Monday, February 9, 2009

Happy New Year 2009

Well.. the new year, the new beginning of kids/our life, the family in Asia. Umar started his K2 (Kindergarten 2) on Jan 7th. First 2 weeks was really a challenging time for him especially. The new school environment, new friends-to-be who he cannot understand well their English (Singlish!) and Malay and vice versa. And we did not know how is the school system here, early childhood school. Mum kinda worried when Umar seemed not happy at all at first. When asked, he's not telling what we would like to know. Luckily the communication book between parent/teacher been given few days after school started :P Management. Talking about it, on his 1st day, a parent should be with their child on the bus for the driver to know the exact place to pick up/drop off. And not to our knowledge we were on the wrong bus, following the information given on the orientation day! :P Another management issue and they really apologize to us, new comer that they thought have the same experience like the old students who are used to different buses! :P Sabar...
So Mummy started to write to teacher about what I see in Umar and so forth (including some incidents with him and friends-to-be that is worrying). After 2-3 times Mummy wrote in the book, with concerns, comments, suggestions etc. Umar's teacher called Mummy, and we basically discussed things out when I convinced her that I just want to make sure my child can learn alongside with other children, happily without the feelings of been left out in social circle. Yea..after a week and a half, eventualy he can name out one of his friends in class! (hey! they did not use name tags at all (can be just stickers as i suggested! :P) and most of them have been friends with each other since a yr or 2yrs ago! Umar is all new to everything here, the culture of the school, the children, even teacher said that the way I brought up my children is not the same like they do it here. I totally agree, which out of the conversation/discussion with Umar's teacher, we understand that Umar is in adaptation process to the whole situation, the culture and all, even the food at school! (I never thought school can give chocolate spread for bread, jammy/choc biscuits at snack time, token sweeties from teacher (doesn't matter if it's end of school), junkies from bus driver assistant, friends giving sweeties to friends, OMG. What happen to the fruits, healthy food for the children? Even parents allow sweeties/junkies to be brought to school. Umar is surprised, so is Mummy! :P So this is one of the culture. Are we suppose to adapt to this unhealthy habits?...We gotta choose wisely here, which culture for the children, for the family etc. But it's not easy for a 5+yr old to understand this whole culture thing.
Come to the 3rd week, his 1st spelling assessment. Alhamdulillah, as teacher said (after I asked in the communication book, coz i'm not taking Umar's every words yet! :P) "he did the spelling very well both in English and Malay!" I thank to his Ayah for the spelling at home. Yea..it's the parents homework; but we are used to teach Umar at home. Then his 2nd spelling, which i knew he would have done it well too. And that Umar said, "I did well Mummy" :-) At the end of the month, he brought back the book that proves he did very well indeed, with good writing, which Mummy thought he's a bit behind in that; as here, they enhanced the writing skills from age 4!

And Zaky at 2 1/2yrs old?... still home learning in playing. Yea..whenever we got the opportunity, not everyday as we got Umar & Aqil in need of attention too. Can't help not to send him yet to 2hr daily school (Nursery 1=3yrs old) as I don't want him to be culturized (yet!) with the too systematic early childhood school programme here and the 'local English'. I've read lotsa expat forums that they agree the early childhood school here is too systematic/rigid. But the advertisement of the school tells you the opposite! Probably the context of learning through play here is a bit different from the one in UK, US. And so far, at any playground, i can't see any 8yr old can ask politely (with a simple please and thank you that is..), teenagers considerate to younger children, let alone the younger ones, going towards the same path!? So what's going to happen to my kids?..We can't be there all the time with them, mmmm.... Shouldn't it early childhood education emphasize on civics, social behaviour, imaginative thinking skills, freedom of opinions/speech. This is where the politeness of the Malay culture become useful ;-)

Back to Zaky..Hey! He started recognizing words! His dad (again ;-)) discovered when they went out from the car park and he pointed to his dad saying ,"Exit". Yippee! We always wonder (may be Mummy! :P) when can he start reading, will it be like Umar a week shy of his 3rd b'day? We were not convinced at all with Zaky, esp when most of the time he plays with Umar of 5+ age games! But they do have fun, enhance his speech, vocab and thinking skills when playing with Umar. And just yesterday when his dad asked us to get any book that he likes to read, he took this book and said, "Shapes" and dad was surprised he can read the title of the book. May be he recognized the word itself through memory, including a few more others. But that's the start of the reading stage. We are happy for you Zaky, and we still gotta work with you more on reading or reading on Starfall.com! Yea, he prefers games on other children websites :P Unlike Umar he got more reading for himself (actually the daily bedtime story reading with Dad) until the age of 4+. When Zaky became a toddler, Dad gotta put 2 boys to bed, so ended up only with Surahs and doas (it takes a while for Umar to read 8-9 surahs and his own long! duas) , which Zaky is yet to pick up. He can now say 'Bismillah' that's when we sing to him, "Before we sleep we say (Bismillah)." And he can follow us reading Al-Fatihah. May Allah give us strength to teach our children to make the best out of them. InsyaAllah.

Excerpts from a newspaper recently,
Said one of the local politician "..a vast difference in the scale and depth of efforts in improving the primary education teaching force as compared to preschool teachers. When can we do the same for early childhood education?"
A new fastrack course in kindergarten education will be launched this year to attract quality preschool teachers and raise standards in the sector.