Apoorva's schooling

When we got a call from Five Mile Montessori (FMM) about a vacancy that had come open for Apoorva, we were thrilled. I was especially thrilled because that's when I found out that Kalyani had, with a diligence and proactiveness inimitable by me, registered Apoorva at FMM several months prior, putting her on the waiting list for future openings that might arise. One proactive parent per family is sure better than none, I remember thinking!

At the time, Apoorva had been in a traditional day care called Mother's Choice, (MC), for a little over a year and a half. And although she was now a "senior", well-adjusted kid at MC, Kalyani and I were very aware that it had taken Apoorva many months after she had first enrolled at MC for her to get comfortable at the day care. MC was run mainly by "Grandma" who among other things made excellent grilled cheese or pasta or vegetarian goulage or something else special for Apoorva everyday. MC was not the nicest or ritziest day care center in town--no shiny lobby, no personnel with logo shirts, no gym or swimming pool, no 24/7 webcams for parents to check on their munchkins remotely. But the modest facility notwithstanding, Grandma did subscribe to a couple of key principles of child raising that I had found intuitively appealing--love em, and get em hooked on something other than television.

We went in to Five Mile Montessori to interview and check the place out. Like all Montessori schools, FMM was focussed on early academic development. The curriculum promised to have a nice mix of reading, math, general knowledge, practical skills and other things necessary for pre-school training. The teacher seemed very competent, highly articulate and keenly interested and engaged in childhood education. The facility was new and near home. So development-wise, FMM seemed like an ideal choice and a logical next step on her educational trajectory.

But if anybody in a child's life should be allowed to hold her back, who better than a biological parent? Enter moi! While the educational opportunity that the Montessori offered was great and all, there was a facet that was being equally touted by them that I was less thrilled about--discipline! Now before rushing to judgement, please bear in mind that we were talking about a 3.5 year old here, and while I did not want to raise a brat, I did not want to cause my potentially shy child any discomfort. The literature they gave us was replete with descriptions of daily routine involving rules and regulations, assemblies and lines, rights and responsibilities, punctuality and politeness, play manners and lunch etiquette, codes of conduct and the consequences of breaching them. Most of this was probably well-intentioned, but it sounded an awful lot like, you know, school! Did I want to rip my 3.5 year old who had finally found a loving niche at Mothers Choice from her comfort zone and place her in a structured, more serious environment where she would have to raise her hand to speak, stand in an orderly line for lunch, start studying for school?

We decided to mull it over. That day, when we went back to Mothers Choice to pick up Apoorva, we thought about what we might expect educationally over the next year if Apoorva simply continued there. Had they heard of the Montessori method of training? Did they have special equipment to facilitate child learning and prepare them for their school years? How about multi-age classrooms to accelerate learning? How about promoting social skills? At that point, we were in the play yard at MC, where Apoorva, along with a friend, was busy picking small rocks up from one section of the yard, carrying it to another section and piling them up there. Accelerated learning or not, she seemed totally comfortable and happy. So on a whim, (my whim, mostly), Kalyani and I decided to just let Apoorva be for some more time in a more non-school setting, at Mothers Choice.

A year later, Apoorva went to Five Mile Montessori. In the following year and a half, she had the most fun and the most learning she had ever had yet at Five Mile Montessori. After "graduating" from Montessori, she has been going to public school near our neighborhood (free of charge). She is in a multi-age, special class which is nice. Fueled mostly by some peers in the community, we occasionally consider sending her to a private school at significantly more cost for a potentially richer education, but so far we have not acted on such thoughts. As for the lost year at Five Mile, I like to think it will not affect her progress long term. And she sure is quite skilled now at reorganizing small rocks, which can always come in handy for chores in the backyard. Which reminds me...