Perspective: How a school in India taught me to raise my expectations for my child
By Liesl Schwabe May 10 at 10:30 AM Before arriving in Kolkata, where my family and I have temporarily relocated while I’m on a research fellowship, my 7-year-old daughter was excited about the prospect of wearing a school uniform, as most kids in India do. But while we were out shopping our first week, she shot me a look of panic as one shoe store after another presented the same black orthopedic shoe-style sneakers as the standard “school shoes.
My daughter has a lot of choices at her public school in Brooklyn. She’s given a stack of homework on Monday to complete anytime before Friday. She’s encouraged to sound words out and, basically, spell them however she wants. The few times a year when she has to write something, she can choose the topic. In art, teachers encourage experimentation and parents praise originality. In the classroom, she is more or less free to roam around, ask questions and talk to other kids.
And yet, I cannot overstate how happy, even buoyant the school feels. The children are delightful, and the teachers are kind. Though mornings are tough, every afternoon at pickup, my daughter is holding hands with her friends, planning Saturday afternoon visits to the library and hugging her peers tight before we say goodbye. In other words, she’s fine, and so is everyone else. Even without choice time.
Beyond the academic strides, though, I also believe that seeing how seriously her classmates here engage with their schoolwork has helped my daughter understand that education is not just an individual task but a collective effort. The children learn together, and in that atmosphere, there is no negotiation, including with parents.
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