About the author
The author of this blog post, Ramakrishnan, and his wife, Harsha, are parents of two lovely children who have been with BSS, since the last two years.. Ramakrishnan has keen interests in philosophy, education and general well being of children. After building software components for networking systems for about 15 years, he is currently working as an independent software consultant. Harsha shares the same interests in the overall well being of children, keen on fitness, and manages a product line for a software startup.
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If you are reading this, chances are that you are 'deciding' a school for your child. Like you, we were also 'deciding' on a school sometime before and I share here the story of how it was, what happened and where we are now, and hopefully it can be of help to you!
As with most of the parents in Bengaluru, "proximity to home" was the main deciding factor to decide on a school. We decided to pursue a couple of them close to our home and eventually our child got admitted to one of the schools. I thought we were all set! This is a common story.
But as time passed by, we started to feel that it was not going according to our liking and it was not meeting the needs of our child. Although it was not clear what those needs were. We were increasingly feeling uncomfortable with the idea of school catering primarily to "knowledge accumulation" while side-stepping the need to address the "child's life" that is blooming out with all its curiosity towards the outer world. Given how much the external circumstances have changed when compared to how it was when we were children, we felt there was something missing in empowering the child towards stepping into adulthood.
With the discomfort of schooling recurring frequently, we attempted to understand our motivations for schooling. Some of the questions we faced were:
1) Is our child receiving a learning experience at the school that is appropriate to his/her age?
2) Would we be willing to reduce the "quantity" of the knowledge (and not “quality”) that our child needs to accumulate in the early years and encourage the child to take up activities that contribute to physical, social and emotional well-being along with intellectual well-being?
3) Would doing so, preserve my child's intrinsic curiosity about life overall and empower them to become empathetic and self-reliant individuals with a positive attitude towards life-long learning?
4) Does it mean all the conventional schools are getting it so wrong? How can it be true? Does it even matter to analyse and find the elusive "truth"? Maybe there is no single truth here and we just decide what works best for us?
Fortunately, we met people who were faced with similar questions and had taken different approaches towards schooling. Waldorf was one among those different approaches and its philosophy struck a chord in us. The philosophy and core intentions of Waldorf answered some of the above questions in a way that we could connect with. What resonated strongly with us were:
Holistic development is a core principle in Waldorf philosophy and not a supplementary addition. All the activities in the school stem from this philosophy.
Prioritizing quality of learning over quantity.
It must be noted that choice of schooling is very subjective. There is no one perfect and ideal choice to make. What helped us was to understand better what our needs were and choosing a school that is aligned to it. What appeals to you could be quite different when compared to someone else. The best part is we have choices now which did not exist before.
If you are considering something different from conventional schools, it might be assuring to know there are many like you who have made that choice. Reaching out and connecting with them will help in understanding the choices you have today and then make a conscious decision that is well aligned with your needs. I think it is that alignment that matters the most!
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