations.

Winkie, for his part, remains blissfully oblivious of it all. His concept of time has precluded his notion of these last 30 days. Well, never mind that, for I have enough sentiment for the both of us. A lot of exciting times loom up ahead, but right now the heart wants to just rest a little in the gentleness of the past. Reading old school posts, reliving their memories, and relishing what's left of them henceforth. I am not sad about any of it...but just a little sentimental, as I marvel at the cosmic delusion of time...

The chosen school

To put things into context:
-> This is a continuation of a series, first part of which is on my blog.
-> My son was 2 when we enrolled him and this was his first exposure to outside care.
-> When I say school, I really mean daycare!

You know how you could be searching for something everywhere when it is sometimes right under your nose? That came true for us in the school hunt.

There was K School, right down the street from me and I never thought of looking there before because I thought it was a proper school. It was, I should say, it is, a proper private school with kindergarten and elementary classes. But what I didn't know till a friend moved her daughter there was that they also had a full time toddler program for 2 year olds. Once I found that out, there was nothing to stop me from checking it out.

The first thing that hit me when I entered K school for the first time was the sunshine. It was bright, bright, bright, everywhere! The school is built so there is a center aisle, and large classrooms on either side, lining the walls. Each classroom had at least three tall french windows which brought all the light in, and created a natural atmosphere of cheer. (which made me wonder why all the other
schools shortened their window space!)

To make it short, here's what really attracted me to K school:
-> It was essentially a playschool, everything is taught through play - alphabets, month, days of the week, weather etc, but that is not where the emphasis is on. Importance is given to playing, having fun and learning to coexist harmoniously.
-> Spacious classrooms, at least more spacious than what I had seen at other places. And tastefully decorated without overcrowding the artwork
-> A huge gym, with wooden floors, which was spacious and just as bright as the classrooms.
-> A really large playground, with a 'firetruck', a 'train', a slide and plenty of sand to play in.
-> He wouldn't be stuck inside the same room all day long. Apart from two outdoor sessions, and one gym session everyday, there was also music on alternate days and he'd have to go out and sit in the common area. Lots of walking and moving around throughout the day.
-> A bonus that I hadn't been looking for were Spanish classes - at this age, it was nothing more than rhymes, songs and puppet shows in Spanish. They last for about 15 minutes twice a week
-> Unbeatable commute. It is smack in the middle of my work and home. Takes me at most 10-12 min from home or work, in peak traffic
-> The teachers seemed okay with holding kids for comfort. Then, and even now, I always see one kid or another perched on the teachers' lap. I liked that they didn't take the hands off approach in this respect.
-> No timeouts - one of the biggest pluses in my opinion. They discipline through positive disciplining...by reasoning with the child at his/her level.
-> The kids seemed a content and playful lot - not overly aggressive, but not overly quiet either. Just happy toddlers.

Minsues
-> I could not send my own food - it was daycare provided, and the vegetarian alternatives were dismal compared to what he had been used to at home.
-> Their timings were not flexible - it was either a 2 hour playschool option or a full day. And we had to wait till two weeks before he turned two.
-> Slightly pricey, but the difference between this and area schools was under $50/month. And you got a lot more for the price.

After I left the first tour, I called my husband to say 'This is the first place I haven't found anything wrong with'! Two more visits later, we had confirmed that this was it.

6 months later, what I know now
-> I am happy and more importantly, my son is very happy at this place. I think he has changed a lot over the past few months, and I see the change in intangibles, in how easily he interacts with other children, how he jumps head first into a ball pit, without clinging to me, how he waits for his turn and how polite he is.
-> I wish there were a little bit more specific information on what he does during the day. There is no parent teacher meet as such, since teachers and parents chat nearly every day at drop off and pick up time. And the teachers do tell me if something was wrong, but I was hoping for some more details on what interests him...I guess this is a problem with any school in this kind of a set up?
-> What I thought were minuses before ended up not mattering at all. Food is a non-issue now, what he doesn't eat there, he compensates at home. The timings are fine, because they align well with my work. And they are open year round, except for major holidays, so I don't have to look for alternate care during breaks.

Overall, K school offered him a fantastic start - giving him the right skills at the right time. And I am pleased that my search which seemed to go on forever came to an end at this place.

