What kind of basic education would I choose for my daughter? May 9, 2009

I recently watched the documentary -” Two Million Minutes”. The time between the moment a student enters ninth grade to when they graduate out of twelfth grade is about two million minutes. The documentary compares how a a few students in India, China and U.S spend these “two million minutes”.

While the documentary doesn’t make any conclusions at the end, it  seems to drive home a message that students in India and China are spending their time more fruitfully. It seems to say that compared to Americans, Indian and Chinese students seem to be  more serious about careers in math and science and are hence better off. It seems to conclude that America is not doing enough to compete with the rest of the world in the areas of math and science.

Ok, I agree that given what I know about education in USA,  the country can do better in preparing it’s students for math and science careers. But given what I know about education in India, I strongly feel that there is absolutely no need to put the Indian education system on a pedestal and say that it is better than the US education system. How much time the students spend on academics and whether they chose a career in math and science is not the only measure of a successful education system. An education system should be measured with many more outcomes – how well-rounded the students are, whether they are able to critically think about issues and make decisions, whether they are able to problem solve, able to think out of the box, whether they are confident, compassionate, responsible and so on.

First of all, I would like to note that I’m very passionate about developments in both India and America. I am a first generation Indian American who lives in America currently and who has plans of living in India in the future. I received an engineering degree in India and after a Masters and a ten year career in the engineering field, changed my career to one in Education after getting a Masters degree in this field. While my daughter is currently getting a K-12 US education, she will in all probability continue her education in India in the future. Given this background , I would like to think of my opinions on both these education systems to be quite objective.

Given what I know about both US and Indian K-12 education systems, if I was given a free choice without any other constraints to choose between these two systems for my daughter, I would any day go for the US education system. Following are the reasons why:

Firstly, I feel that my daughter will have a better environment in the US to explore her interests and pursue a career inline with her interests. She will have an opportunity to explore many options other than math and science – humanities, arts, sports and what not. She will even get opportunities to be competent in more than one field. I know that in India, unless parents work hard to swim against the tide, the society and the environment will put enormous pressure on the children to pursue a career in science and math even if the children are not interested in these careers.

I feel that even if my daughter decides to pursue a career in math/science after doing K-12 education in America, it will be out of her own interest. There is a huge difference in outcomes when someone pursues a career out of passion as opposed to when someone pursues a career because she was pressured to do so. Research studies have shown that people perform at their peak when they are pursuing something out of their own interest.

And secondly, there is the question of how well-rounded my daughter will be if she does K-12 in the U.S. My daughter will grow up in an environment where creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork etc are encouraged in a non-competitive environment. Research studies have shown that these skills are critical to success as an individual. I also feel that these skills are critical for a successful democratic process in a country. There is a reason why the American democracy is as sophisticated as it is today. If the Indian democracy has to reach this level of sophistication, it is crucial to instill these skills in it’s citizens. Research studies have also shown that a non-competitive environment is crucial for developing competencies at their best. The K-12 education environment in India is extremely competitive which puts a lot of pressure on the children to be the best, which in turn could bring-down their performance.

Apart from these academic skills, I also feel that my daughter would have a much better chance of growing up to be a social-minded, compassionate, confident and responsible individual if she completed her education in USA.

While the documentary “Two million minutes” has made a good attempt to bolster the importance of math and science education in K-12 schools in America, people should not confuse this attempt to mean that the Indian education system is better than US or that US education system is inferior to Indian and Chinese education systems in all respects. All these education systems have a long way to go and success cannot be measured on one dimension alone.

Any thoughts?

Montessori dilemma March 31, 2009

I’ve been a proud Montessori parent close to three years now. But each time I gain new insights on why a certain part of the Montessori curriculum has been designed the way it is, I can’t help but be amazed at the breakthroughs in child development that Dr. Maria Montessori uncovered so many decades ago.
It is not so uncommon to find many of Dr. Montessori’s innovations being incorporated in traditional and even other progressive schools today. This may be one reason why Montessori curriculum may not seem very impressive to some folks. It is important to remember however, that every single detail in the Montessori curriculum had a reason and a purpose and was integrated very closely with everything else that the curriculum offers. Due to this reason, picking parts of her curriculum and pedagogies and connecting them to other non-Montessori methods of teaching may not have the same intended effects as within a Montessori setting.

One of the common reasons that I have encountered among parents as to why their children are not in a Montessori school, is because they feel that Montessori schools are very unstructured. In a Montessori classroom, they encounter (or they have heard of) many young children spending a good part of the day involved in washing dishes/tables or scrubbing the floor and other practical life activities. I had earlier read about how this is a part of the effort to develop the whole child and not just have the child indulge in academic activities the whole day. I was quite happy with this reason for having my daughter scrub tables until I found out about how such activities can be even more beneficial, after I read Dr. Angeline Lillard’s book – Montessori, The Science behind the Genius.
In her book Dr. Lilliard has put together evidence from rigorous research in psychology to prove many of the principles of Montessori education. From her book I gathered that there is evidence to prove that “movement stimulates cognition” or “action stimulates thought”. It is pretty obvious that thought stirs up action in us. That’s what we encounter everyday – we think of something and act on it. But the other way around is true too. Research has shown that even the youngest children – the infants – showed better mental development if they were more action oriented. For example, in a research study, children who learned to crawl earlier than their peers were cognitively more advanced than their peers. Hence, as Dr. Lilliard describes in her book, when children wash tables, it is not so much that the table becomes clean, but that the child is involved in a purposeful activity employing her hands in service of her mind. Such practical life activities help the children in improving concentration, in educating their movements to be geared towards a purpose and in learning to carry out steps in sequence, among other obvious benefits like learning to care for their environment.
I’m a pretty happy parent now, not only did my daughter learn how to scrub tables – which is pretty useful skill to have to help her mom around in the house – but through that activity, her cognitive development benefitted too which finally culminated in her school work as she grew older.

Another common reason that I hear from parents as to why they don’t want Montessori education for their child is, that it is too academically oriented. Wow! First of all I’m amazed that Montessori education can give the impression that it is developing children to be the least academically oriented (by having the children scrub tables the whole day!) and also the impression that the curriculum is too academic. It is understandable why many non-Montessori parents think that the curriculum is too academic. Although it has not been proven scientifically, it has generally been observed that children who go through a Montessori curriculum turn out to be more advanced academically compared to their peers in traditional schools (yes, in spite of spending a good part of the day scrubbing tables). Dr. Montessori believed that children are lot more capable than what traditional school perceives them to be. She felt that the environment and the pedagogies with which traditional schools taught children was dumbing them down. All Dr. Montessori did was to create a curriculum to develop the child to her full potential. By giving freedom (within limits) to the children to choose the activities they indulge in each day, children pick activities that interest them. And believe it or not, they become interested in academics on their own. And add to the formula, a wealth of stimulating materials that engage both their body and mind and a well-trained Montessori teacher. It’s hard to see how they cannot develop to their full potential.

I’m just glad that I came to the realization that my daughter should go to a Montessori school, soon enough. Once you start experiencing the benefits of Montessori education, you tend to get addicted to it.
Being involved in the field of education myself, I’m planning to spend the next few weeks reading more about Montessori education and how it connects to my experiences with my Montessori child. I hope to write more about it as thoughts flow.