Just Me

I read in today Starmag, a write-up by Nurul Lee on Tears and Fears.

I am a person who has go against the current education development in silence and classify most parents as ultra kiasu.

It all started from the day, my eldest daughter was 4 years old. I found that it was not easy to find good well balanced kindergarten which will develop kids on overall rather than focus on academic achievement solely.

I was really interested in Montessori approach but sadly to say in my area, most kindergartens which specified 'Montessori Method' was only on the surface and the fees were exorbitant.

The principals or owners, normally would have the same kind of feedback. Montessori only applicable for kids below 4 years old.

It was no longer applicable to 'older kids' (5 & 6 years old) as the current syllabus was too high and the kids would not be competitive. I sighed.

Despite all the dissatisfaction, I still had to make the choice with all the non conformance...

My anxiety was not ended there, as more inputs were stuffed into my brain when she started her first day of standard one.

All the concerned parents, would tell me that they already enrolled their kids into Kumon, Cambridge and other tuition centers...even some started at 5 years old besides attending kindergartens.

I was more confused, when one of the parents mentioned that the kids would not learn anything from the school due to big volume classrooms and shortage of teachers.

"Was it that bad?" I kept on asking myself.

Some parents opted to put their kids into private schools as to overcome the problems.

I had to calm myself for a while and pulled up myself to reality.

With all the inspirations and motivational talks I input to my daughter, she had survived and competed well with her peers who attended multitude of extra classes.

This year, she's going to seat for her UPSR and rejects tuition, I wish her all the best of luck...

Sometimes, I wonder is it just me or anybody else out there share the same opinion as me...