Three weeks or so back, Maya started her school experience joining the summer school program at a local private school.
Maya has been eager to go to school for the past year or so. Ever since she figured out that the kids running around the school playground were “in school”, she’s wanted to go to school. When she first told us that she wanted to go to school, we asked her why, what would she do at school. She smiled, “Scream”. Her conception of school was a place where kids run around a nice playground and scream with delight all the time. I almost didn’t want her to go to school to avoid obliterating that conception of hers.
Our search for schools had only two parameters. The first was as little pressure as possible at school. That didn’t mean that we approved of the completely unacceptable standard of the public school close to our home. Neighbors of ours who had put their first kid through that public school advised us against it saying that the standard had really deteriorated. The other factor in deciding a school was its proximity to home so that we could retain our single car lifestyle and I could either walk or bike Maya to school.
Given her intense desire to go to school, we settled on a private school nearby. Some of our neighbors, friends and colleagues at work had spoken well of the school. My own reaction was a little mixed, but it did offer a middle ground between the intense pressure of Challenger schools and the notorious standards of the elementary public school.
One of our neighbors advised us to start her in summer so that she can ease into the system especially since she has never spent a day in day care. We decided two days a week, mornings only for the first year. And so she entered the school system a few weeks back.
For almost a month before the day arrived, Maya’s second question on waking up in the morning was “Am I going to school today ?” I spoke to parents who had kids with a similar background to Maya’s: never having been in day care. Most people said that the first two or three weeks could be tough. Some suggested that if she is easy the first week, it could actually herald a far worse outcome later on compared to just tears in the first few weeks. Just about everyone felt that Maya would fit well in school, given her sociable, exuberant nature. I wasn’t so sure.
Finally the day came. Maya couldn’t wait. She could hardly contain her excitement. We had told her that we couldn’t stay with her in the school, that we’d be waiting in the parking lot for her class to complete. She was fazed at first, but accepted it after we reiterated it a few times. Shanthala took the day off and we took her to school. The first day we dropped her off, she said “Bye Papa, Bye Amma” and pretty much settled down in class. I couldn’t pick her up that first day after school. Shanthala said that she was playing with the kids and that she’d had a good time.
The second day was a completely different scene. Maya started crying even before we left home. “Don’t leave me, papa”, she wailed. She was calmed by the prospect of going to school on the bike. But she couldn’t be consoled once we entered the class. She clung to me desperately. The teacher advised me to leave her and not prolong the misery for both of us. She said that many kids calm down once the parent leaves. I left with a slightly heavy heart. When I went to pick her up, the teacher told me that she had stopped crying soon after I left and had played well the rest of the time.
That was the last of her crying. So far, school days have been easy. Her normal wakeup routine could be mostly retained since she woke up on her own almost three quarters of an hour before we had to leave for school. She asks me to stay for a minute after I drop her and then she says “See you Papa”. I give her a banana before I leave since she’s not in a mood to eat before we leave for school. My sight of her each day she’s at school is of her sitting at a table, eating a banana, watching some of the kids wailing, some others running around. She already knows the names of all her school mates. She seems to have settled down well.
Of course, most of the decisions were made before I was hit with the home schooling option and I started reading all that is wrong with most schooling in this country and much of the world. Conversations with home schooling parents made it clear that putting Maya in a mainstream pre-school wouldn’t affect our decision to home school later. Home schooling is choice that can be first made when Maya reaches first grade. Further, the way the school system works, if we decide to hold off sending her to a school till the first grade, the school would throw tests and such at her before they admitted her. But start her now and she just slides in. For now, she seems to be having fun and that counts for a lot.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Related posts:
