Dashed hopes

Haven't blogged for more than a year. But something happened today that I felt warranted a long blog post rather than a brief summary on Facebook. Ironically, my last post dated way back in 2012 was about it too.

In that post, I was raving about a more expensive Montessori-style preschool I found and liked, but ultimately did not switch Boyboy over cos he didn't want to. Well, this time he wanted to switch.

I went over last Friday, had a most amiable and fruitful discussion with the Director and she gave me the application form. Lots of vacancy in next year's K1 class. They can take up to 40 and only have 20 spots taken now.

Happily I filled the form, and prepped the boy. Director had told me to bring him over to sit in for one morning to see if he liked the place. I needed to make an appointment to bring him over, and didn't want to call up during naptimes as I was afraid to wake the kids in their open-concept area. Have tried calling at other times but never picked up cos she is very hands-on and is always moving about helping out.

So I emailed. My email:

Hi XX,

I met with you last week about my son joining XXX. I'm keen to let him switch to your preschool, but rather concerned because the class seems 'chaotic' during lesson time. Is it because you want to train the kids to be self-motivated rather than scolding them to sit down and pay attention? Can we come and stay for a few hours ? I was thinking abt Friday 13 Sep.


Her reply shocked me:

Thank you for your email. XXX has always believed in using positive approaches to handle children as opposed to scolding them and make them sit down and pay attention. Perhaps mummy do not have a clear understanding of the natural behaviours of children. It is in fact not developmentally appropriate for preschool children to be expected to sit down and pay attention all the time. This scene may be familiar to you in preschools offering traditional methods of teaching but extensive research has shown that children in traditional preschools becomes more socially disconnected and have lower scores in all areas including social, cognition and language than children in a play-based curriculum. We apologise that we are unable to allow you to observe the lesson. However, we do want you to reconsider your decision to switch your child’s preschool if you are more comfortable with a traditional learning environment for your child.


My initial reaction was "WTH???" I was only responding to her invitation to sit-in, and asking a question for understanding. A good educator will want to take the chance to explain how the Montessori system works.Her reply seemed very defensive to me.

Ok, maybe she had a bad day, I told myself. Did I word my email wrongly? So I clarified:


Oh! Cos I thought you told me to bring my son down to sit in for a day? Did I misunderstand? I am not uncomfortable w your method. In fact I think my son will prefer your kinesthetic learning method. I just wanted to understand whether the classroom 'chaos' is intentional. What time would be conducive for calling you up? Wanted to call during nap but worried abt waking ur kids.


Her husband replied this time:

I’m sorry but we cannot let you sit in the class for a “trial”. All new enrollment’s initial 2 weeks are considered as trial period. During the trial period, the parents are only required to give 1 working day notice for withdrawal. After the trial period, the withdrawal notice will be 1 month. Apart from that, there isn’t any other difference between the trial period and normal school days. As previously mentioned, the current K1 class is integrated with the N2 class. Unfortunately, we had just stopped taking new children for N2 / K1 as the class is full.


OK. Now I'm major pissed. Suddenly 20 spots have been taken up so the class is full? And I did not even harp on the sitting in anymore!!!!

I have idea what is going on or why they are replying in such a defensive manner. I just get the message that my patronage is not needed nor wanted. Just because I ask some questions perhaps I've been labelled as a 'difficult parent' and they rather not take in my son?

I replied to the husband on why the class is suddenly full after 5 days. Waiting to see his reply.

I had wanted to support this preschool cos it's a husband-and-wife effort to push the kind of education they feel allow children to have a childhood.

But have a very bad feeling in my tummy now after this experience. What if they again react this way if my son attends their preschool and I need to discuss things with them?

Very very sad at this turn of events :(((



Update Sep 6:

Director finally replied my email:

Hi Jesmyn,

Yup, you misunderstood. I merely said that we encourage parents to bring their child who have registered with us to the centre on Saturdays to get themselves familiar prior to joining. A parent came to register the child yesterday and took up the vacancy. And yes, your son may only enter if an existing child withdraws.

Thank you,

XX

Much better. Maybe she re-read her previous replies and realised they were too harsh? Why couldn't she reply like this in the first reply, sigh.

Apparently she doesn't want to take in too many students even though they are able to. And there is the issue of student quota for the whole preschool. Anyway, forget it liao.