Now which class?

Choices, choices, choices. Decisions, decisions, decisions. This becomes a major part of life when you ahve kids. They may not be life changing decisions but are non the less important to my child and may determine whether she will be happy or not in school for the next one year at least.

After deciding which school to enroll her into, now is which class for next year. Alysha's current teacher is just great. She is just so sensitive to Alysha's feelings and is very patient about the fact that she still cries once a while when I drop her to school.

For next years (4-5 year olds) I have a choice of 3 classes. One is a Chinese medium class which I have decided not to go for. She will still have mandarin classes in the other 2 classes. This class is more for children who are planning to go to a Chinese medium school. They emphasis as much on writing in Chinese as they do on reading.

The 2 other classes have different teachers.

Class No 1
One is an old timer.. She has been there for like 20 years. She is a little sticky about discipline. I say sit, you sit or else.....She indicated that she has adapted well to todays style of teaching. At the same time I realized that she focused a lot on learning. Learning to read in a very structured way, learning to write - the proper strokes, curves, etc. I know that with her, Alysha will be able to read and write well by the end of next year. But with her, the apples on the trees have to be red or green "because they have to depict reality, the real world".

What would she do if Alysha decides to make them colorful?, which she most likely would. I don’t know, punish her maybe, I am only guessing here. Or she may not like Alysha very much then.
Alysha would make them even more colorful if you insisted that they should be green or red. Yes! that’s my daughter.

Class No 2
In the other class, there is a younger teacher. She came over from another pre school recently after the new principle came in, also from the same school. The end game is the same. At the end of the year, she to aims for her children to be able to read and write but she is not too structured in how she wants to do it. Alternatively you could say,, she is not to sure on how she wants to do it. A little more laid back, this one. May not get upset or push the child if a child decides not to read or write on any particular day. Whereas the other one I know will insist and try harder.

Alysha may not be able to read and as well as she would if she was in class no 1 but she may be halfway there.

Oh! the apples on the tree must also be green or red but if Alysha decides to make them colorful, my guess is she may be cajoled into coloring them read or green. If it still does not work, she may be left to do what she wants.

Now, the deciding factor. Alysha has 4 close friends in the current class. Sonia, Christie, Venesa and Reshmi. She does not like boys! maybe just Sri Ram and Sonia's brother - cant remember his name. Three out of the 4 frinds are going to class no 2.

Should this be the deciding factor? Will she be miserable if none of her friends were in her class? Very likely.

So is it now obvious which class?