Does it matter which school board your child goes to?
A couple of months ago I came across a post on LinkedIn by entrepreneur Shantanu Deshpande about his conversation with two dads on school boards in India. The post highlighted the challenge of choice between boards.
Do you consider the IB board? “seemingly more experiential, holistic, nurturing. But also doesn’t set one up for the competitive rigour that good Indian college admissions demand. Also, ridiculously expensive. 😖” (as quoted by Shantanu on his LinkedIN post)
OR
Send them to a more rigorous, academic school in CBSE/ICSE - where the stress may be high and exacerbated 100x because of social media, constant comparisons, internet-fuelled competitive exams and Olympiads from a very young age. (as quoted by Shantanu on his LinkedIN post)
One is very human first and the other very academically aggressive.
My 8 year daughter goes to an IB school, I went to an ICSE school back in the 90s and my wife went to an SSC school (Maharashtra State Board). Now having put this in context I want to take a tangential path in this argument. It’s not as black and white as it seems, to me at least.
Parenting and School Partnership
To start off with, my wife and I have stopped looking at schools as an outsourcing centre for our daughter. As parents we are persistent in our thinking that we too have to play an equal role in supplementing what the school is teaching. Both of us are working parents but we have divided time with our daughter post-school. I take up maths and my wife revises languages, reading and other subjects. Well then the next obvious question would be, why pay so much fees for an IB Board? Good question.
Choose the board that allows your kid to make his/her own choices
There is this common conversation my wife and I keep getting exposed to - IB Board lacks the competitive edge. We actually don’t agree with it. I can't speak for other kids or parents but my daughter is highly competitive and feels left out if she is not part of the activities done by her school peers. And guess what, as parents we also add fuel to the fire, it’s our job to encourage our daughter.
We like the IB approach, it doesn’t push the kids to do stuff that they don’t want to and honestly we like the whole it’s-your-choice approach. Thanks to this, my daughter gets to pursue professional gymnastics (~15 hours per week), which she absolutely LOVES and gets a healthy dose of competition. She’s a physical kid but also academically inclined and for her the IB board is a perfect fit, for now. But we are content and the investment is something we have to accept.
Mental Peace & Learning goes hand-in-hand
Today there is a mountain of information on mental health and the toll it can take on you, both, at work and home. As parents, the last thing we want is to add to the existing mental load that we carry. But it’s not just about the parents, it’s also about the kid. Do we want to burden children with that level of stress from such a young age? Well my wife and I don’t want to and we have found a school that is willing to absorb it on our behalf. I remember my schooling days, they were not exactly fun, especially when we went higher up the grades. The pressure to perform and out-perform was unbearable at times. But today when my child comes back from school and I ask her what happened, she tells me with such enthusiasm, the things she LEARNT as opposed to what she was told to DO - that’s the difference maker right there. She chooses to learn and remember concepts because she wants to and we love that approach because she feels the need to tell people around her as if they are unaware and that is the power of education.
Having said all that, I want to bring out the down side of the system as well. Yes, IB education is expensive and for my wife and I the quality of teachers is paramount, which, I have to confess, is left wanting. We are constantly questioning the board and giving feedback about hiring better qualified teachers.
Also, there is this other argument that “Since your daughter is getting an IB education, she HAS to go abroad”. Well, not really, once again, it’s her choice. The older she gets the more information she gathers about other parts of the world and if she feels the need to leave, then sure, we will do whatever it takes to send her abroad. India is a great country to build a career too and we will give her all the guidance needed.
Does it matter which school board your child goes to?
Our philosophy to parenting is to be the guide NOT impose. Let the child choose what he/she wants because they need to be happy doing what they like. There will be counter-arguments, but then again, it’s parenting, everyone has their own style.
