So how have the 4-odd months been so far for Vibhat?
He is settling into his new school. Its much more of a mainstream school, than the lovely Earth School back in Bangalore. Vibhat is managing that transition better than I am :-). It has been challenging for me to accept the way the new school works and proactively address some things that we could do something about. I did not find enough clarity in my own thinking about education.
Teaching here appears to be mechanical with less attention to individual children and where they are - the classic critique of mainstream schools. The school seem to be moving very fast in covering topics - I wonder if this is necessary or useful.
On the plus side, he's getting to play more and do physical stuff which he has been enjoying.
The new CBSE curriculum is also pretty impressive. The core subjects seem to be Maths, Language and Environmental Studies - where environmental studies is a catchall for a bunch of stuff like biology and geography, civics etc. It bodes well for the future for a syllabus to have Environmental Studies as a centerpiece.
Hindi is a challenge. I felt it was good for him to learn Hindi, but he has a lot to catch up on and neither Priya and I know Hindi well. The kid likes it quite a bit though and often asks me to work with him on it.
He's also reading a lot on his own ; visited the local government library today and picked up a ton of books. He's into Enid Blyton among other things. Amazing to see him absorbed in a book. Earlier we read to him a lot, and he enjoyed it immensely, and now he's graduating to being an independent reader. Very gratifying .
He has one very good friend Abdul Rahman at the place we stay, but that family moved home to Pakistan in December so that's sad. At school, he seems to have made friends and integrated well.
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