[Update:Linked the image to thethinkingblog]

Thanks Kiran for nominating me for the thinking blogger award. This is prefect because I live for gratification. I even created a new category for this post , some where I can file away the other awards and rewards that are going to come knocking…he..he..he.

If I have to come with 5 things about myself I would have jump started my post and would be done with it. But I have to think about 5 people(gulp), other than self(gulp, gulp), who make me think(GULP, GULP, GULP)??!

This people is going to take sometime.

I want to discuss a few popular streams of preschools in this post. Most of the information will apply to families living in the US. Which doesn’t mean that the others must not read this post. Even if you do not have school age children, please do read on, because I would love to hear your opinions on this subject.

Through out this post I will be using she/her, as required. It sounds too formal/politically correct to keep repeating he/she, his/her every time I make reference to a child. Just like the word man means both man and woman, my reference to she means both he and she. Yes, I am partial towards ‘she’ because I have two girls

It seems like only yesterday hubby an self were breaking our heads to pick a day care for toddler, already it is time to start thinking about preschools! After a few months of thinking, visting, revisiting ideas, it will be that time to start acting!

We are all parents, so we all know clearly well, what a preschool is. No definitions required. The general norm, irrespective of which part of the world you live in, is to send your child off to preschool when the child turns three. Most of the preschools in US, require that the children have completed two years, nine months and are potty trained before they take them in. Some of the smaller preschools might be a little lax on this rule, they might take the child in as early as two years and six months and are okay if the child wears training pants.

A child’s brain grows at a tremendous pace till the child reaches 6 years. When the child is approximately 5 years, her brain is supposed to be more or less the size of an adult brain. The idea of sending the child to preschools is to make use of these essential years. Attending preschool or getting the benefits of a preschool education at home gives the child a head start through out her life.

Every child is different. So the method the child must be taught must differ too. We have to have an understanding about the types of education and the temperament of the child, in order to pick the best preschool for the child.

Now, to the two main methods of education – which in simple terms can be called as the child-centered method and the teacher-centered method. For the most part the Montessori style is a child-centered approach, but since there is a lot of unique stuff to be said about this style of education, I am putting in to a separate category.

A child-centered method is one where the basic goal is the wholesome and autonomous development of the child. The individuality of a child is celebrated. There is no segregation in terms of subject, it is believed that all the subjects are inter related. This method is based on the assumption that every child is growth seeking and has the intrinsic motivation to learn, which is true. Only as we grow, we start piling up negativity, laziness and become bums. There is no preset curriculum for this method, there are rough guidelines, but what the child learns is totally up to the child and the teacher. All the activities are chosen by the child. The child gets to decide when, what, how she wants to learn and when she wants to play. Interaction, between the kids and kids adult interaction is highly encouraged, because this method believes that is how children learn. Most of the preschools in the US and around the world were based on this method until the Asian influence seeped in, me thinks .

The only place where I have seen this type of education practiced in its true essence is the lab schools aka the childcare centers affiliated with an educational institution. Every educational institution, which has a child studies department, has its own child care facility. They organize the children according to their age groups. The children age group 3.5 years – 5 years have a preschool program. The environment is set up every day and the children can do anything they opt for, throughout the day. It might sound and seem like all play, but they do teach cool stuff. The couple of weeks I was there in my lab school, the kids were taught about photosynthesis, life cycles of a butterflies, silk worms, democracy and career options when they grow up.

But, couple of negatives about this style of education is that,

the child has to really show the initiative. I mean, they do teach stuff, but if a child wants to play at that time instead of learning, the child is not forced. As long as the child does whatever she wants to without disturbing the rest of the group, that’s is fine with the class teacher. There is no pressure what so ever on the child to learn.

There might be some home environments where the parents might not be able to give education the required importance, ignorance or lack of time, what ever the reason may be. Such a home environment combined with a kid who does not show initiative is a messy situation.

This style of education is a choice only up to a certain level. After that the child is thrust in a different kind of learning environment which takes serious adjusting on the child’s part.

