Last June of this year, Cathy and I decided to send our three year old daughter Frances to Pre-Nursery school. It actually took me a while to really process that, mainly because I come from a family (and I suppose a generation) where in most cases you don’t send a kid to school until they are either five years old or at the very least, completely potty trained.
I suppose it’s a normal parent reaction thing to feel a little overwhelmed at how young kids start schooling these days. I suppose if you ask parents of my generation how old were they when they were sent to pre-nursery they would most probably say they skipped all that by going straight to grade one, and without warning immediately go on a two hour discourse on how they had to walk to school wearing old sandals, how they got whipped with a yard stick by their teachers if they didn’t do their homework, how they had banana leaves for notebooks, and how times were so hard they had to cunningly hunt and cook their own food during recess.
But of course it’s great investment and I am honestly amazed to realize how obsolete my concepts are for kindergarten learning. For instance, I was surprised at how Frances came home during her first week of schooling already knowing the letter “H”. I wasn’t amazed that she knew the letter, but I was curious to know why they didn’t begin with the letter “A” like I did back then.
I had a talk with Frances’ teacher and as it turned out, it’s a learning process called “Webbing”. Preschool teachers teach interrelated topics in one session. For instance, if the letter for the day is “E”, they teach about stuff starting with the same letter, body parts of the same letter and activities starting with the same letter. And since letters aren’t sequences like numbers, it’s ok to teach them not in the old school alphabetical order.
It made sense. It also explained why during the same week my daughter was learning the letter “H”, she randomly told me I had “Horrible Hair”. It was the last time I questioned the system.
My best friend, Dr. Romulo Babasa III, a great Filipino, asked how much the tuition fee was for preschool, he was surprised to learn how it was almost what he was paying back then for a semester in med school. I mean I know it’s expensive, actually it’s only the beginning of a long journey for Cathy and I as far as expense is concerned. But it’s also precious time, and I don’t mean just the investment on your child’s education. Frances is a smart kid and her learning more stuff in school is already a given. It’s the priceless moments that you really have to be there for.
The other time I went on leave for work to be able to accompany Frances on her first field trip. At first I thought it was a really bad idea to sit in for my wife. I had a really long day at work the day before the field trip and didn’t get much sleep. I thought I could get some rest during the bus ride to the Gardenia Bread Factory, but aside from it being only a quick 20 minutes away, it was close to impossible having any moment of silence with a bus half filled with hyper active screaming three year olds. But as it turned out, it was a great Dad and Daughter day. I got to spend some real quality time with Frances, I now have a better appreciation for the brand of bread on my breakfast table, and thanks to teenaged pregnancy, some of the mom’s in the field trip were actually quite hot, hehehe.
Another priceless moment was when Frances took the stage during their “Lingo ng Wika” (National Language Awareness Week in schools. Yeah, I know, we have one. It’s like the week of the Manila Film Festival, only with the Lingo ng Wika, there is still a chance you might appreciate the temporary banning of speaking in a foreign language). Frances did a dance number with her classmates dancing an 80s Filipino song titled “Bongga Ka Day”. How she danced on stage without any hint of stage fright was so cute beyond words!
Then the other month, they had their United Nations celebration and Frances represented Hawaii, which I suppose was a nation at one point before it became part of the United States. Anyway, she looked extremely adorable in her pink hula outfit. But was really made me proud was that she was chosen to represent her class and lead the Philippine National Anthem at the start of the program. My in laws were so proud seeing their granddaughter’s name printed on the programs. She was totally off beat when she was conducting the anthem, but she’s three years old and all she had to really do was stand there in front of everybody on stage and look adorable, which she did perfectly!
These are the moments you simply cannot miss! And I am sure there are prouder days to come. Cathy and I will be ready for it!
