Chinese School, Private School or International School

Just like any other parents, I planned ahead for my 2 kids' education. We applied for Kebangsaan Chinese school nearby our place, SJKC Kepong 3, 2 years ahead. We even borrowed a friend's address, who lives next to the school, to increase the chances of my kids being accepted into the school.

My girl breezed through the first 2 years with no problem, as her character is more easy going, happy go lucky, relax, chill, blur-blur. Meaning she blurred her way through the first few months. I remember she said that she didn't understand what teacher was saying but it didn't seem to bother her. We are fine with it to, as our main reason of putting her through mandarin stream kindergarten & Chinese primary is so that she can speak & read, mainly. So that she will not loose out, like how we feel when come out to work (both of us are bananas = non mandarin speaking).

I still remember her very first exam, she failed her mandarin miserably. She failed her maths (all in mandarin), the rest are slightly above passing marks. We were both alright with it. From then, she improved on every subject at every next exam. The last exam which was her final Standard 2, she got 93 for English which we were all very happy and proud of, 76 for mandarin and rest all I vaguely remember around the 70s range. But her hours were very long... 6am wake up, go to school, 1pm go straight to daycare cum tuition centre, eat & shower, teacher aid them with homework if they don't know how to do, tea break, continue complete homework, then go home. She'll have homework everyday, nearing end Standard 2 sometimes she couldn't even finish in tuition, had to bring home. And then I'll struggle to help, which I'm totally hopeless. Everything is in mandarin, maths, science, moral.... I can't even understand the question in order to keep her. I searched and search for the most useful smartphone apps and found the MIRACLE MANDARIN App for bananas like me! It can take picture of the Chinese character and map it to the word, giving you the result where you can listen to the pronunciation of the word! Not only that, I can write freehand on a board and it can recommend words closest to your writing and you just have to choose the correct word...the audio will be played and the meaning of the word will be shown in English! This magical app is called PLECO. I've tried many, this is seriously the best.

Anyway, back to my girl, things got worse starting this year in Standard 3. The teachers are all getting stricter and more way more rigid towards older kids. 1 day she for got to bring her text books, she left the extra hand carry bag at home. Yes, their bags are so heavy we got her another hand carry bag to spread out the weight, so pitiful and heavy... Even for me! And that was since Standard 1. The teachers one by one punished her, not even giving her a chance, it was only the 2nd day of school. 1 teacher beat her hand with ruler, another used rubber band to put over her palm and pulled high then let go, another made her stand. How is this even conducive to encourage her to like school and look forward to go to school? She had laid low for 2 years and avoided punishments, only minor ones. So, to start the year this year is really no fun for her. 2 weeks later she forgot to bring an exercise book which she has completed her homework on. I know that for sure as I say through with her to complete. Teacher humiliated her and made her stand outside the corridor throughout the entire lesson. They didn't give her the benefit of the doubt that she telly didn't mean to forget. Next lesson teacher came, asked her why the punishment, when she told, that teacher said - good. I think the teachers are numb. They scream and schools so often that they have lost their humanitarian sense. A child punished by another teacher; weeping, standing outside her class, you add more salt to the wound by saying - Good!
That day onwards every morning, upon reaching school she felt tummy discomfort and she'd throw up in front of school. At night upon switching off the lights, she'd worry and go to her school bag to double check her school books are packed properly. The vomiting was caused my mental stress triggering gastric juice to act up, for a 9 year old! This is not all....

The next part of my story is her younger brother, 2 years younger than her. His character is some what opposite from hers. He is very sensitive towards criticism and a perfectionists. Nearing the end of his kindergarten year (also mandarin stream but more fun and relaxed type - Tadika Diyana), his class teacher told all the students - you all better write nicely, if not nice I'll make you rub everything off and write again! She is just warning the kids. Bit he took it literally. His handwriting was already very neat but he felt it was directed only at him. So he put it onto himself to perfect his hand writing! That period was nightmare for me. During the school holidays I let him to some writing and he put so much pressure on himself to perfect his handwriting that he gets frustrated and angry whenever he had to write. There is this one time, he wrote and erase, rewrite & erase 1 chinese word for almost 2 hours. Crying while writing. We tried to take away the erasers but it made it worse. He'd lose control of hours emotion. I started getting worried & dropping hints to him here and there that there will be copying work in Standard 1, that he just have to be OK, not need nice and they're is no such thing as perfect. But it didn't help, but default that's his character. We had written hiya Chinese name a million times while in kindy. Once, his sister, tried to be helpful and said - hey, your dian is too long. It's supposed to be a dot. He immediately freaked out d claimed everything had been wrong, enter to erase all.

