Learning to learn in pre-schoolNina KanjirathAn almost imperceptible but nevertheless revolutionary lifestyle and demographic shift in favour of two-income nuclear families within India‚s pace-setting middle class has brought pre-school and child care centres into sharp focus in contemporary urban society. With women increasingly reluctant to take long career breaks to mind young children, profess-ionally managed play or pre-schools have become an important base for working parents.In a recent survey of some early learning childhood centres conducted by the Gintara Foundation, Bangalore, several dominant features of these institutions became apparent. Among them:‚ Playschools run in homes might have initially served as adequate learning centres, except that the daily restoration of materials and equipment (if any) creates a conflict of interest due to the contrary demands of a learning and domestic environment‚ A majority of the garage type playschools, severely limited in space, tend to focus on rote teaching the alphabet in capitals, numbers, names of animals, fruits etc; culturally inappropriate nursery rhymes and the writing of painful and unending pages of cursive script. Since reading material is rarely available in the flowery cursive form, it‚s difficult to establish what purpose is served‚ Some pre-schools cater specifically to the admission tests of a particular school which prescribes the pre-school curri-culum on the misguided assumption that sooner is better, leading to superficial learning, parroting children and unhealthy competition between parents‚ Regular schools which incorporate pre-schools within their compound walls also seem to be unable to provide child-friendly environments or curriculums suitable for children in the two-five age group. Their focus is to create a minimum-stimulation feeder-factory for their primary section, so teaching is focussed on academics housed within unexciting and static classroom settings‚ With due respect to Madame Montessori for her intensive research and invaluable contribution to pre-school learning and behaviour, the methodology developed by her would undoubtedly have provided skills for a particular period in the history of the 19th century, viz, the industrial revolution which required labour in factories. But in the changed world of the 21st century, the Montessori methodology as practiced in India is inadequate, especially with its rigid emphasis on fine motor equipment, repetitiveness and work in isolation. Quite clearly it‚s time to look beyond. It is perhaps also a time for Indian educationists to reflect deeply, to begin to design and develop intelligent and pertinent pre-school curriculums that would encourage creative thinking and scientific temper from a very young age.Unfortunately few pre-schools address or empathetically handle the major trauma in an infant‚s life ‚ separation from the mother. Others rarely support parent and child in their transitional period of anxiety and change when the child first ventures into the world outside. Parents are regarded as intruders with nothing to contribute. Indeed, some pre-schools demand that parents wordlessly hand over their infants to complete strangers, making it quite clear that parents have to suffer the consequences, if any. From the time a toddler awakes to a new, unfamiliar world in playschool, she is subject to stress due to…
