Some years ago, while looking for school admissions for our children in South Mumbai, my husband and I went through what turned out to be the most harrowing time of our lives.
Schools! One school wanted a self-addressed postcard, no interview — only so that, six weeks later, they could send you a regret by postcard. We heard later that the only way into that school was if you knew someone who knew someone who knew a certain someone on the school board.
Another school wanted an application form before the baby turned one, and then conducted an admission test a few years later where the child would be given a sheet of paper with numerous skills printed on it, which the child would carry innocently from table to table to be tested on each skill in order to qualify for admission. Yes, this was for admission to Class 1. There were even admission ‘coaches’ in South Mumbai who prepared kids for these admission tests. So much for ‘school readiness’.
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Another school tested the parents instead of the kids, asking earnest People-Like-Us questions about favourite books and movies, and then knocked almost everyone out because alumni kids got extra points.
Another school made you stand in line with celebrities so that you could feel better about yourself (equal opportunity queuing) while they gently bumped you off.
Group discussions, parent interviews, child observations — all sorts of ways in which schools could cherrypick the most ‘promising’ kids (or richest, or most well-connected). So forgive me if I’m a bit sceptical about selective schools. I opened this new book by the principal of The Doon School with the same scepticism.
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Sensible parenting
But despite the cheesy title, How Your Child Can Win in Life , Matthew Raggett’s book is not about the conventional definition of winning. It is not a laundry list of steps to achieve the perfect school admission, college admission, internship and career — which, to many tiger parents in my peer group, is what ‘winning’ means.
On the contrary, it makes some important and sensible points about parenting and education.
First, that the role of parents is more important than other influences on a child, even more than school.
Second, that the home environment has an even greater effect on a child’s learning and achievement than school.
Third, on the importance of helping kids read for pleasure: being read aloud to, reading picture books, and reading as a way of learning about the world.
Fourth, on the value of speaking as a skill sharpened through interaction, by listening, discussing and expressing one’s own ideas, feelings and opinions. This can only happen in an environment where a child feels free to express their thoughts. Raggett quotes a poignant line from a Cat Stevens song, ‘Father and Son’: “From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen.”
Fifth, on writing as a way of translating one’s feelings and thoughts into words on paper. At the same time, he cautions, writing is a complex motor task that should be taught only when the child is ready for it; and the absurd competitive urge to compare one child’s progress with another child makes no difference when they are all doing the same thing a year later. So better put away those worksheets.
Finally, he discusses the real meaning of education. It is not, he says, the “edu-industrial complex” of tuitions and coaching classes which profit on manufacturing insecurity. Education is the beautiful and important project of “creating the environment in which your child can grow into the person you hope they will become.”
Reading counts
Raggett emphasises the importance of libraries, and of interaction around books. He describes a visit to the Purkal Youth Development Society, a school for disadvantaged kids in Uttarakhand, where the library is the most important resource.
“Their graduates could go and fit in anywhere in the world... They have two libraries in the school staffed by people who know the books well and are excited by them. The primary school library is (one of) the most attractive I have seen... and there are people in and out of the school almost daily who are reading to, talking to, and listening to the children. This is what is propelling the children at Purkal to heights that many far more expensive schools are aiming for.” Even in the absence of other resources, a good library stocked with diverse books can help children learn to think and express themselves.
How Your Child Can Win in Life ; Matthew Raggett, Juggernaut, ₹499.