Ana Kutti was two last month and she started pre-school this
month. After repeatedly telling ourselves that schooling for Ana kutti needn’t start
until she was three and a half, we surprised ourselves by going on and doing
just the opposite. The months precluding this event of enrolling her to a
school was fraught with no less tension and decision making. Why would a
relatively smart, outgoing girl like her who had quite a repertoire of nursery
rhymes, phrases and concepts under her belt need to get to school so soon?
Definitely not because we wanted her out of our hair for a few hours a day.
Nope. We just couldn’t have enough of her. Yeah I know I do sound like one of
those sappy mothers but that is what late motherhood would do to you. J.
One relative comfort I had from the whole exercise was the
realization that I was still a lot better than those parents who had enrolled
their kids in a most happening school in Chennai when the said child was still
a tiny zygote in the mother’s womb. No, I am not kidding. If admission is
needed in this school, one should have procured the admission forms when the
child was still in the womb. No matter where in the city one was, the parent
wanted his/her child to get enrolled there. Not much decision making there I
suppose, only the stress of getting admission. And if ermmm...planned wisely,
then the problem got solved in the er...conception stage itself.
As I said, though my
problems were remotely near wanting to send my child a zillion kilometres away
from home every day, adding to the pollution and subtracting any quality time
she might have if she were not travelling from one end of town to the other, I
still had to make a choice of the kind of education that would benefit her -
Kindergarten or Montessori or something else entirely.
Though there were a lot of schools available in the city
there was precious little review on how good either type of education was. One
had to simply bank on the superfluous details given in the school websites
themselves. Ranking bodies like educationworld.in
gave out numbers based on some good parameters, but most schools in their list
did fall in the zillion kilometres away geography. Aside from shifting to the
said area, I had to contend with schools that gave me a good feel. Still none
of our Indian websites could tell me if Montessori was better than regular
nursery or vice versa and if the ones in Chennai had a good ranking or not.
Ana kutti is a gregarious child. She beckons random
strangers and says a happy, smiling ‘hi’ to them. She has no problems walking
up to a peer and chit chatting in that childish babble of hers. She was also
doing quite well with identifying colours and day to day objects. She was happy
singing along rhymes with me in tune. Her favourites being Johnny Johnny,
Wheels of the Bus and Ba ba black sheep. She is smart and communicates
confidently, albeit with words I understand or through some understandable
actions. So the question really was how much more memorising would she really
need to do before she began regular school i.e., LKG?
I was leaning towards Montessori education ad I needed more
data to support my hunch. Most importantly I had to arm myself with suitable
arguments if I had to pull S to my side. S was still holding on to the hope of
homeschooling her; never having to face sending her out of his sight. He still
doesn’t know that his wife (who would have to do the homeschooling) was a tad
lazy woman masquerading as a perky home maker. Homeschooling was a huge responsibility and I was not taking any of it.
So decision time.
What is Montessori?
According to Wikipedia - Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Her approach was characterized by an emphasis on
independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child's natural psychological, physical, and
social development.
Requirements for a school to be Certified Montessori (from
Wikipedia)
·
Mixed age classrooms; classrooms for children
ages 2 1⁄2 or 3 to 6 years old are
by far the most common, but 0-3, 6-9, 9-12, 12-15, and 15-18 year old
classrooms exist as well.
·
Student choice of activity from within a prescribed
range of options
·
Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three
hours
·
A constructivist or "discovery" model, where
students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct
instruction
·
Specialized educational materials developed by
Montessori and her collaborators
·
Freedom of movement within the classroom
·
A trained Montessori teacher
Benefits of
Montessori:
All of the above had me instantly hooked. However a few
really impressed me with their stress on independent learning.
1.
Children between the age of 2-6 years work and
learn together. The progress in learning of a child is independent of academic
year and is instead dependent on his/her grasp of concepts. So if a 3 year old
is adept at learning certain math concepts earlier than expected, he/she would
have the freedom of pursuing the subject with peers who might not necessarily
be from his/her age group.
2.
As a trainer and L&D consultant I know the
change in mindset one goes through when teaching is replaced by facilitating.
In other words, we help participants engage and come out with solutions to
concepts themselves instead of show and tell. The same seems to apply to
Montessori certified teachers. They are called facilitators and are trained to
develop a learning environment conducive to the child and meticulously observe
and record a child’s growth and behaviour.
3.
In addition to academic skills, children are
exposed to life skills like art, stitching and crocheting, gardening etc. I
love that there is not just a lot of nursery rhymes being learnt and games
being played and mindless activities being followed, but also the concept of
size and shape and numbers and letters being taught by understanding and not by
rote. Add to this an impetus to develop independent learning in a child and I
was sold.
Armed with this information I managed to bring the husband
around and have admitted her into a school that should shape her future. But how
did I narrow down on the school she is going to, right now? Well that is
another post. J
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