Choosing a daycare & pre-school

(This post by Sandeepa)

It has been two years since I went out in search for a daycare/preschool for S and so my memories are a bit dusty. Remember momnesia ?

Anyway it was early 2006, that I started S with her first daycare/preschool. She was 2 years and a month or so by then. Could speak pretty well and I knew would tell me in words if she disliked specific things about the daycare, so this made it a little easier for me.


1. On the outset, I had decided to go with one of the 3 major chains in my area. They were The Goddard, The Kiddie Academy and The Kinder Care. They had good quality control policies, certain structures they had to meet and a body that ensured that these were followed. Also a friend who is a teacher at a private, independent daycare had told me if I chose an independent or a local daycare I should research them more thoroughly. I was not sure how, so decided to go with the chains

2. I wanted a facility which would have flex part time hours.

3. Since this would be her first time S would be staying outside of home I wanted the facility to be near my/D’s workplace, so either of us could go and check on her. Also at that time our workplace was a comfortable commute and so it was ok for S to commute too.

4. Next, I wanted the school to be spacious, the classrooms to be cheerful, with windows and lots of natural light, the school to have their own grounds & play area, the school to be clean, clean and again clean, the teacher to be warm, smiling, friendly.

5. Security was another thing. We ruled out schools adjacent to shopping plazas or facing too much traffic

6. Of the chains, Goddard did not have flex part time hours. Kiddie Academy did but was not near workplace. I saw one more school and though they satisfied a lot of the criterion, the teacher of the class S would go to had heavily made up eyes which put me off. Yeah I am pretty shallow that way.

7. Just beside D’s workplace and across mine there was this daycare/preschool which was not Kinder Care but under the same KLC facility. It was known as the Prodigy Child Development Centers. The school met criterion 2, 3, 4 and 5. It wa spart of the corporate center and there were colleagues with kids there. I particularly liked the teacher of the class S would go to. She was very warm, friendly and always smiling.
They also had their own kitchen and provided cooked meals.

Good Points

I really loved the class S went to till she was 2 years 7 months
The lead teacher was really nice and I owe her big time for taking the bigger share of potty training on her shoulders.
The teachers were very helpful with getting S adjusted, helping her eat first few days.
They encouraged the fact that we did not speak any English at home and I wanted to keep it that way.
I was overall pretty happy with the center

Bad Points

The franchise did not require owner on the premises like Goddard does, so admin was a little lax.
The next class that S was moved to at 2years7months because most of her close buddies were moved to was a bit more rigid to my liking. The teacher of this class was pretty strict about writing skills and structured learning which I did not feel was necessary at that age or even for the other 3 year olds.

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From 2 year11 month to 3 year2 months, S enjoyed lazy, relaxed times at home with her grandparents. No school and great fun.

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The next school I chose was a pretty new franchise of Goddard that was closer to home as my commute was longer.

Good Points

The particular center being pretty new was very bright, cheerful, clean, blah, blah.
Last year they offered quiet a few activity classes like karate, soccer etc. at an additional rate within the school premises and hours.
Since S was older and more responsible now, I didn’t worry about eating, sleeping and those kind of things, so there is not much I can say about that.
Learning is very teacher oriented but I think that works well for the kind of kid S is.
Since the owner is always on the premises, I can tell her if something does not suit me, she tries to resolve.

Bad Points

This year I do not see them offering any of those extra classes :(
They do not have a kitchen and I did not like the catered food much. This year they do not have the catering option and so food has to be always home lunch.
I would like learning to be a bit more exploratory, more of things to do with nature which I don’t see much.

Conclusion in General

1.Choosing the right daycare/pre-school depends on a lot of issues like proximity, hours, holidays etc. if both parents are working outside home. Thus, though I wanted to try out a Montessori for S once she was 3, the other factors weighed the scales against it, primary being the proximity.

2. With the chains a fair amount depends on the particular franchise.

3. A lot depends on the teacher of the particular class your child is attending.

4. With the centers which have a good reputation, there is at least no gross negligence or abuse

5. Spending some time in the classroom for a couple of days and observing other children in the class gives a fair idea of how the teacher interacts etc.

