Education

Last night we had friends over for dinner and there ensued a raging debate on the virtues of a primary education, and in particular, the school's role in it. There were two opposing views ranging, from the school being completely irrelevant, to it being absolutely vital for the child's development. My own view tipped towards the former.

What annoyed and surprised me, was my inability to logically articulate my position. I landed up sounding entrenched, obstinate and defensive. My arguments were based on the premise that if I looked around me, I saw innumerable successful people (in the broadest sense) who came from rather ordinary schools. It is the quality of higher education that sets apart the individual.

It was pointed out to me that there were an equal number of successful people who came from good schools, and if one were to look at the ratio of successful to unsuccessful students from good schools, it would be much higher than from the lower tiers. I cannot argue with that, since I have no way to benchmark.

My view is based on the inordinate amount of importance, parents of my generation give to their children's studies in the lower grades. It is completely out of proportion to the gravity of the situation. It defeats me as to why mothers would fret and fume over performance in the 2nd grade ? Why every quirk of character or performance needs to be discussed in detail with the teachers, as if not addressing the same, would result in a permanent flaw in the development of the child.

I cannot count the number of times, I have had to endure a prolonged wait for my daughters nursery results, while mothers went through the details of their childs entire term, day by day. Grades for every subject were discussed in detail, with every comment by the teacher analysed and dissected. All of this while I fretted (while waiting) as to why parents were required to personally pick up the term results, when they could so easily have been sent with the child.

In my day if parents were required to come to the school to pick up results, the child was in deep waters !!

The argument given to me is that the world is changing rapidly, competition is increasing and we as parents have to do whatever it takes to give our children an advantage. One of these methods is deep involvement in the minutae of our childrens education, starting from pre-school. Parents throw huge sums of money on schools, private tutors, extra-curricular activities in the belief that these will work to the childs benefit, whereas all it does is strip away the childs value system.

Even though I agree that the environmental dynamics have changed dramatically, I really wonder if we, the parents, are not doing an immense disservice to our children ? Are we not mollycoddling the next generation, when we should in reality be teaching them self-reliance, independance of thought, and the ability to act for themselves and to take responsibility for those actions ?