The school update!

Always thought that parents talked too much about schools in our times. Before and after becoming a parent! And now, I know it is fact....we all do compare notes and do all it takes to get comfortable that the kids are getting a good education.

I think this is because

- as a generation, we are over involved parents. Be it getting into homework assignments, school exhibitions, play dates, birthday parties or school talk, we are over involved in our kids' lives. A throw back of the nuclear family or a change in parenting approaches? I don't know. Child centric for sure, maybe too much in some ways and not enough in others...like wanting them to do what we want them to do, yes, the engineer/doctor pressure still exists, maybe with more professions joining the list. Finally, accounting/commerce/economics are on the A-list, but I digress.

- we have more exposure to best practices in several fields and make this apply to kids' day cares, recreational facilities, schools, extra curriculars, you name it. Either through travel or reading or word of mouth from others, we know more of what we want and what we can't compromise on. Ergo, more talk of schools and kids in general!

- we are aspirational for our kids in things we did not have. Like many generations before us. The only difference being we are able to put our wallets where our mouths are much better than previous generations, for most part.

- we are thinking mch bigger for our kids than we did for ourselves. Parents tend to do that, again that cusp of prosperity, opportunity and thinking means that our kids have better access. What they do with it is anyone's guess!

- schools and systems in general are bursting. The confidence our parents had is less these days for us in all systems. Before a good quality english medium school was the criterion, people found one and stuck to it until they had to move home/city/town. Teachers mostly stayed put in the school, maybe progressing from one class to a higher one. Today's kind of teacher turnover was not a given. Schools do not now come with any assurance that their history will be an indicator of their future....they are also aspirational and why not?! The level of change, however, eats into parental confidence levels....leading to more involvement....and the cycle continues.

I am happy to report that my little one is thrilled to go to school and so excited and charged up when she comes out. She is exposed to so many activities in school consistently and is tired out at the end of the day with a solid session of sports, every day. Her appetite has increased, her level of enthusiasm has got to almost boisterous....something that is a stunner for people who know her.

I don't know if this move is an amazing long term one. Just know that today, it is a good one. And that the makings of a good school are worth supporting and strengthening. If the thinking is in the right direction, the school will do well soon enough. To me, they already are doing great.

Eventful week!

Found out this week that my sensibilities are not conventional. That education really does not mean marks or discipline or activities to me. That I strongly want the joy of learning for my kids and unhindered creativity. That a lot of schools around me fall short. That I am super picky in ensuring that the childhood experience is good for the kids. That this is pretty much all I can contribute to their life. That we are lucky enough to live within travelling distance to a school on my wavelength. That a longer commute is a small price to pay for the quality of the content. That we will not be eating in order to pay school fees! :-D

Moved older one out of a reputed conventional school today. After a year and a half of agonizing about the two options, making a decision that was the right one at that time, husband and I pulled daughter out to go the montessori route mid term. We were pretty lucky that their old school embraced the kids back into the fold.

At peace with the school decision at last and more committed than ever to get lifeskills onto the national curriculum....the only way the conventional system will think right is through mandate (the exceptions only prove the rule, people!).

Two down....now to convert!

Over committed is a fact of life for me now. A fact that I struggling with and am fighting against, but a fact nonetheless. And I look around to see that this is the general lifestyle for a lot of people. Right, wrong, I don't know....do know that this is not sustainable for me.

The kids go to different schools - a friend who has the same situation by choice has no issues with this....school buses exist for both schools! Not so in my case. So in between 5:45 am wake ups to run around until 7:30 - 8:00 pm every day (recently, even including the weekend!), I am run ragged....sometimes by personal choice, because I can't let go of some little things. Can't even blame others! :-D

So this week has been consolidation and letting go week(end). Let go of an opportunity that I would have loved to do - write a blog for NGOs on finance/economics relates topics. I have to say that I waited till the last moment to let go of this one - really wanted to do it but have to understand and accept that I really don't have the time to manage two blogs a month on top of the original one article a month commitment.

Also managed to transition out a office bearer post into more capable (and obviously more willing) hands today. Funny how tough it was to talk about the challenges of the year - my hands were actually shaking and I laid the paper with my speech down to ensure that others did not see....didn't realize I was that affected deep down. And this in spite of serious work put in - I know I did my best most of the time. Man, when will I learn to stick to some comfort zones?!

Now it is time to focus on the fun stuff. Weekends off by choice to ensure that I am not a workaholic - a genetic condition that needs serious reprogramming. Movie dates with my husband....we start and then get busy, restart only to get busy again. I guess the fact that we restart is in itself a blessing?! Anyways, more of this every week/month.

More introspection and me time, however selfish that sounds. Have to regroup and get back to equilibrium....this state of affairs can't go on. To those who know what I am talking of, hang in there....'this too shall pass' is not my favourite saying for nothing.

G'night!

It is one week.....12 years and 51 weeks to go!

It has been one week of M's new school. Graduated from montessori to big school...big in terms of convention, size and independence, I guess. She goes by school bus really early and gets back before you know it. Soon that will change and it will be decent chunk of time....enough for a part-timer at the office like me.

