How to ensure learning for the child? How to make sure that the child is prepared to take on the challenges of life? And along with that, the child gets to remain a child and have fun. My proposed solution is the life learning curriculum for preschool. You may ask why the heck some silly thing called a life learning curriculum when the preschools abound all around with their own curriculum.
The preschools expose the child to structured and formal teaching, dull and monotonous routine and rote memorization (all harmful to the child). They do so as the NCERT preschool curriculum is a huge letdown. CBSE syllabus is non-existent and a free-for-all. There aren’t any guidelines for preschools in India. As a result, preschools are merely a me-too version of the schools – rote and joyless.
The child is at the best age to explore and learn, be happy and enjoy childhood bliss. The parents want the best possible education and ready the kid for a lifetime of success. However, the learning environment in the preschools and the curriculum used are severely lacking to back up the parents in their intent and the children in their happiness.
And, hence, the life learning curriculum for preschool. Of course, you won’t be convinced. So, we discuss further on why the life learning curriculum for preschool.
3 Years Or 30 Years
What do you think would be more beneficial to the child? Repeating the rhymes, undesired motor-sensory writing practices (reversal of LSRW) and sitting idle in circle time? Or having a fulfilling adult life, equipped to handle difficult situations and be a confident and empathetic decision-maker? The time span varies. One is after 3 years and the second is after 30 years.
The so-called education of the preschool variety teaches a child what he/she will face in 3 years. With the life learning curriculum, a child learns what he/she will face in 30 years – i.e. all through life. Preschool education teaches a child to do well in unit tests/entrance exams. The life learning curriculum facilitates a child to decide on the course of life and yes, do well.
As a parent, what will you choose for your child as an end-deliverable, from the above two scenarios, after 3 years or 30 years? Preschool or life learning?
Indifferent Or Involved
Preschools’ premise is that they help children be school-ready. It doesn’t help the child to keep getting hammered in the anticipation of an event that itself is notorious to rob the childhood joys. Such a syllabus is bound to be limited to texts, worksheets and four walls of the classroom, as the schools themselves. In other words, inept and indifferent to a child’s childhood needs.
Life learning is a principle – What the child explores, experiences and learns is for a lifetime. It is a learning that gets ingrained and becomes a foundation for right judgment, all through the adult years. Life learning happens with life i.e. real-life interactions as a teaching aid and involves all sensorial organs and the mind, and not just ears, the only body part that the preschool targets.
As a parent, what will you choose for your child as a process, from the above two scenarios, limiting or exploratory? Preschool or life learning?
An Adult Before Age Or Be A Child
Adults have already learnt, or so they presume. Adults are happy with what they know and exploit it to maximize their returns. They are amenable to instructions and comfortable with the top-down approach to take and follow orders. In other words, adults can complete one round of the house successfully in about 5 minutes or less without a break.
Comparatively, the child will never be able to make a round of the house in one shot. He/she will wait at every corner, look at the ceiling, behind the sofa, take out kitchen stuff and not put anything back. The child will never accomplish a task with the efficiency of an adult. Each task has a different meaning to a child vis-a-vis an adult. Left to choose, the child will not consider the task at all.
As a parent, what will you choose for your child as a persona, from the above two scenarios, becoming an adult before age or be a child? Preschool or life learning?
Objective Of Learning
Ultimately, it will come down to the objective of learning to you as a parent for your child. In simple terms, expecting the child to be a replica of you – adults, at the earliest possible? An initiation to the rat race, what life has become for us. Or allowing the child to have a chance to develop his/her thinking and perspective of life and the world? Letting the child be a child for some more time.
As a parent, what will you choose for your child as his/her future? An anxious and restless life with medical/engineering/whatever degree and yes, the preschools as a stepping stone? Or, empowering the child to let him/her choose the course of adult life with unknown consequences and yes, life learning as a hand-holding enabler?
Like every parent, we also want our twin daughters to become good human beings and do well in life. Just that, we have a disconnect with the current process – the utterly child-unfriendly Indian preschools as the first step of learning, which is not at all a learning. We believe life learning is the starting point of the learning journey for our twin daughters and a companion all through their life.
I will also write about how we have put the life learning curriculum for preschool in action for our daughters with a belief that the learning environment for children is everywhere.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Preschool or Life learning?
PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.