First day of Chinese school he was very proud. Proud that he has upgraded 1 level - Standard 1. Big boy. He was fortunate his teacher was a rather new young teacher. She was very patient with him. Tried to help & make things easier for him, after I told her off his perfectionism. When other teachers scolded as they were busy talking, he got punished for first time. Then he couldn't stop crying when he couldn't copy the words on the black board fast enough as compared to other kids who do not have the OCD. Then everything became bleak & he got worse. Also throws up in the morning when at home. He'd fall asleep at 9pm and jump up walking up around 12 or 1am crying hysterically saying - his writing not nice, he hasn't finished him homework (which he has). He was emotional stressed, subconsciously walking to every night without fail. We'd have to calm him down and reassure him.
We immediately stopped sending him to school only after 2 weeks. That decision can after we tried asking his class teacher to send him to counselling teacher and after that we paid to see a child Psychiatrist at The Mind Faculty in Mont Kiara. We needed to know how we can help him overcome his perfectionist behaviour, how to calm him, what is the best for him. Both me and my husband went to talk to the Psychiatrist while he waits outside with our helper. It's too help the Dr find out & understand more about him first. After telling all the above, the Dr said "Your child is at default mode a perfectionist. Putting him into Chinese school AMPLIFIES that further. He is the type that will put pressure on himself, if the surrounding press more pressure on him it will make our worse."  We got our from there that Chinese school is totally out. But he needs somewhere that the teaching method is not - copy do, copy do. He needs a relaxed learning environment, somewhere he can learn while having fun. So private with local KSSR syllabus is also out off the question, leaving us to only international school. And we are not wealthy that we can have the luxury of choosing and going with anything. That was where the next dilemma came - which, where, how much, can we afford?  The Psychiatrist is very helpful as he sees many child and teenage patients. He didn't say which to go but told which NOT to go as those that are too pricey seems to go around the upper class people with a lot of access income and peer pressure will not help my son and us. He also says that he doesn't need to see son reason being he's 7, so young, that he may thing something is wrong with him if he were to see him. On that day itself, we told him - we'll stop sending you to the Chinese school. We'll look for another fun school for you. And that night itself, he stopped walking up crying. We realised that the mental stress was so bad even for a 7 year old!

The next 1 week plus he was home while we rushed to look around for affordable decent international schools, talk to people for recommendations, reviews, did our financial calculations. We finally choose Beacon House Sri Inai. Decent functional, a lot of attention to him as he joined late while the rest of the students have settled in. The first day brought him into class, he cried a bit weeping. The Principle was pretty good, held his hands firmly and walked in work him trying to introduce him to other students but he wasn't interested. That's expected. I left him, hid from his view, peeped a bit ams left him. He was weeping but loud. Layer when I came to see him for lunch, his home teacher told that he was crying on top of his lungs, knelt on the floor refused to stop. Said she tried to hug him to calm him down but it didn't work, so she took him out to have a chat with him, asked him about his sister, his favourite animals etc to distract him. And while she is doing that  there is still another assistant inside the classroom watching over the other kids. That moment, I realised we made the right choice. Public Kebangsaan school and private school will not have this type of attention. It does not matter that most the teachers are not gwailo (white). It does not matter that the school does not have state of the art facilities, swimming pool. Now, after struggling through 2 weeks of crying he finally stopped crying today, for the first time. This is his exact words. "I didn't cry at all today, mommy". Such a relieve to hear that!

Back to the sister, while we put my boy in an international school and my girl was vomiting every morning upon reaching Chinese school...my husband said no money in the world is worth anything if our kids suffer. He wanted to put her into the international school too, at the same time. He said we may save from paying hefty school fees but we may have to pay for their medical bills which is worse. He had his points, he is Mr Logical. We argued over this for few days, I was worried & stressed that our commitment and expenditures are too high. That if anything happens, we cannot U-turn and take them out of international school. I will never have the choice to stop work. I wanted to wait a bit, few months perhaps before we put her in too. But lastly, we just took her out and put her into same school after few days of discussing and arguing. No point worrying about the future. Just give what we still can give now to let them have a happy childhood. Now, they reach home at 3:30 and they have time to play outside, watch cartoon, time for themselves that they don't have to rush through. They don't get homework everyday, but when they do, it's minimal. 2 days ago my son told me, "Mommy, today all of us have to sing a song about an animal. We can choose any animals." And he just came up with his own melody and started singing to me about Kangaroo. It is such a wonderful way to learn! And he loves singing. Can sing all the latest current pop songs played on radio - Ed Sheeren, David Guetta, Damn Smith, Ariana Grande, Megan Trainor Charlie XCX and more.

My point here is, some kids can take Chinese school ways of scream-teaching, but it's definitely not suitable for all. Our kids now still have Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia as one of the subjects in school, or may be easier level, but it's fine. They still have their childhood. I remember mine where I had time to play outside, watch cartoon, afternoon naps...I was happy. I don't remember being stressed out with homework all the time. Now I can relate to Michael Jackson's song "Childhood". The lyrics that went... 'have you seen my childhood...'