Since S is a December born and our township has a cut off in October, S is going to Kindergarten at Goddard too from September this year. I am not sure what I am going to do next year though. Are there any other kids at DMC with similar issues, i.e. school has a cutoff in October but the child is November or December born, what did you do ?

Picking a care provider...

--posted by Pallavi (All Things Yummy)

Being a working mom, day care for my little one was/is always on my mind. I started thinking about it even before I had him. When I saw my friends around me going through various things, I always put myself in their position and thought.. what would I do.. ?!
#1:Some of them quit working altogether.. that wasn't an option for me due to GC processing blah blah..
#2. Some of them had visiting parents at any given time.. (lucky them !) Both my mom and m-i-l are working women too.. so they could only spend a few months away from India at most. So, that option was ruled-out too.
#3: Some sent their kids to India (well the plan was for about a few months initially, which ended up being a couple of years too in some cases !!) They are definitely very brave that they could do that! I could hardly imagine it...
#4: So, the only remaining option was to send my kid to a daycare here.. Either to an in-home babysitter or a traditional daycare center. And ever since I came to that conclusion, I started paying more attention to the group of friends who did that.. and their kids :)

Then R came into our lives and things started to unfold in reality.. Luckily my mom and mil took turns and stayed here until he was about 10 months old. So that worked out great esp. since I was working from home then too. I was always home with the baby and was working too. When he was about 8 months, I started investigating into what options I had then.
#1: To have a nanny who would visit and watch him (I was working from home then.. so that seemed like a great option)
#2. Enroll him at a traditional american day care facility
#3. Drop him off at a desi babysitter's place who would watch him along with couple of other kids.

I tried finding a nanny but there many issues with that and couldnt find anyone that fit.. so #1 was ruled out. Then, came the second option of the traditional daycare center. And from what I have observed and heard from my friends, the kids got sick too often at the daycare..And I was very worried about that.. So, I decided to go with option #3. Started talking to many babysitters in my area. I visited a couple of them and I picked the lady who seemed friendly and had a clean home. She was recommended by a friend and her daughter who is same age as R goes there too. So, I picked her. And started dropping off R there.

The first couple of weeks he was fine other than the stranger anxiety stuff and then came winter.. (bad timing !) And started a chain of ear-infections, colds, coughs, fever, antibiotics, loss of appetite, weight loss etc etc.. Its just too painful to even think about. Was tough on all of us. I am sure many of you know what I mean.. Eventually as the spring came along, he adjusted much better. I thought I will keep him here until he is 3 and then find a preschool.. I thought he would be older and may be not get sick that often. And for sometime everything was pretty nice.

About when he was 20 months old, R started talking a lot. And he started saying .. "aunty ..tv..on..Rishi sofa sit.. tv watch".. and he kept saying that..with the limited vocabulary he had..I realized he is spending most of his time watching TV.... I am not too fond of TV and think he is way too young for it now. It was about end of september last year when I really started to feel that he needs some place where he can spend his time doing other things that are more useful for him. But from the previous experience, I didnt want to move him to a new place in winter . So, decided to wait for warmer weather. But then I thought I could do my research as to whats available. Yes, I love research. I like to know whats out there before I make my pick.. :) So, I started looking not very actively but on and off whenever I could.

First went to the internet (like I always do with my research) pulled up a list of all the daycare/preschool facilites around where I live. Made a list of about 25-30. Yes, there are that many within 5 miles from our home!! And ordered them by the distance starting with the closest. Then started visiting each of the websites and called them and gathered all the information I could over the phone. Made an Excel Spreadsheet with the following columns for each one.
Name & Website & Phone Number
1.Distance:
Distance from our home...and preferably on the way to work- the closer it is the better.
2.Timings:
Are open atleast until 6:30PM (Both of us work quite far from home.. so anything earlier would be hard)
3.Food Options:
They have a good menu for our dietary needs or allow us to substitute on those days if we are not happy with the selection. (there were some that didnt allow anything from home due to the allergies issues)
4.Daily curriculum:
What do they do during the day.. when do they play, eat, sleep, learn. What kind of teaching approach they follow.. independence oriented or more structured..
5.Fee
The lowest one was $120 per week and the highest $320 per week. Most were between $180 - $250 for this age group.
6.Availability
7.Transportation:
Have a bus facility to the public schools-not now but after a couple of years
8. Sick Policy, Holidays, Student:Teacher ratio, Potty Training & Age Group divisions.
Most seemed same for this age group so these became non-criteria now..
9.Other things they offer:
Some schools offered webcam. Some offered Dance, Soccer, Martial Arts etc, even gourmet food for parents, drycleaning and weeknights babysitting...
10.Reputation & References:
What I heard from my friends about them.

