On 4/10/08, Biju Chacko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Ingrid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Except that in choosing both residential neighbourhoods and schools, > parents > > (usually) determine peer group as well. > > > Which brings us back to square one -- my worry about the peer group at > most non-traditional schools and Ramjee's contention that it was > irrelevant.
Nonnono, I am not saying that peer group is irrelevant. I am merely hinting at the possibility that it's effect is minimal and that the damage/goodwork done to the child (direclty and indirectly) is already done by the time peers enter the picture. IMO, it is the teen stage in which peer group becomes important enough to relate to - but then, kids from reasonably peaceful homes (to be honest, it is increasingly difficult to find nice examples, but the fact is that there ARE quite a few canonical and functional ones) when they get to this stage are so self assured and full of self esteem that they KNOW what would work who & how to relate to etc, irrespective of being in the midst of kids from 'other' backgrounds. This is because, these kids would have enjoyed the joy of 'centered' households, loving (not spoiling) kind of parents, nurturing etc. These are all big words, but there is no big magic here, the simple fundas work. IMO, the state of the parents is so important and happens early enough to the child that, rest of the life of the poor/rich child is like a palimpsest. One can actually peel a person layer by layer and trace it down to (mainly) the sad state of parentage, in many cases. Obviously, some gadenken experiments are in chaos here. The important thing that a parent can pass on to the child (apart from self esteem / persistence / honest work) is that there are choices and more choices in life and that one does not have to be like *this* or *that* (and get bogged down conveniently blaming the 'circumstances'). And, the kids from the centered houseolds have well formed thoughts and opinions, and as that illustrious essay on self reliance (emerson?) says, they have not one chance, but a thousand chances. On the verge of sounding mumbo-jumboish, if one sincerely wants the kids to be happy and be endowed with sound 'values,' I would say that synchronicity will start kicking in, and so all jung men and woemen, listen. Offline, I can give you references of a few folks that I know, who are doing this kind of job (IMO, this is ONE important job that any parent HAS to do); however, I have to ask them first, which please note. And, sorry Udhay, I cant give any 'citations' and you very well know that I am only capable of incitations. hic Okay, I am YET to find any examples of kids who turn out to be rudderless / dysfunctional / sad citizens, from these kinds of households. To be honest, there are ALSO kids who have learnt to be centered etc, when they blossom into adulthood, even from sorry homes (I have one such example), but then these are rare exceptions and they have had other nurturing adults around them in their childhood. All said and done, I feel that parents have to be the change they have to see, if they don't want to feel shortchanged in the parenting process, that is. It is a bloody big mindnumbing responsibility and one will have nagging self doubts for company till he/she starts fertilizing the daffodils, so we can conveniently say that parents are only responsible to bring forth the sad child and the rest will be taken care of by peers. P2P (parent to peer, sorry) transfer of responsibility considered definitely harmful. Should stop the torrent, sorry. Typically, many of the non traditional schools are small in size, have only a few 'dedicated' folks behind the show, they subscribe to some didactic philosophy (Montessori/Steiner/Horseburgh/Krishnamurthy/Neill/MK Gandhi/...) - so folks who are comfy with that philosophy or an admix of various streams of them would send their kids to these schools; also by and large these schools tend to have a good 'arts' exposure and generally the kids are happy. Small is beautiful may be, but it has all kinds of real costs associated with it, in spite of the fact that the 'teachers' there actually get only a pittance as salary. Anyway, the fees have to be high (circa 1 lac indian rupees per annum) to support the school (no body, IMO has become rich running an 'alternative' school) and to cover the costs of providing education for 'free' to deserving scholars (who are anywhere between 15-20% in these kinds of schools, I have some data). Hence the kids that go to these schools have to afford this and they would obviously from monied parentage. Fact. But in the schools that I know, they are very clear about the dilemmas (probably more like nlemmas with n->10) that they have to address and the positive effect they have to create in the minds of kids. Hence, as long as a given kid has had a good mooring at the homefront, there should not be any peer issue, I think. There are also stellar examples of kids (noveau riche background, stinkingly rich ones at that) who are absolutely normal and chweet (they go to 'alternate' schools and not to any international-indus-public-private-finishing-finished-boarding-lodging or we_have_3_swimming_pools_AND_teach_horse_riding or hairypate_lose or royal_concorde_fasten_your_seatbelts kinds of schools either) . And there are tens of examples I could give to the contrary too. Phew, all these are my firm beliefs and opinions, YMMV and all that. Dunno much about Kiran (ISTR that he probably had a .sig that he is a larval geek or something, I could be mistaken) or in what stage of life he is, may gott bless him, citations support him, equations tranquilize him and all that. I do not want to crassword with this gentleman. See Deepa, I obliged you. 6-) __r. -- http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ The lyfe so short, the Craft so long to lerne. -- Geoffrey Chaucer (The Assembly of Fowles)
