Friday, Jun 03, 2005
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Chennai
Dhanya Parthasarathy
SCHOOL TIME: No tears for these children who briskly walk back to school on Thursday, after enjoying a long summer vacation.
CHENNAI: : M. Bhuvaneshwari checked out 11 schools along with her three-year-old last year. Next week, the little girl will go to kindergarten her mother finally plumped for. And yet, the young mother has a thousand worries. "Oh! I am worried about everything. Whether she will feel at home there, whether she will mingle with everyone, if the teachers will be friendly, and what teaching methods they are going to follow, and if she be forced to write too soon... " says the PhD researcher.
"It's natural"
Several parents across the city are now getting ready to put their little ones into a formal education set up for the first time. And it's a testing time. Classrooms with wailing children screeching for their mothers are common enough. One teacher reported of a mother who sobbed along with her little one at the prospect of being separated from her little one. Veteran pre-school educator Prema Daniel understands the heart of a mother. "Sometimes, mothers can't bear to leave the child behind. They stand near the door, peek from the window and keep turning back from the gate... It's only natural. The best way is to allow parents to be with the child for as long as the child gets comfortable with the school," she says. She recommends that parents take the child to the school before it opens as a step towards lowering anxieties all round. "Take the little one around. Tell him that this is where he'll be coming every morning. Show him the playground. Show him the toilet," she says.
"Doting age"
Vijayalakshmi Srivatsan, principal of P.S. Senior School, Mylapore, says with one-child and two-child families, parents are greatly concerned about every step of the education process. "This is the `doting age'. The child is the single-pointed focus of attention. In our time 30 years ago, fathers didn't even know which class we were going to," she says with a laugh. All that has changed now with several schools insisting on orientation programmes for parents this week, and allowing them to stay in the classroom in the initial days. In fact, Hari Shree Vidyalaya, a newly-opened school, allows parents to spend the entire academic year in school with the child. "The physical presence of mother is so reassuring to the child. We give the child all the freedom to run across to his mother in the adjacent classroom whenever he likes. We hold classes for mothers like yoga, art, craft and vedic heritage during that time," says Deivanai Muthuganeshan, curriculum co-ordinator.
A different scenario
Over at Sankarapuram Corporation Primary School, Thursday was Day One for around 20 little ones. These children of housemaids, autorickshaw drivers and flower sellers didn't have the luxury of having their mothers around. The parents dropped the little ones off in the morning, and the teachers spent the day wiping tears, telling stories and saying, "Amma will just be back." "Those children who have been to a balwadi are better adjusted than the ones who are coming here for the first time," says the principal M. Kannammal. Psychologists say young children model their behaviour on their parents and advise parents to pass on their confidence in the school they have chosen to the child, in order to allay fears.
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