Once I had all of this information, I could eliminate a lot of them. From the past couple of weeks or so, I have been doing this much more actively. Now I am down to about 7 facilities. We will be touring them all. I will be checking for the following things :

1.Get in and get out.. how fast and easy it was.
2.Security
3. Have a clean and well kept facility (How is the Kitchen if they have one)
4. If staff seem caring and experienced.
5. Good outdoor age-appropriate playgrounds for all age groups (R loves the park) - everyone will say yes to this on the phone :) but when you see you will know the good ones from the not-so-good ones.
6. They are quite diverse (with kids from all races/countries/languages etc.. ) Thats very important in this day and age. I believe that children need to learn to appreciate everyone alike and its important to inculcate that unbiased nature from childhood.
7.How the rooms are setup, Art work and other things posted on the bulletin boards, what the kids are doing while we are there.
8. The daily reports and Menu for the month and activities, themes etc.,
9. I definitely like to check out the infants/early toddlers room to see how they are being comforted..

We are touring the facilities now.. have 3 more left.. will post results after that pretty soon. Do share your views.. Would love to hear what you think..

Some school talk around blogosphere

After Kiran's column on Nursery School admissions I saw a lot of posts around the blogosphere concetrating on similar issues.



Rohini who blogs at Mama Says So, has her strategy and experience chalked out in The School Saga. It was interesting to read how she narrowed down her "Wanted" lists and then finally settled on the school that offered as she says

" pretty traditional kind of education – the kind that most Indian kids in my generation had"



If you are in Bombay, you might want to look up Kiran's post and also the above one to get a grasp of the school system there.



Next I came across Mnamma who is a member of DMC and who has returned to India with her family after spending some years in the US. I think she is writing about Chennai and her post will do a whole lot of good to parents considering returning to India and choosing a school in Chennai. She talks about school hunt and admission here.



"There were entrance examination for all classes from 1st standard onwards until 9th standard and there were hundreds of children of all ages and parents accompanying their children. M and N were petrified with fear at the sight of the huge crowd. They grew progressively nervous and were repeatedly asking me “ Amma nee en kooda iruppiyaa “.



"After we went in, the school authorities asked all the parents to vacate the campus and no one were permitted to stay inside the campus during the examination. They kept constantly assuring us that “Your children are safe in our hands” . I was very nervous as I left M and N with their temporarily assigned teacher. M and N were almost in tears. We whiled away the one and half hours with great difficulty and eagerly went back to pick up M and N. We had to wait another hour before we could actually see them and they were not happy"



Tough experience for those tiny girls and I am so glad that they finally found a good school where admission was not such a nightmare.

On Picking a Preschool in the US, I found a very good post at Under The Banyan Tree. The article Picking a Preschool discusses some of the popular streams of preschools in the US (ok maybe also else where).

I like when she says "Every child is different. So the method the child must be taught must differ too."

She classifies the methods in two broad streams and then a third which is a subset of the second

"A child-centered method is one where the basic goal is the wholesome and autonomous development of the child. The individuality of a child is celebrated. There is no segregation in terms of subject, it is believed that all the subjects are inter related" , she says. read the details in her post

"A teacher-centered method is a style educating the child by teaching the child conformity. The children are motivated to learn through external means – test, assignment kind of stuff. This style is based on the theory that the environment shapes a person. The characteristics of this style of education is its emphasis on product over process, separate subjects, fixed curriculum for all the students and imporantc of an authority figure(namely the teacher)"

"In a Montessori there is very little interaction – between the kids/between the kids and the teacher. The children are encouraged to work on their own, the teacher ‘guides’ them. First and foremost, the children are taught how to take care of themselves – basics like how to wear their shoes, how to dress them selves, how to clean their environment…kind of simple activities. Lots of stress is placed on nature, most of the materials used are natural. In the present days, the Montessori programs are highly watered down versions of the original method. "

You should really go and read her post because these are just excerpts. The thing about Montessori as I see it is many of the schools which say they are Montessori are not really adherring to the method. So unless you are well aware of what to expect from the system, you might be choosing a Montessori which is less that and more teacher-oriented.

