Half-Day Kindergarten Sessions

Translated…

My daughter, Si-Shuan is about to turn five, I’d started setting up her sessions at school too.  After a few phone calls, I’d found, that the public kindergartens are especially nice toward the last year students, the teachers from the various places all told me, that five-year-olds have the priority status, that we’d only needed to get the forms filled out.  And so, until the day of registration, I’d carried the happiness of “we’re signing up to travel”, after breakfast, I’d taken my daughter leisurely, to the kindergarten, to fill out the registration forms.

not my photo…

But, as I was filling out the forms, I saw that there’s the “whole day classes” option, I’d asked, “Don’t you have the half-day classes?”, the teacher said courteously, “I’m sorry, but the earliest that the classes get out is at four, we can’t have the kids all go home at noon.”

Her words, were like, thunder, from the blue clear skies, and, as nobody was watching me, I’d, torn the sign-up sheets to shreds, I’d told the registrar, thank you, and with no plans to ever contact the place again, I took my daughter, ran out, from there.  The way I took my daughter and ran off, looking so panicky, must’ve made the teacher wonder, what’s wrong with the mother?

As I returned home, before I got settled down, before I’d returned back to my original self, I’d, searched online quickly, and finally found, a public kindergarten, with a pretty good reputation, with the half-day classes.  I’d taken a drink of the water, then, took my daughter, run to the place, and, in one breath, filled out all the paperwork, gotten everything settled, successfully, upped my daughter’s status as “a little educated person”.  But the price was, in the future, I’d had to, drive for twenty-five minutes to drop her off to school every single day.

so engaged, these children…

As a mom who believed that “play is the most important thing in childhood”, I’d always felt, that children should have all the fun they possibly can when they were still young, to NOT spent all of their free hours, locked up, inside a classroom setting; plus, my own school-skipping records were, outstanding, in stacks, and, I’d not wanted to force my daughter, to sit still and become a “robot” so early on in life, and so, having her in class for only half-a-day became, my one and only persistence.  It’s just, that I was, way too optimistic, way too naïve, still thought, that the time stood still at when I was back in kindergarten, without knowing, that most of the kindergartens had changed the half-day sessions to the whole-day sessions; that, was when I’d finally realized, that half-day classes, weren’t as ideal as I’d imagined them to be either.

The kids now, truly are, stronger than I was back then, remember how as I was about to face my first full-day class as I went into the elementary years, although I’d stayed calm on the outside, but, I’d started, wailing on the inside.  And now, the children in kindergarten are, spending even MORE time in school compared to the kids in elementary schools, it’s hard, for me, to imagine, how they get through an entire day.  Although, most parents couldn’t help it, but if we can, we should, still try, to give our kids, at least, HALF a day of playtime in their childhood years.

So, times HAD changed, because these days, NOBODY wants her/his kid to have a late start, that, is why this mother was having so much difficulties, finding the half-day kindergarten classes, but the mother was persistent, in that she’d wanted her daughter to have HALF a day to play, instead of stuck in classes for the entire day, and the mother was right, because childhood should be spent, running around, wild AND free, not just sitting in those child-size chairs, listening to ones’ teacher tell them about the rules of the world………