As a parent in Singapore, it’s hard not to get caught up with the whole education frenzy. It seems like every parent wants to get their kids into the best schools and they go to great lengths to do so. Some buy a place within 2km of their desired school, some diligently offer their services as parent volunteers and some make significant donations to build a spanking new school gym.
I have very little intention of doing any of the above.
Not that I’m not interested in giving them the best education money can buy. But all this seems a bit excessive and I’m not even sure if them getting into the Ivy League equivalent of a primary school will set them on a fast track into an actual Ivy League college.
Now that they’re in school, I do feel a bit of pressure making sure that the kids are keeping up with their supposed learning curriculum. Truett came home the other day telling me his name is T-R-U-E-T-T and I had no idea he even knew what spelling was. Then Kirsten was all “my name is E-E-T-R-U-E-S”, which totally does not spell Kirsten at all. So I spent the next 15 minutes in the car trying to teach my 2-year-old how to spell her name.
By the time we reached, it had gotten worse, like “I-S-S-T-E-N-R”. Which is the point that I realized hey, the girl’s 2, just cut her some slack already. When I was 2, I didn’t even know what the alphabets were, much less string a bunch together competently. And honestly, I’m not particularly concerned that they can’t color inside the lines or draw a banana or count to a gazillion.
I’d be mightily impressed if they could name all the planets in the milky way and knew the difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks but if they weren’t big on those topics, I’m not sweating over it.
We do try to encourage creativity though, because it’s fascinating how they view the world and we’re constantly amazed by all the stuff they come up with. When they show me a blob that they’ve drawn, I try real hard to see the 5-legged dinosaur eating a fish. Just several days ago, we were having breakfast when Tru showed us the caterpillar he made using a bunch of coins.
Then rearranged it and made Mickey’s head.
And this afternoon, they found a 2 rolls of tape and used it to make a kite. It looked nothing like a kite but they had lots of fun running around the house with it.
They’ll do the math and the science thing soon enough. Now we’re just trying to get them to express themselves creatively before it gets educated out of them.
15 Comments
Its true kid get educated out of the education , subject most vital to economic development are always given piority in school , you will never see dancing or acting in our core curriculum. Bt hey u did a great job in nuturing ur kids mixing knowledge construction with role play, creative and all involving parent make kid learnt best !
Exactly! But I think that where our role comes in – to expose them to things they don’t get to learn in school.
I’m totally with you on this! Let’s pray we won’t fall into being kiasu.
Haha we’ll sweat when they start primary school.. yours will start first man, let me know how that goes
Kids learn (and absorb) fastest and when they are having fun and being creative. Let them enjoy themselves first :)
As for Pri1, some parents are fortunate/unfortunate to live within 1km of “popular” schools. Even if you do not want a branded school, still got contention haha. It is tough, not to be kiasu haha :p
True, but if you’re staying within 1km of the popular schools, then no harm trying I guess. :)
Gosh just yesterday, I was telling my husband how my 19 month boy is able to let me know when he has pooped. And I was already mighty proud of him! After reading your posts, I really have to remind myself NOT succumbed to this whole kiasu-ism as mentioned above.
Hahaha that’s not bad, your boy can be toilet trained soon! :)
With a school system as unforgiving as ours, and a parent community as rabid as ours, it is hard to stand against the kiasu tide. Not at the expense of your own child and his self-esteem. We just need to keep looking for pockets of opportunity to let our children be creative and explore, even as they get increasingly bogged down in school. Not ideal but we do our best within the system we are in.
Totally agree!
Read this book, Einstein never used flash cards. It talks about how kids learn through play and they should be spending more time playing then memorizing. I cannot agree more. So let’s not worry about fitting into systems and just spend as much time as possible playing with our kids, I am sure that would create a whole bunch of learning opportunities, many times not just for them, for us too :) Ok ok plus mine are only 7 and 3, it could be easier for me to do whatever I just said. Will check myself again when they are doing their PSLE or something…
I must get the book from you, sounds like a good read!
At first, I wanted to be kiasu and had thought of enrolling my boy into a better school (which apparently is so hot that it’s 100 ppl fighting for 20 seats). Later, I decided to just enroll him into a neighbourhood which is 1km away. But looking at the stats recently, even the neighbourhood need to ballot within 1km. Looks like I have to start looking at parent volunteer at the school. FYI, my son is only 29 months now. lol
Wow. Neighborhood school also need to volunteer?? This is insane..
I was just like you!! eschewing about how there shouldn’t be ‘elite’ schools and the foolish parents that spend 3.5million just to get within 1 km of the school. Unfortunately, it is hard to stand against the tide of all that parental guilt that comes up – did we do the right thing? will they be better off? luckily for us, we were in that halfway point between forking out ridiculous amt of money for a house, and yet close enough to get into the school of our choice with the requisite volunteer time. i stand divided on this debate…. i guess only time will tell if all the effort is worthit! i do envy your conviction to not get sucked into the system :) stay strong!!!
jacqueline yeo´s last post ..[staycation : Aug 2011]