The particular thing I liked about her post is how she writes about the kind of kids who will thrive in each kind of system.

The next one is from Chitra Aiyer. She has a lot of posts and information on Bangalore schools if you want to check out. Read her articles here.

Many of you Moms must have already read these posts, but if you haven't it might help shape your decision

And come on with your posts for this month's theme too.

The Right School for your child

Searching for the right school for kids is a cumbersome task for today's parent. Few months back, while discussing with my folks on deciding for pre-school for Genie, they found it funny that we (DH & I) spent an hour or two at the school where we plan to enroll her. They say for me, they went a day or two before the first day of school, paid fees and took admission. They never visited the school before, WHY... simply because the relatives/friends/neighbors who sent their kids to the same school had only good things to tell when asked and also the school was NEAR to our home. Our parents had it so easy.

Now there are many factors to contemplate before enrollment of your child in a school. In Mumbai itself, many new pre-schools mushroom on regular basis. Its like if you have a degree in ECCE (early child care education) and the resources especially Vitamin M (money), rest all follows.

Genie starts her playschool this June in one of the pre-schools in our neighborhood. We took admission for it just last month. She will be spending 2 hours daily five days a week. The admission process has been quite simple. No interviews either with the parents or kids. Just fill the form, pay fees and admission process is over.

What made us choose this school from the trio of pre-primary nurseries in our area - for One - the school is just less than 10 minutes away from my home (read NEAR) and Second - practically whomsoever we know and asked have sent their kids to this pre-school as it is Simply the Best.

Hey aren't the above two the same reasons which made my parents decide my pre-school... Yes they were the two main reasons for us to start checking this pre-school in my neighborhood.

When we visited the school few months, the Catholic couple who has been running the school in the huge backyard of their bungalow since 20+ years gave us detailed information especially education background of themselves, teachers and assistants of the school. We were impressed by their credentials and beside a mother's instinct was feeling good about the whole thing already as they spoke and treated us well.

They showed us around the school. All the batches (playschool, nursery, jr & sr kg) have no more than 30 kids with a teacher, 2 assistants and a lady ayah. They have large classrooms with themes like fruits, flowers, animals, etc that change every month, activity tables, a large playground with slides, swings, rocking boats, rainbow climber, a huge sand pit, rope ladder, jungle gym, shape tunnels and various skills enhancing toys, games and teaching materials. They teach the kids how to eat, clean up after playing, eating and also potty training.

They left us on our own and we stayed back for an hour or so. We mingled with the teachers and assistants, saw how they handle young kids, spoke, read and played with them. We made a mistake of not taking Genie along with us, do not ask why... If she had come along, we would have to drag her home...

What was important to both of us - the behaviour of the owners, teachers, assistants and helpers - how they treat the kids - are they polite or do they run out of patience when a toddler throws a tantrum.

Since the number of kids did not exceed 30, teachers could manage to give personal attention. The school has many activities and they make it a point to involve each kid be whatever the age.

I think that if your child progresses well i.e. understands and grasps things well, looks forward to going to school even on holidays, if the teachers and other staff teaches well, encourage your child to take part in various activities, etc, then the school is right for your child. I would not compare the chosen school with other schools as it could leave me feeling disheartened.

At the end of it, we both are happy with our decision of enrolling Genie in this pre-school. We will be taking her to see the school soon. We are more excited about the whole thing, its like we have taken admission for ourselves. :). When Genie is ready for SKG, we will have to search for some other school, where there will be interviews and much more. Now, we just want Genie to mingle with kids of her age, play and not be shy of everyone.

I will end the post with this quote "Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity"- Aristotle.

Cross posted on http://scribblermom.wordpress.com by Batul

The right schools

Thought I'd follow up on the great article on choosing schools from earlier last week by RainbowDays (sorry, I don't know the author's name yet!) I received a note from the folks who put together the following site (aimed at US parents):

http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/

"The site has a listing of 140K US schools; public/private/elementary/ middle/ high. Site is all free and enables you to research and compare all US schools; test scores, maps, ratings etc.
We integrated virtual earth/live maps from Microsoft:
http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/10061-bellevue-montessori-school/map-location.aspx "

Really interesting, and combined with a bunch of other parent-focused sites can help with making some school choices. Not sure if there are Indian resources like this out there?