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: The beauty of this is, it will fit perfectly for kids from opposite ends of the spectrum. Kids who are social bees take naturally to this style. But it doesn’t mean that a very shy toddler will not do well. This might be a good chance to draw your toddler out. Kids are known to interact easily with other kids than with adults. Also if the child is from a family where the adults believe that children are supposed to run around and have fun, go for this. After preschool, make a slow transition to an academically oriented school.

A teacher-centered method is a style educating the child by teaching the child conformity. The children are motivated to learn through external means – test, assignment kind of stuff. This style is based on the theory that the environment shapes a person. The characteristics of this style of education is its emphasis on product over process, separate subjects, fixed curriculum for all the students and imporantc of an authority figure(namely the teacher). Interaction between the teacher and the children is encouraged, but there is a limit on the interaction between the kids. Every school in India is based on this style, so I don’t think we need any further explanations.

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: Kids who thrive on structure. The amount of openness in the activities that can be done over whelms kids many times. The kids might start one activity, suddenly jump to the next and will end up not learning anything properly. All kids are fickle, but there are varying levels in the fickleness. If you feel that the child needs some kind of conformity in order improve her concentration, jump right on to this style. If you are an Indian parent who is thinking about moving back to India and is looking for a temporary pre school please do the kid a big favor and enroll her for this style. Because in India, as far as I know, most of the schools are too academically oriented. Otherwise there might be a small possibility that the kid might have to repeat the kindergarten program once again in India. If at all that is the case, parents take a chill pill and let the kid do it. Don’t think of it as a year wasted, think of it as a life long investment. You can potentially crucify the child’s self esteem by letting her feel that she constantly needs to catch up in school.

Montessori style: Dr.Maria Montessori started this style of education in Italy at a time where education was only for the rich boys. Girls, poor children and children with metal and physical disability were considered ‘not fit’ to be educated. At a time like this Dr.Maria Montessori came out this unique way of education, the main goal was to give the poor kids a way to sustain their lives. Have you heard the adage, “Give a man a fish to eat, you fed him for a day, teach him to fish you feed him for his life”? Dr.Montessori essentially came with a method of teaching the kids to fend forthemselves for the rest of their lives.

So when you look at a Montessori program, you have to keep in mind the reason Dr.Montessori came up with this style of teaching. In a Montessori there is very little interaction – between the kids/between the kids and the teacher. The children are encouraged to work on their own, the teacher ‘guides’ them. First and foremost, the children are taught how to take care of themselves – basics like how to wear their shoes, how to dress them selves, how to clean their environment…kind of simple activities. Lots of stress is placed on nature, most of the materials used are natural. In the present days, the Montessori programs are highly watered down versions of the original method.

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: Kids who love independence, interacting with nature. If you have a special needs kid (like ADD), go for this method, because there is low teacher: student ratio in a Montessori (might vary from program to program, check with the provider about this information).

I know toddler will thrive well in an academically oriented program, but I just want her to get the benefits of a much more relaxed curriculum, after all this is the age to run around and have fun. So I am still dilly dallying. Hubby has his heart set on a full blown, completely academic program.

Will also do a post (sometime soon) about the choice of schools, when to apply, how to apply etc, but that will be more focused to the California bay area.

I was going through my toddler-log from my pre-blogging times and this particular log caught my attention. I had made this log last year, a month before toddler turned two.

ACTION:

I was teaching toddler how to be nice, sweet and polite. “Baby, always say please when you want something. Say thanks when you get something from someone or when some one helps you. You have to say sorry if you hurt someone. It is nice to say welcome if someone says thanks to you”.

REACTION:

Toddler gets up every morning and says ‘Thenths(Thanks) pillow, thenths bantheth(blanket)’. I thought that she might be over doing it a little bit, but hey, being too polite is not going to hurt. But….if I hand her something that she had asked for she says, ‘Thenths spoon’ or ‘Thenths book’ instead of ‘Thanks Amma’. I tried correcting her, ‘Say thanks amma’, she looked at me and said ‘Veltham(Welcome)’ and walked away!

