by Anupama Krishnakumar
[box]Schooling is no longer the ‘take it easy’ thing that it used to be! Anupama Krishnakumar walks you through the interesting and funny sides of putting your little one into school and the detestable attitude that prevails towards competition.[/box]“The woods are lovely dark and deep
And I have miles to go before I sleep..”
So said Robert Frost of life with all the poetic beauty he can conjure with his words.
What if I were to rephrase it this way?
“And I have miles to go before I reach the application counter..”
Loony, you think?
Well, for all the absurdity in that rephrased line, there lies a truth. Listen.
Welcome to the world of ‘smart-as-never-before toddlers’ and their ‘anxious-and-seeking-the-best-as-never-before’ parents!
Take a look at the line of parents outside of the best school in your part of the city during admission time and your jaws will drop! The queue is for buying application forms for admission into pre-school for your kid! It’s definitely a sight to watch 99% of the restless parents talking over the mobile phone and giving an update on how the queue is moving on!
If you are standing in the line that is going to change your child’s destiny, be prepared for some pleasant surprises as well! For all you know, a long lost pal from your college days may tap you gently on your shoulder and say, ‘Hey there! How’s you? You have a boy or a girl?’ Am here for my daughter’s admission!’ And so, there you will be, reliving old memories and catching up, as you slowly inch towards your goal for the day!
Standing in the queue – well, that’s just the beginning. Be sure to feel joyous the moment you hold the application form in your hand and proudest when you get to know that your kid has been selected for admission!!
As a mother, I didn’t escape this phenomenon either! Yeah, I call it a phenomenon. Really, the age we live in makes a big deal out of a toddler’s schooling like never before! Perhaps it is do with the nature of the evolution process (yeah, am talking biology, genes and all that!) that kids these days come with such terrific IQs, they pick up things so fast; adding to that, the exposure is extraordinary, what with a whole range of amazing teaching aids for children from when they are as young as nine months old! The result – you have a smart kid and you want to give him the best and there you go, well, to stand in the queue outside the best school!
My point is there is nothing wrong in being part of the whole ‘made-to-sound-and-seem-big-and-important’ process. But, what bothers or rather irks me is that some people (well, the exceptions are always there!) overdo things or overreact to such an extreme that you can’t stop steam getting off your ears. Allow me to substantiate.
One of the important side-effects of today’s education system is competition and comparison, sometimes so unhealthy and more often than not, meaningless. What if I said the competition begins from the application time itself? A few days after we secured an application form for my son from one of the best schools in our area, during one of those preschooler moms’ chit-chats, an anxious mom asked what my son’s application number was and I said something in the 100s and promptly came her shocking response with a hint of sadness – oh, looks like you went much earlier than I did; mine is only 200 something!
Another instance. An acquaintance (one of them whom I run into when I take my son for evening walks to the park) asked me casually as to what happened of my son’s admissions. I told her that he got into ‘…’ and to my surprise, she looked shocked, although she was quick enough to change her expression. Soon, she started on how her daughter has secured admissions in School A, B C and D (well, our school isn’t in that list!) and then they had to decide on which one to take!
Really, attitude such as this has left me baffled. I agree that competition and the comparison it leads to are indispensable parts of the learning process today. But, as parents, isn’t it our duty to teach our children that competition has to be healthy and ensure that it does not cultivate unwanted emotions such as jealousy and bitterness in them? By teaching them the wrong idea of competition and making useless comparisons, won’t we be pressurizing them even more? That too when we have to tell them how to successfully tackle pressure that is so much a part of learning today? When it can’t come from parents even at the most preliminary phase, how will it come at the later stages and where will all this lead to? I wonder, I worry.
Pic: jenny downing : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/
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