It's been only midway through the school hols and i'm already exhausted ! With both girls home there seems not a spate of breather, yet admittedly i'm enjoying the extra moments with them... well mostly... :P
It has been revision week for R and mornings have been set aside for that purpose. Given that i haven't been very consistent all year through in making her do the academics, i figured i better make up for it now. In truth, guess i've secretly (R must not know this !) always felt guilty for making my daughter (in P1) do 'work', and hence, i've always adopted a minimalist approach. But seriously, how much must one really 'work' them ?
As it is, kids in Singapore study too much ! I was just having a conversation with B from Australia who commented that while Singapore kids seem to fare much better compared to Aussie kids in primary through secondary school - yet somewhere along the way, B's observation was by university, everything equals out, and in fact, Aussie graduates come out far stronger and do way better in their careers. He noted how his peers in Singapore were some 3-4yrs behind him in terms of career advancement.
Yet, it takes a lot of courage to be up against the tide where you know for certain all households with school going kids are prepping theirs optimally to be way ahead of the curve. So am i 'doing her in' if i choose to be oblivious to the 'right' way of prepping her with the assessments, model compositions and examination papers ?
I remain torn, as my heart can't bear to drown her in these... after all she is but 7....
yet, am i strong enough to take the consequences and be 'ok' with whatever results she delivers? umm... my own jury is still out... what do you think ?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
120X60Banner.gif)
2 comments:
understand your feelings..this is something shared by many parents in Singapore...*sigh* sad to say, i'm too preparing R now for her year-end xam..yes, during school holidays when they should be enjoying themselves...
like u, know the "right" and yet, i don't think i have the courage to face the consequences..
I guess life in Australia is also different from Singapore. Australians really take their holidays seriously here......and that applies to most of the Aussie expats back in Spore too. Even if they can't afford to fly the whole family to some exciting locations, they would drive to somewhere for a long vacation....Everybody seems to go for holiday here even those that are not working......so I guess when the kids are on holiday, so are the parents as they have to take time off from work to look after the kids during the school holidays!
There are no exams for primary school here and I'm sure that may have led to parents to be less concern about the academic performance. A lot of academic focus seem to be from high school onwards as there will be exams and that would led to university extrance exams too.
Post a Comment