Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A child's education

I have a daughter Sanjana. She is three and a half years old. She is a joy . Anyway she goes to a montessori. We started noticing that she was not focusing when she was doing her ABC's or her 123's. So my wife started spending time with her after school and she is now doing really well.

It is funny and weird because Nimmi (my wife) and I strongly believe that education of children is parent's responsibility first and the teacher/school's second. We had kind of not focused on her as we thought that since she was going to a Montessori, we did not have to worry. This was a wake-up call for us.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Mohana Chandrasekharan National English School

I went to National English School in Gopalapuram, Chennai/Madras from my kindergarten until my 6th grade. It was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. I remembered something in my 5th standard recently and I thought I would blog about it.

NES as it was known then was very rigorous with monthly exams to test learning and knowledge etc. I was an OK student in my class until my 4th grade. And 5th grade came. In my first monthly exam, I had failed in all my classes. That was not a good thing. My mom totally freaked out.

Mohana Chandrasekharan was the principal of the school and was a strong willed woman who ran the school very well. My mom came to school and check on me with the principal and the teachers. I got called in to the principal room which was not a good thing.

I go in and see my mom with all my teachers and the principal. The principal then asks me to open my notebooks and sure enough I don't have anything written down. She then asks one teacher each day to monitor me while I catch up with my notes and make sure that I was reading and studying what I was writing down after classes.

This went on for a month and every day a teacher would stay with me while I caught up after classes.

I was monitored for a couple of more months. The habit of taking down notes, reading and studying them helped and by end of the year in my annual/final exams, I was fifth in my class. From the bottom of the barrel to the top 5 in a class of 40 was nice indeed. I surprised a whole bunch of people with that.

That practice helped me throught my academic life from NES to CIT and to Texas A&M.

Thanks Mrs. Chandrasekharan.

Mahesh