Same way if she knocks something on me she says sorry to the inanimate object, but not ‘Sorry amma’. If I correct her, ‘Say sorry amma’, she thinks I am telling sorry to her for some reason and says, ‘Uh-oh, thats othay(okay)’ and walks away!

So far ‘please’ is not being abused. She does say please when she wants something!

Well, this is a question that has been gnawing me since I got married. I am an only child and I grew up with my aunts(my mom’s sisters) and went to a girls-only school. I had few men friends in college but that was not good enough for me to look deep in to the male psyche.

Ever since I got married, I discovered that hubby and self are yin and yang, not in the nice complementing each other way! We have the exact opposite reaction to any situation. He is calm, composed, balanced, never gets overly excited, a bit of a cynic and thinks with his head. I am easily excitable, swing from happy to sad before one can snap their fingers and think with my heart. Really how different are men and women? Are all men and women this different?

With this in mind, I observe children at play. The four year olds I work with show clear segregation in terms of gender. They even want to stand in two separate lines, “the boys line” and the “girls line”, while they go to the play ground. I asked them why they want separate lines, the girls said, “The boys don’t use walking feet. Once he pushed me down and I got a boo-boo on my knee”, the boys just said, “No”, that’s all nothing more.

I mean, there is a difference even in the style in which they answer. The girls have an elaborate answer, they run and we don’t like to run, so we will have our own line, thanks. The boys use very limited words, don’t explain all their actions, their attitude was like, “Isn’t it obvious, why do you even ask?”.

Observing more, the boys played with toy trucks, each one holding a truck, ramming the trucks head on, repetitively. They played with blocks, each one holding a block, ramming them head on, repetitively. They played with (toy)garden equipments like shovels, rakes, lawn mowers, each one holding one piece of toy, ramming them and yes they did it repetitively. While playing dress-up(“No Ms.A, only girls dress up. We are wearing a costume.” was the response I got from a gentleman when I asked if they want to play dress up!) they picked fire fighter hats, spider man masks, police man uniforms and rammed their heads, of course, repetitively! They didn’t want anything to do with the so-called “girl toys”

The girls loved to read books, played in the sand, danced to music, dressed up as princesses/cooks/nurses, didn’t mind playing with “boy toys”, wanted to paint and do more art work in class.

There is more, the boys preferred repetition, the girls preferred variety. The boys wanted more out door activities, the girls wanted more in door activities. Girls preferred girls only groups, the boys didn’t mind a girl in their group as long as she was equally rough and tough. When there was a problem the girls voiced their complaint to an authority figure, where as boys dealt with it by them selves…and the list goes on.

Such deep preferences and segregation in terms of behavior at such an early age? It makes me wonder about the reasons influencing this. First comes the biological differences, the second culprit is gender typing by parents and the third culprit is peer acceptance.

As a sense of self develops, gender awareness also develops in a child. Apart from a few biological differences, which are mostly hormonal or genetic, there are no notable differences in terms of a boy’s brain or a girl’s brain or in the way boys and girls develop till they are 18 months.

Around 18 months, the child learns the concept of self and visualizes its role in the society through it maleness or femaleness. Irrespective of whether the parents believe in gender segregation or gender equality, they promote gender typing. The degree might be different, but it is present in all families. Sometimes parents are very cautious not to fall in to gender stereotypes, they might get an easy bake oven for their son or a construction set for their daughter. By telling that it is okay for a boy to play with girl toy, is a type of gender typing in a convoluted way! Research indicates that fathers are more likely to gender type than mothers! Can you believe it? Apparently fathers consciously or unconsciously interact with boys through rough play and are more sensitive to girls. An adult in this house, who shall not be named at this time, once commented that he will teach the girls sports like tennis, basket ball, cricket and bring them up as boys. Understand the subliminal gender typecasting folks?! Plight of boys is even worse. They are very strongly gender typed than girls. At least girls have a level of freedom in their choice of dresses, games and playmates. Imagine how much the parents will be freaking out, the father more than the mother according to researches, if the boy dresses in pink, plays with dolls and only with girls and likes wearing his mommies jewellery?!

