It is hard to believe that I would soon be a mum of a Primary School kid in less than 10 months’ time.
Cliche as it may sound, it really felt like yesterday when I first laid eyes on Baby Joey. Today, she is already in Kindergarten Two, and would soon embark on her 10-year compulsory education journey.
I must say I am both excited and apprehensive about Joey starting Primary School. Excited because we are enrolling Joey into Papa Isaiah’s alma mater, and the whole idea of having the kid study in a school the dad had studied in before is just way too cool. But, I’ve always heard enough ‘horror’ stories from friends whose kids are already in Primary school, to feel apprehensive about it.
The common stuffs I’ve heard from other parents friends are having to wake up at 5am every morning to send their kids to school, having to cope with lots of tough English and Chinese spelling lists, as well as learning Hanyu Pinyin. The school that Joey will be going to is still a double-session school, so I guess I won’t have to worry about the waking-up-before-dawn thing yet since Lower Primary levels are usually afternoon sessions anyway.
I wish I remember how I learnt hanyu pinyin. It feels like an awfully complicated thing to teach kids. Would Joey get confused about phonics and hanyu pinyin?! I feel that I would be too!
The other killer is of course the Mathematics sums. Primary Maths has this ability to irritate adults to no measure. We use algebra to solve all our mathematics sums, but algebra’s not allowed in Primary schools! They use weird diagram-drawing that involves boxes and lines or timelines and proportion-drawing, and because most of the people in my generation did not learn to solve Maths sums that way, we are usually stumped when we meet those sums. It’s basically still algebra, just that they are put into diagrams to help the kids understand the thinking process easier.
Friends tell me that the solution is to send my kids to enrichment classes if I have difficulties coaching them in any particular area. But how to send to SO MANY different classes?? Either I have to eat grass, or my kids would turn green in their faces from attending all kinds. =X
Oh, I pray the transition will go smoothly!
