Alternate school ?

Hi,

Briefly flirted with the idea but gave up for quite a few reasons.  I made efforts to understand atleast about two alternate schools - Krishnamurthy foundation and Poorna Learning Center.  They were definitely impressive and seemed to encourage out-of-the-box approach to education.    Gave up KF right in the beginning mainly because of distance (we are living in north bangalore).  Felt that the exposure was not that great (at the time I visited) in the other school.  Somehow, felt that the kid needs to be of a certain mindset to flourish in these schools - since we were looking at KG, was not sure about how my daughter would turn out.    Also, I felt that the parents need to have a different mindset while sending to these schools - not sure about how prepared we were.  Felt it was a risk - and felt that I had no right to force it on my kid at that age - may be she could choose it when she is old enough.  For instance, I know of a friend whose sone opted to go to Krishnamurthy for 9th grade onwards.  

Eventually, we settled for NAFL and quite happy with it.

Cheers

Sumo 

Sumo, thanks for the detailed comments. It helped.

Regards,

V

Sumo, you had written,

" Also, I felt that the parents need to have a different mindset while sending to these schools - not sure about how prepared we were.Felt it was a risk - and felt that I had no right to force it on my kid at that age".

Would you be able to explain this statement a bit more?  What mindset do you think we should have and how do you think the children are at risk? Please share your thoughts. I am also evaluating these kind of schools and would like to understand better before making up my mind. Your inputs would be valuable.

Thanks

Lavanya

what i understood here is ......

usual way is .. kid go to school ... there is a syllabus .. a course ... 5-7 subjects

regular tests, exams, etc.

kids are forced to study all these and is bound to study even if he/she not interested

in alternate school, what i came to know, is they do not force a kid to do some thing, to follow a syllabus, to study ........ they allow kid to do whatever he is interested in

so we shud be ready ... because this kid may not  understand the usual mathematics,  english, etc.

i also came to know that there was a guy who just did carpentry for more than 12 yrs. and he didn't understand english and other things ... he learnt english at a later stage when it was required and did well

which is not the usual way

and we shud be ready to accept this

comments ?

OK, I got that, But if you consider the school KFI, it follows ICSE syllabus from 9th std i think. So after giving the child the freedom to explore, learn, etc, they bring in structured education from 9th. And having a syllabus means they learn the usual subjects, correct?

yes

but i do not know whether they follow or not

Hi Lavanya,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

My concerns were around these points:

1)  Peer group in school - I felt that alternate schools will mostly have kids with parents in alternate streams of profession (I know this is not entirely true, but an overwhelming majority would be from non-conventional professions) ;  Felt we may not gel with them so well and as a result the child might feel left out. 

2)  At tender age, i feel that values have to be taught - i am not still sure whether there are core values and philosophy in these schools , aside from the fact the education is exploratory, to guide the children.  For example discipline.

3)  As mentioned before, I felt these systems are very good for slightly grown-up children - above 6th grade or so.  There is some maturity, most values are already ingrained and the child is capable of handling that responsibility of deciding by herself/himself what she wants to do.

4)  Finally, I still have faith in some of the so-called  mainstream schools:>  I weighed some of the mainstream schools (not typical ones but some of the new ones with focus on holistic development) and the alternate schools and I felt that the situation was not soo bad in these mainstream ones also; on the otherhand, i had these concerns about alternate schools and so I settled for that.

Ofcourse these were our family's personal views and your experience now could be different.  Good idea to visit, sit with some parents and think over it .

Cheers,

Sumo

Hi Sumo,

Really appreciate your detailed reply. Thank you. I still have a year to decide and you have provided lots of food for thought :). Thanks

-Lavanya

 Hi Lavanya & Sumo,  Prakriya is also following the same funda. I have got good reviews and feedback abt them. Some points that come to my mind now are ...

 In Prakriya writing skills are not taught till 2nd grade and the kid will get that skill w/o issues when he reaches 2nd grade. Academically the kids will be average compared to kids from other schools but kid will have 360d view of whatever he had learnt. 

One parent told me that his kid doesn't mingle with other kids (from other schools) as he is not able to understand some of the topics those kids are talking.