First Interview (6 Nov 09 Friday)

So it has come to a stage in our lives that we need to make an important decision, not the most important one, but enough for us to rack our brains over.

School admission… for a 3-year-old, which is considered late by most HK parents’ standards.

Nursery/preschool/Kindy interviews are a norm in HK, most schools (i.e. the private ones and not government-run) conduct interviews at least a year before the start of the new academic year which starts every Sept. There are some which accept kids on a first come first serve basis, but these schools are few and probably not something I would look into as TJ’s first school.

Actually most local HKers send their kids to school at 2 years of age, not cos it’s a childcare arrangement but cos the parents want their kids to start school that early. Period.

And the craziest thing is that getting into a good reputable kindergarten is of utmost importance cos it would determine the kind of primary school that the kid enters later, and subsequently that will also affect the choice of a secondary school too. Parents here tend to put their kids into ThroughTrain schools, so that they don’t have to worry about finding primary or secondary schools later.

Moreover if parents can afford, they would prefer to send their kids to the numerous International Schools from an early age, as the perception is that these schools are much better than the local schools. Here, anyone can get into an International School, as long as you have the moolahs.

S’poreans aren’t as kiasu as Hkers, and when it comes to education, the system here is not meritocratic like S’pore. My hometown’s system may not be the best (is there ever a best system in the world?), but it still has its merits since  I now have something to compare against.

My criteria for TJ’s first school: Bilingual in English and Putonghua (must say “Putonghua” and not “Chinese” cos to Hkers, Chinese is Cantonese), within budget (there isn’t any govt subsidies in HK if parents choose the private schools, unlike back home in S’pore) , morning session (cos TJ naps in the afternoon for about 2.5h) and that TJ doesn’t spend too much time travelling to and from school.

So we submitted our applications to just 2 schools, one that is within 5 minutes walk from our apartment (Think Int’l) and another a bus ride away (YMCA Kindergarten). I know some parents would send in loads of applications to many schools just cos it’s so hard to get in to the school of one’s choice, and it would be statistically logical to cast your nets wide.

We took TJ to his first interview at Think Int’l and it was a really strange affair. Prior to this, I had asked people and read up on the  forum  but still went in blind. For someone who really likes to be prepared for things, this interview was a headless chicken that ran round and round. It would not be honest of me to say that I wasn’t stressed by the thought of my 25 and a half month-old Neanderthal going thru’ an interview, but I was curious to know what the interview entails.

We waited for about 15 minutes before it was TJ’s turn, and were directed to a table (there were 8 other tables) surrounded by 4 chairs, one of which was occupied by the interviewer/teacher.

First question was “What’s your name?” in Cantonese (*roll eyes*) and obviously TJ wasn’t going to to answer to that. D told her that we speak English to him and she tried the same question again in English and he doesn’t say his name either. Actually he doesn’t say his name at all, even though we tried for the longest time. Once when we asked him that same question, his eyes grew as big as saucers, and his look was like, “Are you guys daft or what? You know my name and you still wanna ask?” Can’t blame the kid.

But he answers to “Who is the handsome boy?” by raising his hand.

Then there were the tasks: Putting the pieces back on the puzzle, stacking the cubes on top of the other, colour matching with shapes and threading beads together.

TJ didn’t put the puzzles pieces back to their original spaces, but inspected each piece and placed them neatly on the puzzle board.

He only stacked 2 out of the 5 cubes and decided it was better to arrange the cubes neatly in a rectangular array.

The colour matching exercise didn’t interest him, and he just placed the shapes neatly (again) on the laminated card, and it was a fluke he placed the green shape on the green square.

As for the beads, now that is one high cognitive exercise that I dunno what is the educational rationale behind it (maybe to check on dexterity and if you have an one-track mind). Anyway, the beads resemble this black Agnes B ring that I have, and I know this cos he picked up the black bead and put it near his ear, something that he always does whenever he picks up my ring. TJ put his hands in the mini basket and rolled the other beads around, toyed a little with the rubber thread and just pushed everything aside thereafter.

The interviewer had demonstrated all the tasks to him before giving him the chance to replicate the actions, but TJ did his own thing and I could sense his boredom cos those stuff aren’t interesting to him. In fact TJ was polite enough to sit through this entire interview without fussing and only showed that he was bored by shaking his legs quite abit and looking at the door each time another kid entered the room with his/her parents.

I wasn’t sure what our roles were during the interview. Do I help TJ? Do I show him how to do each task step by step? Do I keep quiet and let him do his thing? Should I throw the things at the interviewer/teacher and growl at the school Principal? Oh I felt like growling at her when she asked if TJ knows colours. I suppose he does, but I don’t think it is an important knowledge to him.

Anyway D and I didn’t help much, I reckon the interviewer/teacher should  be able to see my son for who he is, and to see the merits of what he does even if it is not done in the standard way. I think any parent can train their kid to do similar tasks at home, and would then ”ace’ the interview. But I’m not that kind of parent, and I will not forcefeed my kid with such insanity either.  

I was thinking during the colour matching task: If I had known he was going to be asked about colours, I should have brought his toy vehicles, cos he recognises which is the GREEN motorcycle and the RED fire engine and the BLUE Thomas.

His boredom wasn’t the only thing that I sensed, D’s stress level was hitting me quite hard and after the interview, D felt awful for his son and I had to reassure my older kid that these tasks are crap and it doesn’t mean anything, and definitely doesn’t determine my son’s intellectual level at this age. Besides this silly exercise that we went through wouldn’t have been necessary back home in S’pore, and since we can’t fight the system here, we just had to do it. And well we wouldn’t know if we would be back home end of next year, and if we don’t return, these are just some of the things that we got to do now.

We wouldn’t know the results of the interview till 2 weeks later, and YMCA would only notify us of any interview next Mar, in other words, if a vacancy comes up cos YMCA kindy is more popular. I told D that if TJ can’t get into any school at 3, then let it be. He can enjoy his childhood abit more. Besides, if we do return to S’pore next year, finding a school for TJ wouldn’t be this hard and stressful. So either way, we shan’t stress our lives over this.

I had this urge to punch someone at the interview, and to prove to the interviewer that my son understands our questions, I asked him the ”handsome” question and he promptly raised his hand with a cheeky smile on his face.

And just before we left, TJ blew kisses at the interviewer, waved and said bye. He had pushed his chair out when he got off the chair, and I called him back, “Please push in your chair.” The boy walked back and did exactly what he was told and followed a very pleased mum out of the room.