The case of Lil Einsteins - is Lil Kimy one of them?

Ok. So I went to see Kimy’ teachers recently to understand what needs to be done for Kimy’s learning development for the next 1 year. He’s gonna be 6 next year. 6-little-boy-years-old!! How in the world did he grow up so fast?? This also means he only has 1 year to master whatever it is that he needs to master before he steps into Primary; and mommy has 1 year to panic endless and struggle not to shove all the books and pencils into Kimy’s throat.

Clearly all parents with children go through this horrible panic mode when their little ones are about to start school. Officially. Not the kindergarten-types or Montessories or the nice little colourful pre-schools  with kind-faced teachers holding your young ones’ hands and guiding them indoors and not uttering a single sound when your little ones pull their hair or yank their skirts. I’m talking about the Primary stage, where kindness amongst teachers is rare, and no one gives a damn if your child needs extra attention. If you are lucky enough, your child might survive the first day of school without getting terrified by the stupid so-called ‘Placement test’ or whatever it is the school calls it to categorically place your child in accordance to your child’s capability to answer a test – on the 1^st day of school. 1st day of school!! Bloody hell, on what basis do you rate a child’s brain capability when the child already has the burden to manage their fear of stepping into a world so alien to them, and trying to overcome the fear  of facing many unfamiliar faces on the first day itself? I have all the faith in my child to somehow manage himself when he arrives at that stage; but I strongly do not agree of the fact that you need to assess these poor children when we should be focusing on encouraging them to LIKE school in the first place. God knows how difficult it is already to make them WANT to come to school, let alone trying to maintain the interest in these children to stay interested in school up until they’re 17 and finally graduate from high school. We’ll be lucky if our children have the decency to sit through all their exams and not sneak out of school instead. You can never be too sure what kind of adventures you child is up to when they’re out of your eyesight, can you?

And why the necessity to categorize them in different levels of classes? Yeah yeah the smarter ones will get the better teachers; but what about the ‘not-so-smart-ones’ that the school has so smartly placed in the bottom classes? Do you do anything about them? Or will all the attention be focused on the 1^st top 3 classes with flying colours only? Why can’t we put them all fairly in each class regardless of levels of intelligence – and give them all equal attention, equal details, equal opportunities, and equal punishments if necessary? I remember when I was in Primary Assunta (2) PJ; we had 4 classes for each standards from sdt 1 to std 6 – there were no categories for smart classes or ‘not-so-smart’ classes – we all had the same unsmiling, dour teachers who made sure we memorized our math tables and finish our homework and learn to speak English, smart or not. We all had to complete all our exercise books, we all had to go to extra classes, bright or not. If you’re one of the top students and yet you do mischief & create trouble, you get yelled at and face the intimidating headmistress to face your verdict.  And when it was the time for UPSR, the final exam during Primary 6 – the competition was fair and equal amongst all classes. And surprise surprise – some of the mischievous & trying students were the ones who scored best and made the school proud. All thanks to the fair treatment from the teachers, and a school which did not introduce dissimilarity & inequality amongst the children, and did not alienate those who might need extra attention. Come to think of it, we the students saw each other so equally that it did not even occur to me that most of my closest friends back then were Chinese and Indian – I wasn’t even aware of racial differences until I was much older later on.

As a mother, obviously I am constantly worried about my child’s progress – and it does not help that in the world of advanced technologies, I am getting live feeds about my friends’ childrens’ progresses on nano-second-basis. And being human one can’t help feeling pressured by the news of A’s lil son who just came back from multiple arts and music classes; and B sending her lil daughter to ballet and speech classes, and C who just got back from fetching her children from extra English & Mandarin classes. And most of these lil ones are not even Kimy’s age yet! I only send Kimy to his daily kindy classes – which takes not more than half of the day, and during weekends I spend a couple of hours teaching him simple maths & writing & colouring & spelling. That’s all. Does that make my son less intelligent because I refuse to pressure him into learning everything at this young of age? And what will happen when I send my son to his 1^st day of Primary 1 and he has to sit for that stupid ‘Placement Test’ together with other ‘smarter’ children who are probably capable to publish a book by the age of 7?

