Land of Milk and Honey

Land of Milk and Honey - that's what Little Boy's Godma referred his current school to.  I thought that's an apt description, judging from how everything is going swimmingly for him now.

Looking back, Little Boy's past 3 years in the mainstream education was akin to the Israelites' slavery days in Egypt.  There were lots of homework and no freedom!  Little Boy's previous school is famous for dishing out homework enough to bury the kids alive (on a daily basis).  With most of his time spent on homework, leisure time was rare.  All work and no play did indeed make the active Little Boy a dull boy!  To make matter worse, Little Boy was unable to join any sports CCA as the coaches seemed to be interested in recruiting only skilled players by making all candidates go through selection tests.  Needless to say, the unskilled Little Boy did not pass the selection tests.  He was most upset to end up in a non sporty CCA: media com.  In class, he was not encouraged to provide answers that do not match the teachers' answer schemes.  One also could not question the teachers' answers and instructions.  He was required to follow them to the tee.  It's not that in GEP, kids are allowed to be brazen and challenge the teachers.  It's just that the teachers encourage the kids to look beyond protocols and focus on the purpose and objectives instead.  His current teachers encourage the kids to ask questions and challenge the answers.  That's a breath of fresh air for my inquisitive Little Boy.

In Little Boy's 'Land of Milk and Honey', daily homework is significantly lesser.  Though there are tons of projects to complete, these projects have different deadlines which help in the spreading out of the work.  When Little Boy found out that all sports CCAs welcome amateur players, he wasted no time and gaily signed up for, not one but two CCAs: badminton and basketball.  Staying back in school 4x a week does not seem to tire him as he still looks forward to school with great exuberance each day and will come back home full of exciting stories to tell.

That was Little Boy's exodus.  So, what's my journey like?  I have to admit that while Little Boy has the faith of Joshua and Caleb, I behave like one of the other 8 spies who looked into Canaan and saw huge giants impossible to conquer.  I am overwhelmed by the many deadlines and depth of the projects.  I wonder how Little Boy is going to cope with the collecting of data, researching on the internet, conducting of interviews and writing reports, as all these are foreign to him.  I fret over if he is able to follow all the given guidelines and meet all the requirements.  Most of all, I worry if my laid-back Little Boy is able to keep check on all the various deadlines and meet them.

At times, Little Boy does feel the heat from the projects that he has to complete but he's taking everything in his stride.  Despite the increased in complexity and difficulty of the curriculum, he's enjoying the lessons, his friends, teachers and CCAs. He saw overflowing of milk and honey beyond the giants but I only saw the giants.  I just hope I will have the faith of Little Boy in time to come.

But I had fun...

It has been about a week since school reopened.  I am glad we have finally settled into a comfortable morning routine after fumbling through the first three days.  While I was still trying to figure out where the best drop-off and pick-up points were, Little Boy had taken to his new school like a duck to water.  It is amazing how a child can adapt so quickly to new environment and friends.  I suppose it's easier to make friends when most of his classmates were new to the school too.  The many games and group works done in class probably helped in the fostering of friendships as well.

Lessons wise, Little Boy is having a whale of a time thus far.  There's hardly any formal teaching in class, much less homework.  Lessons are conducted using games and group works with discussions among peers and teachers.  Inevitably, this is the best learning model for the active and articulate Little boy.  Just three days into school and he had enjoyed every lesson and liked all his teachers.  I, on the other hand, was feeling a little ill at ease, having been more familiar with formal classroom teachings and the rigour of homework.  I am aware of the benefits of learning through play but still I am concern if Little Boy is able to learn anything when having so much fun.  Like many kiasu Singaporean parents, I also worry if he has enough paper and pen practices necessary to score in examinations.

'What did you do in class?' and 'What did you learn?' soon became my favourite questions to Little Boy.  Our daily conversation would go like this:

Me:  What did you do in class today?

LB:  We played games.

Me:  What? Games again? What kind of games?

LB:  (went on to describe the games in details)

Me:  So, what did you learn from the games?

LB:  Alliterative Adjectives.

Me: *Phew! He did learn something*

It's indeed a great relief knowing that Little Boy did learn something while having fun but there were times when he didn't.

Me:  What did you do in class today?

LB:  We played games and did some group works.

Me:  So, what did you learn?

LB:  Erm... I don't know but I had fun (broke into a big smile).

During those times, I would take a deep breath, push all insecurities at the back of my mind and smiled with him.  Little Boy was right. At least he had fun.