EARLY EDUCATION - CHILD CENTRIC, NOT CULTURE DRIVEN

Here at our school in Bangalore, when we looked at the cross-section of the children, we had

• ·         a healthy ratio gender-wise (Equal numbers of both)
• ·         a healthy ratio physical structure wise (Some tall, some short)
• ·         a healthy ratio in terms of children's personalities ( some mild, some more aggressive, some quiet, some talkative)
• ·         a healthy ratio of children with varied interests (art, play, language etc)

But I did observe that we seemed very skewed on one aspect. All our children came from South-Indian families. We do seem to have a very South Indian base of parents, not on the basis of language, but on the basis of how long they have stayed in the South.

Considering Bangalore is a very cosmopolitan city with really diverse people, and we have many apartment complexes close by, this was strange. Even the few parents who have visited our school who were from Delhi and around had different expectations from the school. I was quite amazed to see India had such a clear North-South divide in something as basic as preschool expectations.

It seems to be cultural that South Indian parents are looking for the Montessori form of education, while parents from the North seem to be looking for the "play-way" or "fun" way of teaching.

Playways or playhomes are typically a lot of noise, teacher centric teaching and a fairly unstructured approach. We had seen a boom of this form of education in the South many years ago. We have fortunately evolved in Bangalore thanks to the many Montessori houses and more importantly thanks to the number of people who have gone abroad, seen quality early education there and come back realising self-learning is the best way of learning in Early years. Now that they had seen what this did for children, they were convinced about this method.

When parents from the South come to our school for the first time, and if they have never been exposed to a child-centric form of education before, they are quite shocked that this is the way Montessori based schools operate. But they are also very excited, because they sense that this is something that can really make a difference to their child’s education. But when parents from the North come in, they are shocked and cannot understand the merit in the system even after several rounds of explanation. It is high time we create a country-wide awareness on the importance and form of early education that can help young children blossom. We Indians are as a nation loud and also control freaks. We dictate every move of young children leading to an inability on the part of the child to make decisions and encouraging herd mentality.

In the South now we have seen a huge acceptance of the fact that a more steady, child-centric and sober way of education will lead to an academic excellence while in the North there is still a huge conviction that preschools = boisterous way of learning will help their children become more social and smarter. Just like weddings, the North Indian weddings, more filled with pomp, show and fun, while the South Indian ones are duller and solemn, though equally strong on the show of ostentation in the form of jewellery, perhaps in a more subtle way.

However, early education, is not an event. And though cultural expectations maybe right, we have to keep in mind what is good for our child and not what we culturally believe.

Early education is a stage where it is not what the adults / parents / teachers think is important. It is the young child whose personality is blossoming who needs certain stimulus and needs certain environment which will allow him to make himself what he wants to be and not force him to be moulded in someone else's form, be it the teacher or the parent.

For eg. Many play-ways schools have loud singing, in the belief that being loud will overwhelm any child and prevent him from thinking of wandering off or losing interest. This is an overwhelming stimulus which blots out everything else even the child's thought process. Music should stir the imagination and help children enjoy the process. Also language development will happen only when children can learn varieties of songs in a meaningful fashion. Teaching a child “Humpty Dumpty” in India is not only culturally inappropriate, it is violent and probably one of the most meaningless forms of language development that a preschool can propagate to a child.

Cultural norms take time to change and will happen only when there are many people who have travelled and come back, or seen it work elsewhere make a change.

The child is bound to pick up some mannerisms from all adults and peers around him. So it is important that the teacher be a little understated and polished. Being loud or forceful, will make children think that is the way to behave. Though Indians as a nation are generally loud, there is no merit in this behaviour in preschools, because it overwhelms or changes the child's personality without taking into account his/her base personality. So here I justify the form of education that we offer to the child, is suited for the child. We are in favour of creating thinking sensitive individuals who care about what happens to the world around them and have the ability to make a difference.

Perhaps it is time for parents to think what is right for their child and not what they think is right. We must understand that early education cannot be based on the cultural background. It can be culture-modulated but not culture-driven.