Roopa
http://rooparecipes.blogspot.com/

Choosing the Right School

A and I began thinking about playschool for Chubbocks when he was about 18 months old - just looking around at the options - even though we didn't plan to send him for another few months. I felt playschool was necessary for him as he was an extremely shy and sensitive child who refused to socialise with any other kids of his age in the park, and I also wanted to do something structured in terms of his learning but not too much so. A 5-day program would be too much, I felt. We looked around at 2 or 3 playschools which were in our neighbourhood but some we felt were too big in class size, some had too much of an 'admission-focussed' approach, like teaching kids alphabets, spelling, numbers and 'Interview techniques', which almost made me gag.

One of our friends happened to be working with a playschool group called Julia Gabriel. This is a Singapore-based chain of playschools and one of the first things that appealed to me was that their classes required the parent to accompany the child. There was no way I would have left Chubbocks alone anywhere at that age. We visited the school and spent nearly an hour observing the teachers, the classes and the school set-up. The school mission was to turn out 'confident communicators', and they explained they use the phonetic method to teach alphabets. Though the school was small, with a minuscule playground, they had a nice array of toys for kids including mock-hammers, a cookery counter and so on. The class-rooms were nice and roomy and each one had 3 teachers, along with one ayah on stand-by and they all had attached bathrooms which had been designed for little ones, with low-placed pots and steps leading up to the washbasins.

The teaching really caught our fancy, consisting of a lot of fun and games, some running around and the way the teachers encouraged the kids to speak was wonderful. Most of all, we fell in love with the teacher who headed the beginner's class - a man called Jimmy. He had the most incredible level of patience we have ever seen, and the way he coaxed even the shyest of kids to speak or perform was amazing. We felt that our kiddo would be in good hands if Jimmy was to be his first transition to a school environment.

JG had 2 hour classes thrice a week, so I used to go on weekdays and A would go on Saturdays. It was always great fun to go, and Chubbocks, even though he didn't participate much at first, always enjoyed going there. Kids were taught about clean-up time - cleaning away their own toys and setting the stage for the next activity, to take off and put on their own shoes and the school served them a healthy snack, with juice, and fruit and vegetables. The phonetic method, I honestly couldn't appreciate until recently, because I didn't see it translating into reading skills, for example.

But Jimmy really helped Chubbocks blossom from a shy kid who hung his head and clung to Mamma to one who fearlessly walks up to strangers and makes friends with them, be they kids or adults ( Come to think of it, Mamma now has to work to put a fear of strangers back), and has become an amazingly skillful communicator in three languages. When he graduated from his primary class to the next level, the first remark his new teacher made was about his communication skills. Granted some of that may be genetic, since not all the kids from Jimmy's class got that comment, but the ability to make him confident enough to state what he thinks is all thanks to Jimmy.

When it came to big school, I was so determined not to get all agitated and worked up like so many of our friends when it came to admissions that I became too laid-back and completely missed seeing the ads schools put out about admissions deadlines, and so did A. All of a sudden, we were on the backfoot and scrambling and worried. Then A found that the local Delhi Public School admissions deadline was not over and we sent our factotum to fetch the forms. Unfortunately, there are 2 DPSs in the neighbourhood, one good and the other terrible, and our Man Friday had got the wrong form which we never figured out until much too late.

A somewhat experimental school, called Shikshantar, had extended admissions for more entrants so we decided to find out more about it. Two of my friends who had kids there praised it highly, calling it a school which helped kids become self-motivated and so on. The thing that worried A no end was that they have a completely unstructured curriculum for the first few years - kids just study what they feel like studying, so if you want your kids to be reading by a certain age and writing by another, that wasn't the best option. I still thought it sounded good and we sent off our application which, by the way, asked us lots of searching questions about our goals for the child and so on.

