OK, I have my blog back – and some tough acts to follow 🙂
It was even more of a blessing than expected to have Azita, Cara and SorLo guest contribute over the last few days – cos I then caught a bad cold. But for them, my (usually almost daily) blog would feel the effects too. If you just got here, don’t forget to scroll down to read their entries to the same 5 questions below.
Rockstar turned 3 around Christmas. He has been attending ESF Kindergarten for about 4 months.
Caught in the rain at Stanley Market
1) How would you describe raising a child in Hong Kong today?
Unnecessarily stressful. Hopefully only if you allow it to be.
We’ve actually discreetly exited school briefings based on literal “first impressions” – whether we liked the person giving the briefing. Kings and I are overly sensitive to ‘tude and defensiveness. Sometimes it’s because we worry what parent-teacher conferences might be like even if we got in.
Exiting based on first impressions of the staff is not necessarily fair on a school, because parents here (me too, of course) can get especially loopy. Loopy parents make school staff more defensive/ stressed/ Just Plain Weird. This then makes more parents think they have to get more loopy to be taken seriously. It’s a vicious cycle.
We tend to encounter many acquaintances whose kids attend elite/ expensive private schools and because schooling in Hong Kong feels so new and different to what we remember from our own childhoods, we do feel pressured to simply follow suit.
I’m not sure enough notice is generally taken re how much the “package” of an elite school can be diminished by the intense competitiveness (and sometimes unpleasantness) that surrounds applications and evaluations. Sometimes it’s not just about the school staff (though sometimes it is). It’s about the other parents sitting in the waiting room with us.
Then we hear of parents who forge their children’s school reports even when the child didn’t get a very bad report, we know of parents who openly insist on being seated next to the admin staff of elite/ expensive schools at dinner parties <slowly creep away>.
Even as all the while we wonder how much of this stuff the little kids pick up on.
It would be wonderful to be around other less high-strung parents to help keep us from the temptation of crossing over to the Dark Side.
2) Particular curriculum, class size, physical layout/facilities, ethnic demographics, results in exams, commitment to extra-curricular programs, sports/music/arts programs, homework, private tuition, training/qualifications/dedication of teachers, whether the school is accredited by an outside organization (CIS, IBO etc)
Which of these are more important to you when making a decision involving your child’s education and why?
Every choice we ever make is a “package”. Especially when it comes to emotionally charged decisions like those involving our child, I find a mental list helps – ranking what’s important to us, what suits my child’s personality etc and then evaluating based on how much of our “list” each option fulfills. It also helps me not regret the choices I’ve made. I tell Rockstar, if you don’t know what you want, how can you know to be happy when you get it? I should follow my own advice.
Highest on our list right now is teacher and staff dedication and approachability. It determines whether our strong-willed child loves or hates learning.
It’s hard not to sound like we’re making a flakey argument, but the warm and fuzzy feeling from watching the principal make jokes at volunteer briefings, or the senior staff chatting casually with parents and kids, makes us feel we can come to ESF and have fruitful discussions about our child’s development (IF necessary) without feeling like there would be any defensiveness or ‘tude in the background of our discussions.
Later on academic performance might have some weighting, but for us that means finding a school that has some top performers and is a good fit, rather than say one that has all mediocre performers or all top performers and bad fit.
I’m a little worried about larger class sizes at ESF primary schools because since they are subsidized by the government, the class size is also set by said government at 30. Haven’t come to that yet… Because we like everything else so much… I think I’m actually quite happy for them to charge more and lower the class size 😛
But we watched a neighbor’s son at one of the ESF schools grow from a 13 year old with a B-and-C average who didn’t really like Math into a Columbia University undergrad with an internship at a major investment bank in New York so we’re a little biased. His parents are some of our role models in parenting, but by “paper” standards would never be considered “high-flyers” here. And we watched their son thrive at the school for years.
3) How important is learning music and/or playing a sport as a supplement to your child’s education?
We haven’t started Rockstar on music lessons, he doesn’t seem to have special feelings about Kung Fu. But he likes cycling enough to keep getting back on his training-wheeled BMX after some pretty bad spills. So I milk that to illustrate the results and satisfaction that come from practice and not giving up easily. Not sure I could’ve gotten away with that via music or Kung Fu at the mom.
We cycle to church, the supermarket, halfway home from school… He cycles more than he walks.
4) How important is learning an additional language like Putonghua, Spanish, French (or other)?
Kings and I wished we had had more chance to learn Chinese when we were kids. More Malaysians who are illiterate in Chinese like we are prefer to send their kids to Chinese school than English, here. We don’t for 2 reasons:
1) Rockstar is already starting K1 quite young, I didn’t want the additional stress of “sink or swim Chinese” at his first real school experience, his first language is English.
2) The ESF Kindergarten “package” happened to score highest on the top item on our “list” (ie approachability. Elaboration at bottom of this post.)
So Rockstar regularly misses one day of school a week for one-on-one Putonghua lessons to supplement what he gets at ESF (about 20 minutes a week). Total Putonghua time ~3.5 hours/ week.
Kings constantly bemoans Rockstar’s lack of Cantonese exposure though.
5) Everyone’s children are different, and what helps one child excel may not work for another child… What decisions are you especially proud you made regarding your child(ren), and why was this particularly well-suited to your child?
Probably quitting my job to really get to know Rockstar. Learning how to communicate and manage him made the difference between whether he was “difficult” or enthusiastic and “driven” (if such a word can be used on a 3 year old).
Then it was finding a school I felt would really listen and nurture.
