In the proverbial blink of an eye, Vanessa will be getting on to Primary One soon. It’s time to start playing less, and start some serious studying. Oh, the endless days of playgrounds, birthday parties, and what not, although they are not gone, but they now need to give way to some studying and homework.
I can just see the the stress of studying coming. This time, it’s not me as the student. It’s being the parent of a child going into formal education. The time to get serious about studying is now. What more with all the kiasu-ism that everyone wants to get a head start even before the first day of school, I think we’re a little behind time.
Fortunately, Vanessa thinks homework is fun. At least it is for her now. So I’ve little problem setting some homework for her to do. The current “lesson” I’m working on with Vanessa now is about telling the time. After several sessions, I think she’s now getting on quite find. But going through the process, I remember teaching is not-so-fun. It can be quite trying. Particularly when you are trying to cover some fundamental concepts.
I think I am too impatient to teach “simple fundamental concepts”. I realize in my technical line of work, when people ask me “too simple a question”, I would rather tell them “go google for some how-to or tutorial and learn from there”. I don’t want to expend the energy to do something that, in most likelihood, is already much better done by someone else than I could do myself.
It will be different with our own kids. We couldn’t possibly be telling them to go google the answer themselves. Well, perhaps not at this age anyway, since they aren’t yet on the Internet. Then maybe by the time they are, it may be the parents who will the ones being told to go figure out something on their own from the Internet.
I suddenly feel like I’m starting school again. It feels scary how complicated PSLE questions have now become. Even if the children don’t know to be worried yet, I think their parents are terribly concerned.