What is the right Age to send your Child to School?

Last week I ended my blog entry by saying that we all are human. When I look at the current situation in schools however, not only in India but what I have seen all over the world, I have the feeling that this is more and more forgotten. We don’t think of educating our children as humans anymore. More like little robots that have to save a certain amount of input and should be able to repeat this whenever given the command. And it starts with very young children.

Seriously, this has been my impression many times when I have seen students learn or talk about their schools in many different countries. The age of enrolling you child at school is getting less and less while the pressure is increasing, already for toddlers.

Let’s have a closer look at the age at which children now go to school. In India, three years is the age to give your child in a nursery. That is a place meant for teaching children while playing. In general, that may seem nice and a ‘playful way of learning’ sounds like a good idea. In reality however, things are not always the way they are presented!

Undereducated staff takes care of these children without any or very little pedagogic knowledge, not understanding what children of this age can learn and in which way and what they are just not capable of.

So the toddlers sit there and are told to write – some of them can and the rest are just ignored, sitting around idle, not doing anything. No stimulation and surely no learning effect. Wasted time and unhappy children.

Even in other places however, where teachers are educated and maybe the level of education in the surrounding is generally higher, I say that it is not necessary to give your child into such an institution at the low age of three years. It is too early – and not the time for learning yet.

Why do we put so much pressure already on our smallest ones, why do we think we have to teach them already so early? Can we not do those basic teachings of colours, forms, balancing and combining at home? Or do we want to give the responsibility of teaching to the schools and educational institutions completely? Are we actually just passing on the task, avoiding having to do this ourselves?

It can be tiring and exhausting to spend a lot of time with your children, to play while teaching them and to explain them the consequences and reasons of every little thing. At the same time it is so rewarding, so beautiful and so great to be with them!

I regret the fact that children nowadays have hardly time left to play. They don’t have those years of innocent freedom, during which they don’t have to follow any schedule. It continues in the years after as well – but more to that tomorrow.

For today let it just be said that we don’t need to start bringing our children to an educational institution as early as possible. If you can, keep your kids at home with you and do it yourself – it will be a precious time for you and them!