First of all, I can’t afford the luxury of sending Kimy to all these fancy-sounding classes, hence the need to prioritize. I would definitely love to give him the opportunity to learn anything that he wants, right at this tender age where his brain absorbs everything like a sponge – but everything comes with a price nowadays; a price which makes you wheeze and start thinking about getting a second job. And because I KNOW that I have to prioritize, both Pedro & I made sure that we get him into a good pre-school worth the fees paid, with the hopes that he’ll learn everything that he needs there in preparations for Primary. And secondly, the blessed child is only 5! He has the rest of his life to learn and absorb everything eventually, when the time is right. Why is there a need to shove everything down his throat now when he can hardly even remember his own mother’s full name? Shouldn’t knowledge be balanced with maturity? Do I need my son to graduate so soon before everyone else his age, and yet his hasn’t reached the right level of maturity to execute this knowledge into something useful in life? We’re all in a crazy race here, aren’t we?

We have to remember that it is God’s will if we are blessed with a child who happens to be really bright and sailed through her/his vocabularies without even stumbling over any words. We will not have to worry about silly tests taken on the 1^st day of school, knowing that our child will whizz through it without even batting an eyelash. We will smile and have the greatest time of our life watching the little one winning prizes for the school, and make the school proud. But we must also remember that sometimes God will test us and bless us with a child who might not be able to master the education too well, but might be gifted with other talents, that might only be evident when the child is far older. But somehow these children will not be able to shine as bright as the ‘smarter’ ones as they were shunned at a much earlier stage of their lives only because they are not able to answer a silly test well on the 1^st day of school, and are placed at the bottom – far too early before they are even able to show the world what they’re worth. The education system has somehow created a reason for these talented children to feel demotivated and insecure of their capabilities – when in truth we are all actually born with our own talents and gifts. What will we do then when our child is categorized in such a way? Will we end up believing that our child is actually not up to standards?

I have a son who is such a chatterbox, who learns to speak English well through hours of Disney Jr, who has trouble finding friends because he hardly knows how to speak BM, who loves and sleeps with books but yet do not know how to read even at the age of 5, whose favourite colour is black and assigns anything in pink for mommy and anything in blue for daddy and refuses to acknowledge any other colours, who is afraid of heights, who memorizes his favourite songs and repeatedly sings it every other minute. He doesn’t know a lot of things yet, but I have faith in him to learn things quick, and I refuse to send him to endless additional classes because I didn’t want him to be overwhelmed with all the pressure, I didn’t want him to be too smart before his real age allows it, and simply because I miss him too much most of the time and I just want him to be close to me as much as time allows, that I prefer to teach him things myself.

Yes, I am worried endless about my son’s progress and future, but that I accept as one of my responsibilities as a parent, something that I will do until the day I die. But I also believe that children have the right to learn things at their own pace, and until then they should first learn how to be a human. And it is the job of the parent to love the child unconditionally, and make sure that the child knows that they will be accepted regardless of their capabilities in life. Because at the end of the day – having knowledge as high as the mountain does not yet define that you are successful, until you know what to do with the knowledge and how to apply the knowledge in life. Jadilah manusia yang pandai DAN berguna, ya anak-anak sekalian.

I realize that I have literally written a whole fiction here with my endless ramblings on this topic – do understand that I have nothing against excellent education (this in particular is something that I take really seriously); and I trust that every parent knows what’s best for their children. I just wish that our education system does not create unnecessary stress to children, and unnecessary pressure to parents – which naturally translates into an unhealthy competition amongst the parents to produce their own versions of Lil Einsteins at the earliest age possible. What happened to skipping ropes, hide & seeks, & playing catch? That was all that I knew when I was 5, but I still know my ABCs when the time comes for me to know them.

xoxo - Restless mommy