Are we educating our child the 'right' way?

This entry stems from 2 recent events (if they can be called that) that brought to my mind how we're educating our children.

The first incident was a piece of news that came out early this week about 8 teens in Florida, US, who were charged with beating AND video-taping the beating for the sole purpose of putting the video up on the Internet for the world to see. 6 girls cornered and beat up another girl while 2 guys acted as lookout. The victim was comatose when she was admitted to the hospital.

The first thought that came to my mind was - what has happened to this world? People seeking out violence for the sake of entertainment? The kids were obviously wrong, but I think when we step back and think, we ask - what did the parents teach them? Did they teach them violence? Did they teach them that lives do not need to be valued? Where did the parents fail?

As parents, Suresh and I always find us questioning ourselves - are we teaching our child the right way? We hope to impart good morals through practising them ourselves and bringing them up in a loving environment, but what if things go awry? Do we blame ourselves, as parents? Because we have failed in educating our child 'properly'? I believe it must be so, because no child is born with negative intentions. As parents, we nurture them as best we can and hope they can be a good person.

The other incident which also sparked the question of 'are we educating our child the right way?' stemmed from an online discussion topic on a Singapore mothers' forum board that I belong to.

The topic started as a vent on Singapore's education system and developed into a very meaningful discussion among parents on what their pet peeves about Singapore's education and their hopes for it.

Suresh and myself went through the tests and exams type of education system in Singapore and with reports of Singapore's education topping international standards, we begin to wonder if educating our child here (California) was the best option.

We've both come across stories of how Singapore students are expecting to churn out model answers and that virtually guarantees a good exam grade, but is that what we want? A child who excels in exams but who questions nothing? Certainly not. We know where our education brought us and it's not something we want to inculcate in our children.

The discussion highlighted 'scary' things like primary 4 students in neighbourhood schools forced to do primary 6 level maths, handholding so preschoolers can do creative writing, teachers not accepting alternate answers (even though it's right) because that is NOT the MODEL ANSWER. If that is the education system being pushed onto kids in Singapore, then we now know we made the right decision by educating her here.

Much more learning comes from having fun than the ability to recite mindlessly from 100 to 1. Sure we get frustrated with her 'whys' and 'but whys', but we'd rather have a questioning child than a yes/no answering child.