Preschool / Playgroup school necessary for Kid's growth ?

[mailtoashishk]

In todays scenario are Preschools/Playgroups necessary for Kid's growth. Do they really change the learning skills of a child. In our time we just went for Jr.Kg. before that it was all at home. We learnt every first step of learning at home with our elders/caretakers.

So why the hype?

[Samword]

The human brain is known to grow at a phenomenal rate till the age of 5 years. Proponents of 'Early Learning' claim that this is the best time to 'teach', since compared to them learning is amazingly low in the case of adults. Jr. KG is around 4 years old, hence according to this theory, a lot of precious time is 'lost'. That is the foundation of the 'playgroup' theory.

However, in countries like India where basic education is still out of reach for the majority of children, many of the mushrooming so-called playgroup centers in the cities are income generating opportunities for housewives and business people.

This trend has grown (hyped) because of the very rapidly changing socio-economic scenario in Indian cities in the last 15 years, and most parents just copy what 'everybody' else is doing.

This trend - like many others - are blindly copied from the western countries where the people have come up with original and practical solutions to their day to day problems.

I don't think following it indiscriminately will be very helpful for us in India.

Regards,

-S.Rai

P.S. I have home schooled children for 4 years 1990-94 in India.

[Guest]

Well, the preschools in India do not follow the Montessori pattern of education. Abroad, the children have a choice of activities to pursue, separately, at the same time. That is the room is divided into different zones- like drawing, clay modeling, paper craft, doll house, water play, sand play, etc.. The teacher only guides the student as he pursues the activity he has chosen. Yes, this results in chaos and war for favourite toy, but, the teacher maintains discipline, and the child learns a valuable lesson to cope in the real world. In India, the teaching is more of classroom type wherein all children perform same task collectively. Thereby each student does not pursue the activity independently and the learning is guided. Hence, we cannot compare pre-school education in India with U.K.