(Pre)School's Out

Reflecting on what Jasper's preschool has given us during the last two years.

Right now, I find myself on the roughest terrain I have encountered to date on the slow climb that is motherhood. It’s a stretch which, even after a month of trudging, still extends long and bleak out ahead of me as a steeplechase of transport logistics, questionable nutrition and a seemingly endless quest for entertainment; all while an unusually heavy cargo of mum-guilt grinds down on my shoulders. The guilt stems from not being there for him while he adjusts to the shift in routine (and change of nanny, but that’s a whole other story), but then it really blossoms when I admit to myself that if I were, we’d probably be driving each other up the wall because we both begrudge the lack structure and camaraderie we have at school or work. I am, of course, talking about navigating my first of many school holidays as a working mum. 

I actually probably can’t even count this as a proper school holiday, as it’s really the break between Jasper leaving preschool and him joining junior kindergarten. We haven’t reached school school yet. With two years of pre-school already under his belt at the wise old age of three and a half, he has entered the academic gauntlet far earlier than I did. And far earlier than I imagined he would before we moved to Mumbai and were sucked into the frenzy that swirls around education here. 

Back in 2021, when we first arrived in India, the number one question I was asked, often before someone even asked my name, was ‘which school is he going to?’ At the time Jasper was not even 18 months old, walking well but unable to speak beyond the letter ‘buh’ and, tightening my apron strings, I brushed off the inquiry more than once, with a laugh of ‘who knows!’ or a shrug of ‘oh, we’ll deal with that further down the line’. It was only once this question became more routine than theme that I realised I might have to take it more seriously. And by that, I mean, I started to panic about it. Panicking was easy, because every conversation I entered into with other toddler mums found its way quickly onto the topic of schools—by schools, I mean preschools—and my newfound fear was fanned from all sides by mums who had selected schools, mums who had been rejected by schools, mums who were on waiting lists for schools, and mums who simply couldn’t make up their minds about schools. All these mums were aghast that I hadn’t put so much as two minutes of thought towards this. And with valid reason. 

What I didn’t know then, but fully appreciate now (from an interloper’s perspective, I’ll admit) is that Mumbai’s private school system is horribly and all-consumingly competitive. The pre-school into which a child is admitted has a huge bearing on the school by which they will be accepted, which then has an even bigger influence on the university they will attend and the prospects they can expect for life beyond that. The overwhelming sense is that the channel you put your child in before they turn two is the channel in which they will swim for most of their life, with very few (if any) chances for them to change lanes. And given that every good parent wants the absolute best for their child, the only place to start is at the top. 

Schools and preschools know this and gleefully belittle and patronise parents with a gruelling campaign of interviews and assessments during which they demand to know birth stories (natural vs c-section and the birth weight of the child), conduct amateur psych evaluations (looking at cryptic corporate team-building visuals and answering how it could be used as a teaching aid for a child) and all while hiding the true standard and nature of their classrooms behind the smoke and mirrors of ‘we only allow confirmed students inside the school’. And yet, for many parents, this process is a necessary evil as early as at preschool level because some nurseries are reputed to be ‘more academic’ than others and their ‘outputs are superior’. 

I was exceptionally fortunate that my panic around Jasper’s schooling didn’t last long. In the land of first-time mums, a second-time mum is the flame around which we flailing novice moths flap and fidget, hanging on their every wise word, and following their every tested move. Deciding quickly, and somewhat flippantly given the gravity of the decision, that a preschool’s proximity to our residence was more important than anything, I followed a recommendation from a veteran second-timer and enrolled Jasper into a wonderful pre-school called the Mango Tree, where her daughter had been and her son was about to start. We started with the ‘summer camp’ mother-toddler classes and then signed him up for the full-time playgroup a couple of weeks later. We were required to interview but did not feel unduly pressured, perhaps because the founder is a fellow Brit. 

From the first day when he entered the school without a grizzle or a tear, until he ‘graduated’ this past May, Jasper enjoyed the happiest, most magical and (of course) educational two years under the nurturing, watchful care of the Mango Tree, and he loved (almost) every minute of it. As did I. 

Jasper and I at the drop off for his school concert this year.

