Morning VS Afternoon Session

We’re on the third week of school and my kids are both in the afternoon session. Classes start at 12:30 pm. For my eldest, classes end at 5:00 pm while for the second, it ends at 3:00 pm. When I learned of this schedule, I thought it’s better because I’ll have the time to at least check on their homeworks and tutor them a bit before I go to work. There won’t be any rush hours in the morning. Three school years ago, my eldest daughter and I suffered too much stress because I enrolled her in the city where I work and the trip takes about an hour by bus. Her classes start at 10:00 and I have to be at work at 9:00am. She was 4 years old then and since we had to leave at 8:00 am I had to wake her up at 6:00 or 7:00. Poor girl, she had regular bouts of respiratory illnesses because of that. The following year, I transferred her to our town’s Montessori school. It was far modest by the city’s standard but more child-friendly and caring than them. Most all, my daughter wouldn’t have to wake up at 6:00 am.

Of Grad Pics and Yearbooks

I just received my daughter’s kindergarten yearbook last month.

Too early you say? Too quick? Of course not!

She was in kinder two years ago! Yep that’s right. It was fully paid TWO YEARS ago and the school released it only last month. Paying the full yearbook fee was required two years ago or else they won’t sign my daughter’s clearance. They made us wait for two years and when we had the yearbook, we found out that my husband’s name was misspelled!

Tell me, all you guys in the publishing business, isn’t it jurassic to release a yearbook after two years even if the school has students from the pre-elementary to college levels? With all these digital camera and state-of-the-art color separation technologies and camera ready publishing, isn’t it medieval to have parents wait for two years before getting hold of a yearbook that contains their children’s baby faces?

I Have Been Published!

It’s finally there! My article entitled Between Taking It Easy and Going For The Gold has been published in Pinoy Moms Network’s The Parenting Blog. Thanks to everyone who made it happen especially Mitch and mommy Dine. Click here to read my thoughts on parenting and schooling.

Truth is, I thought the article was not good enough but apparently, I just had to wait a while because everyone has been busy. No matter what, the most important thing is, it’s been published and I am now motivated to write more.

Cheers to all PMN moms!

If you’re interested to read another version, click here.

A Working Mom’s OctoberFest

Finally, I can blog about all the exciting things I have done this month of October. I have loads of photos but I still don’t know how to place them here. Please visit my other blog, Free Coupons.

Is Today’s Curriculum Too Hard On Our Kids?

I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it twice. I’ve heard it from someone else and I’ve heard it from myself. Pre-school and elementary students’ lessons nowadays are too advanced.

If we based it on the lessons we had, less than 30 years ago… of course today’s curriculum is far too advanced. I didn’t solve word problems in pre-school math and I learned to write cursive only by the end of my first grade. Last week, I was teaching my first grade daughter about Roman Numerals. 1-3 were easy but 14, 40, 19 and 90, and others, were way too confusing for her. My problem is, I can’t seem to explain Arabic-Roman numeral conversion without having to explain the process of adding and subtracting double digits. Then I remembered, they were not yet taught how to add and subtract double Arabic digits yet. So why do teachers expect them to write 298 in Roman Numeral? On top of Math, she had to memorize 2 English poems and 1 tula for a graded recitation. Talk about child stress!

My daughter is doing well in her other subjects, she actually topped her pre-school class last graduation. But I still think that her grade school lessons are too fast-paced, if not difficult. Some people, like the owner of the learning center where she studies thinks so too but then she said, “It’s already the standard. If we don’t follow it, we’ll get left behind.” Quite true.

According to reports, the Philippines is left behind, perhaps, too far behind, by its Asian neighbors in Math and Science. I heard someone justify the advanced lessons as a response to this situation. But I think there should more to it than just teaching difficult math problems or English lessons. Methodologies should also be developed so that no matter how advanced, like asking grade 1 students to solve algebra-like problems, understanding it won’t be too hard on the kid.

Maybe I’m just venting out my math-o-phobia. Or maybe I’m just not aware that there are drills or activities to make studying Math a piece of cake. Or maybe it’s me who’s pressured because I want to her keep her academic standing. Maybe I’m pressured because I’m beginning to think she now needs a tutor because I haven’t help her much in studying due to various reasons.

Wherever this pressure is coming from, I hope I get over it. For crying out loud, she’s only in grade 1!