Couple
of Saturday ago, we attended the regular bi-term Parent-Teacher Meeting (PTM)
at Nada’s school.
I guess, I do owe a write up
la about Kindicare Montessori & Pre-school. In case, someone google to find
out about it, at least my experience herein could be made as guidance. Like la
this blog gonna appear at all in google search…, I’ll write anyway.
When I was looking for a
school for Nada to attend last year, I had in my mind something like NO
FRANCHISE!. I am not sure of my own reason, but I am also not saying SMART
READER, Q-DEES or the like are not good. It’s just the matter of choices we
have. I just don’t fancy the sort of chain for pre-school.
Kindicare was introduced to
me by a friend. I visited the school before enrolling Nada and it just fit into
my wants and needs. It is a modest, small scale school with homely environment.
Each class contains small numbers of children. The big part of me actually, I
don’t really want to send Nada to ‘school’ as yet. That’s why I was avoiding
those with daily uniform schools.
I remember myself being a
free kampong kiddo, unschooling until primary. It was a fun childhood I had,
tagging along my big brother everywhere he goes. I played a lot. Underneath our
on-stilt-home, climbing trees, running in the meadow full of ‘kemuncup’,
sometimes in the woods collecting rubber trees seeds, when monsoon season came
– we played in the stagnant flood water! My brother would catch fish (read :
tadpole and worms) or even did some stunt, doing summersault into man groove. I
was his most trusted and loyal spectator. Dangerous it may seem, but it was
F.U.N.
I
enjoyed myself playing back then - I wanted the same for Nada because PLAY is a
child’s job.
Would I been a SAHM or a WAHM,
she would most probably be a homeschool or an unschool child. The fact that I
am a typical 9-5 (read 10-9, sometimes 10-10) office working mom, I just don’t
have the opportunity of providing the luxury of homeschooling. Quitting my job
is an option but not really possible, I have my mami that is my responsibility
all my life.
The fact that Nada is sent to
an Indon Nanny while I’m at work added more points for her to be in a place where
she could play, interacts, make friends, exploring creative minds and develops
or else she’ll just watch Indon soaps on tele all day long. She needs to be at
least in a more conducive environment, I hope so.
During my visit to Kindicare
earlier, these were my questions :
- Would there be homework ? Answer : NO
- Would there be ‘examinations’? Answer : NO
- Would there be grading of children, like No 1, 2,
3, 4….. in class? Answer : NO
All the NO answers makes me
happy. I really don’t get it as to what is the need of homework, examinations
and grading pre-school children?
They are “babies”. It’s intimidating for me to hear parents telling me : “Ooo, my child got number ONE in his/her
3year old kindi”.
At this point, it’s not my
objective to know if Nada is the smartest in class or less smart or least smart
and I do hope it will never be my objective.
For now, all I want for her is
to play like I used to. The difference would be the sorts of playing I had with
her sorts and my play was free but hers is at cost! .. O, well…
I did ask a lot of questions
and this one really got into me :
“ What
happen if my daughter feels like taking a nap? ”
Aunty
Jeane (the principal) gave me the most diplomatic answer : “Awwww… you’re not
ready to let her go yet, don’t you? Not to worry, we have all the fun activities,
Nada won’t get sleepy.. trust me.
Besides, a child shouldn’t be sleepy from 8am to noon. If she’s sleepy, that
means her sleep routine is not right, mom! ”
So, Kindicare offers the
needs of what I was looking for in terms of it’s “syllabus”. But what actually
captured my heart was the warmth of the teachers or all being called as
Aunties. They are lovely, humble people, and they enjoy being around children,
I can see. There’re a lot of hugs and kisses, dear and darling in their
words.
They also treat us parents
with kindness no matter what car we are driving. J It so happen, every other kids’ parents drive or
being driven in monsters the like Porshe, Beemers, Merce, Volvo, Audi, Vellfire
bla-bla-bla. I am the cheapoket one, not wearing Christian Louboutin or Hermes…
still very nicely treated.
Kindicare is also
well-organized, Nada thus far never mistakenly brought back other children’s
stuff or other way round such as bag, containers or water bottle. I don’t know
how they manage it as no names written on any of the stuff being brought to
school. What I do realize, they make it a habit to scrutinize every and each
child every day. Example, when I hand Nada to them in the morning, there’ll be
greetings like :
“Hi Nada.. Good morning darling..
hey look at you…..Today you are wearing plaid smocked dress. Did Mommy make
this dress also? Is that new Barbie snack container you bring ?”…. Things like
these, give me confidence.
I’ve experienced other nursery
for a short period that I sent Nada when her Nanny returned to Medan, the very
first day she came back home, all her stuffs were name written. Towel, milk
bottle, milk dispenser, food container… yet they still got mixed up!
Nothing is perfect I would
say. So far, there’s no big blunder that could make me angry except couple of
small encounters at Kindicare. I didn’t receive school newsletter which in the
later I checked, I was told it had been distributed. I couldn’t blame the school
also, because it might had been given and dropped in the chartered car that
ferries Nada after school or it could be at her Nanny’s. I don’t really know.
It’s no big deal, anyway. Other than that, Aunty Jeanne is very-very careful
and meticulous.
So, for this time PTM, we
were briefed of Nada’s progress and what-not, which was fine.
Until towards the end, Aunty
Marie (the class teacher) told us, again in a very diplomatic way..
“Nada is an independent child,
confident, she knows what she wants but……….. she’s rather BOSSY.” Toing! Tu…
dia.
Apparently according to Aunty
Marie, my girl has the tendency and very much successful in directing and
ordering her friends around. She would get agitated if they don’t listen to
her. OMG! whose DNA does she inherits here? I look at Harris…. Harris look at
me.
OK-OK-OK –OK.. that would be
Mommy.!
Aunty Marie also told us,
despite her bossiness… she does have close friends (that she also directs
around). Three of them are clique. They
play and learn together but they can never agree with each other. All have
their own opinions. OOOOOhhhh.. This,……..Mommy like. Good!
My Saturday morning routine
this couple of months. Inspecting my cousin, Mentibang Paku’s house renovation.
I’ve been ordering the contractor, here and there, practically treating this
house like mine. Mesti Cik Ripin berbulu dengan Mek.
Well, we have no money to
renovate ours.. at least this feels like ours!.. hehehehe..
Harris sure can be awarded
as Bapa Mithali. He let his daughter step on his foot not wanting her
bare foot on the ground whilst little miss uses her slipper to play sand.
Could it be me, I would just
shout : “ It’s OK !.. You sit on the sand, later wash your feet ! ”