Nearly everything I know about India, I have learned from Jasper since he began to speak. The Mango Tree shaped his early experience of Mumbai and gave him a rich introduction to Indian culture which, thankfully, he has passed on. Through his daily response to my ‘what did you learn at school’ conversation starter, he has taught me about the meaning behind most of the major festivals, the significance of various former political leaders, the names of and stories behind several famous Hindu gods, the phonetic lyrics of the Indian national anthem and the correct way to pronounce many Indian names. What he has not taught me is how to colour within the lines, and I have the evidence to suggest I have done nothing to help him with that either. 

"Can do better!" "Please practice colouring"

Beyond the technical (and surprisingly academic) content of the classes, what blew me away time and time again was the creativity of the teachers. And not just creativity, their apparently relentless enthusiasm for toddler wrangling in challenging environments too. Before he even sets foot in his ‘big school’, Jasper will have performed in two concerts, participated in two sports days and been on more field trips than some ten-year-olds. 

Field Trips

It turns out, I have kept a very poor record of all the field trips Jasper has enjoyed over the past two years, but trawling through the photos on my phone, it appears there have been at least thirteen occasions on which some very brave adults herded anywhere between ten and thirty wildlings around a public place. There was the wander round the Hanging Gardens, a park in South Bombay, specially timed during monsoon to maximise puddle-jumping and snail-spotting opportunities; the trip to what Jasper has since referred to as ‘his’ car wash where they got to watch cars being lifted up and tinkered on by teams of mechanics; the time Tony gatecrashed the bus station visit when Jasper got to pay for and ride on a public (but privately reserved) bus; the demonstration and DIY at the fire station, hippo and tiger watching at the zoo, toddler take-over on the monorail, castle building at the beach for Children’s Day, two episodes of supermarket sweep (I am quite sure there were some thieves in the group, witting or unwitting) and an absolute blast (off) at the Nehru science centre which Jasper talked about for weeks. Most recently, they were taught the rules of the road at the traffic park, had more fun than has ever been recorded at a dentist and learned that ‘the lady policeman had the biggest gun’ at the police station. He certainly hasn’t wasted a moment of his time in Mumbai and has seen more of the city than I have. 

I have no experience or knowledge of nursery school field trips in other countries or cities, but I do have a strong sense of how chaotic Mumbai is and how unpredictable toddlers are. The fact that all those who went on each of these trips returned unscathed is nothing short of commendable. My favourite field trip was actually the time they took the kids just a hundred metres up the road for a Darshan (opportunity to see a holy person or the image of a deity) during one of the festivals and weaved their way there as a little bobbing snake of three-year-olds, walking nose to tail, holding onto a rope to ensure they shuffled in strict single file. 

End of year theme days

It really struck me just how much of themselves the Mango Tree teachers gave to the kids when Jasper finished his first year there. In celebration of the end of Playgroup, every day of the last week was a themed day and the teachers went all out with decorating and dressing for the theme. One day they invited a fruit seller in so the kids could buy fruit, another day they pampered the kids with cooling cucumber eye masks, foot spas and hair styling, one day they played chef, and then there was the pyjama party, complete with popcorn and a movie. While he might not remember these activities in the long run, Jasper clearly loved them and the photo evidence I collected will serve me very well as he gets older. 

Sports Day

I wrote about our first sports day almost as soon as we had attended it, so uncontainable was the pride I felt for Jasper’s efforts (two races, two gold medals, no big deal). That first year, the teachers refused to tell the parents anything about the format of the races so that nobody overzealous would try to train their kids towards an advantage. The plan worked because none of the young racers were able to form full sentences, let alone describe the exact construct of their obstacle course. All we knew was that Jasper’s race was something to do with two of his favourite things: running and a ball. 

In our second year, Jasper was more than capable of describing to us what he was supposed to do on the day. Supposed is the operative word here. He had an entry march, a yoga demonstration, a flat sprint and an obstacle course on his To Do list, but the tears started about halfway through the march, when he spotted Dylan and me, very poorly camouflaged amongst the throng of expectant parents, flowed into the yoga and carried him about twenty yards down his forty yard dash before rendering him unsportsmanly. The teachers, true to form, did their absolute best to help him see the fun in it and reminded him that through the month-long rehearsal/ training period he had performed beautifully, but their optimism was no match for his mood that morning. He cried until Dylan couldn’t take it any more and went to rescue him from the holding pen the kids were stashed in between races. Other parents from our class were surprised to see a reputedly sporty Jasper not finish a single race and we never did decide if he was unwell, shy or just a pre-emptive sore loser in light of faster legs (and more eager ears) on his classmates this year. 

