Kindergarten is just around the corner for my daughter. Like any parent, I have a deep desire to see her budding emergence evolve into a lifelong love for learning.
While I know schooling is just one aspect of this, it’s a significant one. And so, in an effort to find the right fit, I’ve been touring schools.
With so many outstanding schooling options available in our city, I’ve been heeding experts’ advice:
- Tour as many schools as possible – even those that may be unrealistic, if just for comparison purposes.
- Begin touring early lest the process feel like cramming for a test, trying to squeeze all the tours into a compressed window of time.
Public schools. Private schools. Cooperative schools. Waldorf and Montessori schools. Alternative option schools. Other families’ home schools. Over the last two years, I’ve toured all of these. And more.
In many ways the process has been like play. I get to see, first-hand, the many different ways there are to teach and engage children. I get to talk to teachers who understand and adore children, who use their gifts for teaching to help grow the next generation of our society – no small job, which I appreciate all the more being the daughter of an elementary school teacher. And I get to see, with my own eyes, children learning and thriving in so many different kinds of environments.
With each tour I’m learning, too – about more than the school schedule or its philosophy. I’m learning about my daughter as I consider each environment and how it would fit for her, or not, and why. I’m learning about the teachers’ attachment savvy to get a sense of how they collect and orient children, how they bridge separation to help children hold on to their parents. Sometimes the learning is subtle, like when something about a school inspires me to bring a piece of it home. (I returned from a Waldorf tour moved to de-clutter and beautify our home and incorporate brightly colored chalk into the girls’ art supplies.)
I’m also learning about myself as a parent, gauging when I’m crossing the line of a parent committed to making analytical, thoughtful decisions to one who’s letting my tendency for perfectionism get in the way. By the time I visited the last school, for instance, I sensed a familiar pattern.
It took me back to the time after my daughter was born, when I’d discovered, before my wide, new-mother eyes, a buffet line of parenting books. Oh, what fun it was to rediscover my long-dormant interest in child development! How delightful it was to learn everything I could about children and parenting through all of the books I had at hand. But before long, I started to lose my intuition. One book contradicted another. Then a third book contradicted them both. (Wait… this book says to feed the baby precisely every two hours. That one says feed only upon waking, never feed your baby to sleep. This one here says to feed on demand. My child is crying and hungry. What’s the right answer again?)
Similarly, the more education options I consider for my children, the harder it’s become to hone in on just one “right” answer. What Barry Schwartz describes in his TED talk summarizing The Paradox of Choice rings true: “All of this choice produces paralysis rather than liberation.”
Only I’m more seasoned as a parent now, wiser at following my intuition – and quicker to catch myself when I forget to trust in it.
Because my intuitive sense is this: Touring more and more schools to expand the options isn’t going to lead to one “right” answer. There is no such thing. Besides, whatever decision ends up being “right” from my perspective may not necessarily work for my daughter, despite my best attempts to make an educated, thoughtful decision.
So I’m narrowing down the choices, focusing on the conditions I would like for my daughter in order to instill that lifelong love for learning. Will the environment be an extension of our village, a place where my daughter feels safe, loved, and cared for by the adults in charge? Will she have freedom to be her true child self, in an environment that understands the importance of play? How do teachers handle behavior problems? How would teachers manage separation and help my daughter hold on to me while apart? Are parents welcomed and included in the mix? I’m less interested in the curriculum at this point – more interested in making sure that my daughter will be filled up and feel safe, thus free to learn.
Once she’s landed at a school, I’ll be trusting in the adaptive process – for my daughter, as well as for myself… knowing that if adjustments need to be made, I’ll be able to read my child. Is her heart staying soft? Is she attaching to her teachers? Is she able to hold onto herself while she’s at school? Is she able to hold on to me?
And for me, does school feel like an extension of our home? Am I delighting in the things my daughter is doing? Am I inspired to weave in elements from school into our after-school time? Is my daughter sensing my own delight in her schooling?
In this way, my hope is that her school taps into my own lifelong love of learning, that my enthusiasm will be both inspiring and infectious – ultimately leading to her own love of learning that will continue to grow throughout her life.
© Sara Easterly. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published as an editorial by the Seattle Neufeld Community.