So in between getting things ready the night before to getting them to bed in the evening (yes, 7:45 pm is still evening...there were times before when 9:00 pm would be when life started!) and then waking up before the alarm in fright, I am a walking, barely intelligible zombie! When I have to figure out a washing schedule for uniform, I consider myself grown up (and straitjacketed!). Okay, I am grown up now. Young at heart....but grown up! :-D

She has already made friends - three of them, a big deal for a kid who makes few but fast friends. She had one BESTEST friend all through 3.5 years of montessori. I was a bit worried about the transition - would she get back on the right bus? Would she be okay asking for help when she needed it? So far, people looked out for the kids and things were taken care of.

I am pretty impressed with the school - this 'Big' school is pretty organized. In the middle of chaos with their new campus not ready, a shift system to manage all the kids in a smaller space until the facility is ready, they still find time to ensure that the kids take the books to school in parts and believe in leaving the books in school. No lugging around heavy bags, something that was a given in conventional schools in my day. They have camping and pottery, art and yoga, hands on science and Hindi....quite a bit of fun in general. The kids on campus seemed pretty happy to go to school daily and so far, M is showing the same interest.

It helps that there are kids from her old school in her bus, her class and friends from where we live, her dance class, our friends' kid....enough familiar faces. I was worried if she would strike out on her own. Three friends...she knows their names and actually reached out. Why am I so thrilled and stuck on this?

I have a friend in town from my UKG days. We talk every other day, our kids play together and in some ways, she is my conscience...we have never ever fought as far back as I can remember. Maybe this is why the friend angle really thrills me.

Academics-wise they are doing very, very little. From multiplication and adjectives level language in montessori, pal has been assigned the alphabet of day one. I hope it is only because it is day one! Some drawing, coloring and basic words.....way below their 'KG' class work. One part of me wants to go out and buy some books and see that all that Hindi vocab is not lost (she already has a better vocabulary than me...though that is not saying much, maintaining this now will mean less learning work for me later!) and the other part says "chill, the pressure will come in a few years, why worry?" Will probably do a bit of both! :-D

G'night!

Big milestone tomorrow

Early in the morning tomorrow, husband and I will take 6 year old to the bus stop for her first journey to 'big' school. She starts first grade and in typical filmi fashion, her first days on earth are floating around in my mind. She can't be 6 already!

Funny how I have wanted to have this milestone approach for a long time now and now that it is here, it is quite bittersweet. Somehow, the 12 years left to college seem too close for comfort!

Next year, when the both of them get away from home super early in the morning, I will actually have time to exercise and chill out a bit before taking off to work! Imagine that! Am going to try hard to keep that stiff upper lip tomorrow...can't dampen the excitement she has with getting to wear a uniform and go in a school bus by weeping my guts out.

Oh man, now I know what my parents mean when they treat me like a kid who can't wipe her nose! :-D

G'night!

A Nobel Peace Prize winner for sure!

Read 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. A great book describing the real life fairy tale (ish...with actual ups and downs) and the continuing happy ending of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who found his life's work of building schools in Pakistan/Afghanistan out of a failed attempt to climb K2.

An American nurse (yes, the surname could have been Focker/Stiller!), he has built more than 50 schools in isolated villages that barely showed up on maps years ago. I think this guy is a Nobel Peace Prize winner sometime in the next decade. The funda was to educate and provide options other than Jihad. Ex-Taliban fighters are his advocates, warlords have seen the value of his non-religious work in educating boys and girls in his schools. A simple idea anywhere else but quite radical for the region it was achieved in.

Tells me that secularism works....that 'pseudo-secular' is a curse that only the communalists use and that most often, the rigidity of organized religion is the root cause of most conflict (dare I go far enough to say 'most evil'?!)!

The school decision is made for once and all!

The little one, soon to be 6 has been admitted to Kumaran's, a good school in Bangalore. The approach of the school works for us. After months of agonizing about which school to admit her, montessori versus 'conventional' school, etc. , it was a major relief to get the admit letter in hand this morning.

Rush, rush to get back home and work on a few projects....yes, in the middle of it all, have to work....the one thing I do solely for myself and to keep my brain alive. Wish we had some time to go off and celebrate. I barely remember being pregnant but totally remember the day she was born. Remember rushing off to a bookstore with Shankar after the doctor told me that I was in labour. We were saying goodbye to our days of carefree bookstore browsing (thankfully we did not know the extent of time we would be giving that up for!). She came and despite having an infant in the home, we were able to continue on with some adjustments. She was so good that she would actually look at us and listen to us. I could study with all my books on the floor and she would know not to touch at a very tiny age.

She has been a joy all along and it is tough to see her going off into the big, real world. It looks like the school figures this out and is supportive and friendly. I know I will be a wreck on the first day of her taking the school bus. She eats really slow and I hope she will finish her meal in time. We have been car pooling to school, so I will actually have time now to exercise and do my thing in the morning before work from June. My thrill at this is quite unmaternal, I am sure!

But this is kid number one brought to 'real' world stage in a sense and it feels like an achievement when she is the easiest kid. Imagine my little devil of a son getting here....would I be crying to have gotten here or that someone else would be dealing with the pleasure of his company in school?! :-D