School Concert

In his first year, Jasper took the school concert by storm. He did absolutely none of the dance moves he had spent months learning, and instead led a rebel faction running in circles upstage. I lost count of the number of parents who, correctly identifying us as the parents of the one blond child on stage, said ‘Well, he certainly had fun, didn’t he?’ At the time we thought perhaps he enjoyed the stage but in retrospect, I think maybe he didn’t realise he was on a stage. 

This year, my expectations were exceptionally low. Not only had he not followed protocol at last year’s concert, he had also blown his medal chances at sports day by succumbing to a serious case of refusal. On top of that, Dylan was away in Singapore on the day of the concert and nothing seems to up-end Jasper more quickly than Dylan not being where he should be. Jasper’s teachers had told me that Jasper seemed reluctant to perform and, on account of the temperament I suspect he gets from me, they were not pushing him into something he didn’t want to do. 

His class were carrying the show, narrating and acting an adapted musical version of Julia Donaldson’s ‘Monkey Puzzle’, while the younger kids danced (or didn’t dance) their way through a series of jungle-themed choreographies on stage. Jasper was the caterpillar in the Monkey Puzzle narrative; a role I assumed had been carefully chosen because it wasn’t instrumental to the success of the storytelling but also, I deduced, because as the only non-Indian in his class, his appearance added significant humour to the butterfly’s line:  ‘None of my babies look like me’. He had practised and practised his two lines, both at school and at home, and we all knew he could say them. But we also all knew that his mood on the day would dictate whether or not he wanted to say them. 

The show was in the same full-sized theatre as the year before and, as I dropped him off backstage before the show, I would certainly not have put any money on him doing as was directed. He was clingy and reluctant and had to be peeled off me. As he stepped onto the stage for his first dance routine half an hour later, I could see him squinting against the stage lights, looking for me in the (thankfully) darkened auditorium. I was sitting suitably far back and was making no effort to be seen. He took a while to warm up, starting off with awkward, shy movements and building up to sky-high frog leaps and wonderfully projected lines—delivered in his fine Indian accent. I was unbelievably proud but also a little bit relieved that I am fairly sure I can cross ‘stage mum’ off my list of possible futures. 

The school concert marked the beginning of the end and the downhill cruise towards graduation. Some terrible school photos (for the second year in a row, Jasper was under the weather and very awkward in his poses) and a lot of seasonal viruses. What was even sadder than saying goodbye to the Mango Tree, for us, was that we never had the chance to do so. Jasper was sick on the last day of school and so never got to bid farewell to his teachers, his friends or the wonderful little school into which he settled so easily and out of which he got so much. 

Still, we will always be eternally grateful to the Mango Tree for welcoming Jasper, and by extension us, to Mumbai and bringing some structure and routine to our lives. The trouble I face right now, however, is that the Mango Tree’s success has put enormous pressure on me for this year’s extraordinarily long break between schools; setting an impossibly high standard for the immersive, sensory stimulation he’s used to. Besides the highly competitive nature of schools in Mumbai, another fault in the system is that there is very little consistency as far as term dates between different schools. This flexibility in term dates has left us with twelve, long, unstructured, monsoon-logged weeks of holiday between the Mango Tree and Jasper’s next port of educational call: DSB, informally known as the German School.

We are five weeks into this mammoth summer holiday and Jasper is nearing the end of his time at the one ‘summer camp’ I liked the look of at The Messy Art House (which basically gives him a chance to do everything we can’t do inside a rented apartment). His daily dose of art has given him an hour and a half of entertainment and us a table full of ‘artwork’ that needs to work its way slowly towards the appropriate dustbin (shhhhh!). 

Messy Art ending leaves me with long days to fill for Jasper and this is made harder by the fact that most of his good friends are travelling. But it’s OK, because in just over two weeks, Jasper and I are heading to South Africa for our very own adventure in the Western Cape. We are leaving Dylan to suffer the monsoon alone, but we (or maybe ‘I’) have decided that this is  a necessary sacrifice to give Jasper the opportunity to see tractors, mud, sheep, pigs and cows: a farmyard Big Five for city folk.