As the child grows, gender gets more and more defined by interacting with peers and other adults. This basically seals the issue once and for all. At this point of time even if there is a little bit of femaleness in a boy (the other way around is accepted, it considered tomboy-ish-ness) he gives it up or masks it. A child is quick to take up gender labels for the sake of peer acceptance.

Phew, now what does this means for us parents? Even if you believe that men and women are equal, your child will definitely learn about gender inequality, may be a little later, but it is something we cannot avoid.

If you want to raise a rough and tough girl or a sensitive boy, don’t push it on the child. Be sensitive to what the child wants. Once in a while it is okay if your boy plays with dolls. It does not mean anything. And if your girl is too girl-ish, just go along with it.

If your three year old boy makes a sexist comment, don’t freak out. It does not mean that you are a bad parent. Children learn from lots of places beside home – TV, school, friends, other adults. Correct him and be a role model. The child is merely going through a phase. He will eventually learn.

If ever, in the near or the distant future, any of you get a chance to work with me, especially if it involves something artistic, brain storming and doing something creative, run for your lives. Don’t say that you didn’t know, because you have been warned!

Be it picking curio shelves or picking curtains, I get all crazy. First I come up with a mental image. Then I put it down on paper – I either draw it or photoshop it, then I go around all the shops looking for it. The more I find that what I have in mind is not available anywhere, the more obsessed I get with what I cannot have. Then I come back to the table make some compromises, change the design a bit and go shopping again. After a million trips and a zillion changes, I realize what I have in mind is still not available anywhere. At this point of time, I give up shopping for it and, here comes the real headache, I roll up my sleeves and decide to make it myself. In the process the people around me and the people who interact with me go nuts.

I applied every ounce of my usual craziness to infant’s birthday cake. I was desperately looking for a theme and nothing unique came on to me. Hubby simply couldn’t understand the fuss behind all this. His logic is very simple. Cake = something we eat. So it has to taste great, who cares how it looks. Also he is oblivious to all the theme fundas I put. He noticed that the girls and I wore pink only after his elder sister pointed it out to him and this was about two weeks after the party! So I was on my own in picking the theme.

Suddenly a week before the party, the light in my head went on. Remember how toddler calls herself ‘Toddler Shortcake’ and infant ‘Infant Dumpling’ – after the Strawberry Shortcake and Apple Dumpling? Plus, I really liked the concept of spelling happy birthday with wooden alphabet blocks. This is her first birthday, so there has to be the number 1 some where in the cake. So this would be the rough draft.

To get the theme going I need to have plates, table covers, party caps and balloons to match with the cake. Finding accessories to go with the cake was a challenge. I wasn’t able to find any Strawberry Short Cake stuff. So chances of finding Apple dumpling products was even bleak. After visiting couple of stores and extensive web searching, the only thing I liked was this.

So after I put eveything together, tweaked the cake design a little bit and came up with this. THIS, I decided will be infant’s cake.

Now, if I could get Charm City Cakes to make the cake! (Have you watched their shows? I am a big fan.) I would have made cold calls to 20 different bakeries. Most of the bakers weren’t willing to do it even if I was willing to pay by the hour! Finally, the bakery section of a local grocery store agreed to take up the order out of pity, only because I had put in so much effort. They had couple of conditions. They said they will not draw the picture of Apple dumpling and we both agreed to scan the picture and print it out on edible rice paper and then stick it to the cake. The second condition was that, they cannot gurantee that the cake will look like the picture. I had to go with them as I was running out of time.

This was the final result.

I wasn’t too happy about how it looked, but for what it was worth, it tasted YUM.

Note to self: Get proficient in cake decoration before toddler’s third birthday.