DPS had a formal interview process but we didn't want to put Chubbocks under any pressure, so we frankly didn't bother to 'prepare' him. He sailed through on his own( including singing 'Where's the party tonight' when asked to recite a poem) and we had to fork out a fortune ( Rs. 60,000, most of it non-refundable!!!) for the admission. I thought that that was too much money to throw away and we should wait for Shikshantar's decision before paying up but the deadlines didn't match and A panicked at the thought of Chubbocks not getting into any school at all due to our carelessness. So we paid through the nose, though I had no intention of sending him to an academic factory known for putting kids to the grindstone.

Then Shriram school, which had been dithering on admissions due to the Delhi government changes of rules finally decided to begin the process in Gurgaon at least. Most of our friends have their kids in Shriram and all of them are all praise for it. They all said it was a good, well-rounded school in the way it went about things and that academic pressure was quite low and they focussed more on turning out kids who were well-rounded human beings. True, the average kid there is from an upscale family and I had serious doubts about how well our middle-class mindset would fit in, but given the rave reviews, we plunged ahead. Shriram thankfully didn't have an interview for kids. They like mixed-race or religion couples, so we were bang on. Plus they tend to like kids with working moms, so we got another bonus point. I seem to remember filling out a long and detailed form about our beliefs and so on, and we were on the list for the 'interaction'.

At Shikshantar, while they had called parents and kids together, they let the kids run around and play in the playground and conducted their chats with the parents there itself, in a corner, which was nice and low-pressure. At Shriram too, they had us in the same room, though a teacher led Chubbocks off to one corner where they had laid out all kinds of toys and pictures while A and I were being interviewed. We were happy to find a former colleague on the interview board too, and the questions were pretty innocuous, like how Chubbocks took to his sibling and so on. I was very confident afterwards that we would be in though A was still biting his nails until we got the letter confirming it. We were really happy about the way things had gone and felt we had had a really low pressure time of it, apart from losing some big bucks enroute.

A year down the line, and A and I still feel very happy and confident about our choice, the more so due to what the Director recently said about the competitive spirit. I think we got off pretty easy in the process of admissions, because I have known people who've gone round the bend running around to hundreds of schools. I'm relieved not only that Chubs got into a good school but that he got into a school which has the kind of mix of academics and other skills that I wanted for him and the right values ( E.g. they recently held a workshop on the right way to celebrate birthdays - much needed, IMHO), and hopefully Puddi will make it there too.

Long version cross-posted at Rainbow Days.

Theme for March'08

(This post by Sandeepa)

Thanks to Poppin's Mom for the "love" ly Feb Theme and thanks to all who participated. It sure did help us Moms to write about our strengths and hear others.

This month’s theme stems off from Kiran’s Nursery post some days back and the fact that getting into a nursery school in the bigger cities in India is still a harrowing and expensive experience. Add to this, the pressure on the small child and the whole rigmarole he/she has to go through.

Contrast it to the US where the good daycares/ pre-schools are expensive, though getting in is not a big deal and then education comes easy & free in shape of public schools and “no child left behind” where every child is treated on the same footing and given same opportunity. But there is a small catch though, there are better school districts and not so good school districts. So though you do not pay anything for the public school, depending on all the other factors that chalk up the house price, the rank of the school district adds a further notch to it.

Yes there are preppy private schools but the public schools usually provide pretty good & standard education.

However, the good point I see here is that that the child does not have to bear the brunt or pressure of any of this though as a parent you might have some decisions to make.

As a parent at some point during your child’s toddler years, you have to decide on “Which daycare/Which Pre School/ Which Kindergarten”

Most of us have made some decisions or would do so soon and I would like you to discuss – “Why you decided on a certain Pre School/ School for your child “

What was it that made you think this would be the place where your child would be happy and you would be happy?

When given a choice of schools, where your child starts kindergarten, what are the factors you think are of more importance, the education, the class demography, the activities, the school for rich & famous, what is it?

Do you really think, that the "right" school matters, or the whole thing is hyped these days ? Afterall admissions were never a nightmare when we were that age.

How is the whole “getting into kindergarten/nursery” process in your part of the world ? Would be interesting to hear about Ireland from Mummyjaan and Dutchland from DR and other Moms out there.

So here is Theme for March’08 – “Is this the Right School, baby??”

Substitute school, with pre-school or even daycare as your case might be

Please post during the month of March and don’t forget to tag with “Theme for March’08”