ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರು ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು is a famous Kannada proverb, hard to find an equivalent in English but loosely translates to don’t believe whatever you see with your eyes, have patience and investigate before forming your opinion. Now, what is the link between this proverb and my daughters playschool/pre-school?
When we moved to Circle C back in 2012, Avni had barely turned one and time flew while we were settling in the new home and poof, she was close to 2 years. Considering all our known parent friends were sending their kids to some sort of playschool for a few hours in a day (at least that’s the perception we had), we also as dutiful parents decided to do the same. So, went around exploring the possibilities in the neighborhood.
The first place we checked out was Xplor, it is a commercial location with branches all over the city and some of my friends had already enrolled their kids there and they offered cool things like video feed from the child’s classroom and flexible hours and the teachers had uniforms and so on. All in all they had a good marketing team and front desk and we were smitten by their technology and facility. We were impressed by their facility and almost immediately made up our minds to try this place for our daughter.
Right next door was Circle-C CDC (Child Development Center), we went there just to inquire and the appearance of the place gave a gothic feel with dark hall way and not so well lighted reception which was instead of being clearly visible from the entry door was located half way down the corridor. To top this there was an angry receptionist who was mad at us for showing up at the door without making an appointment. All of which somewhat discouraged us and what choice we made is fairly obvious.
In Xplor, my daughter lasted barely 2 days and we had to pull her out of it. She did not like it at all, the impersonal treatment of kids, teachers busy making notes to handout to parents at the end of the day and their insistence on them providing lunch, all together combined with the fact she fell terribly sick at the end of day 2 made us pull her out of it. To top it off, they had big time teacher attrition. If there is 1 day I regret not taking the right action in Avni’s life, her day 2 in Xplor would be on top.
After pulling her out of Xplor we enrolled in some home day care for a few months and meanwhile scheduled a tour of CDC. When the director Shaun C gave us a tour I realized this place is wonderful and they had a lot to offer than dark hallways. We couldn’t enroll Avni then but had to wait for next term before enrolling her and its been 2 years since then and 1 more year to go before she goes off to public school. There are a lot of things to love about CDC, to start with the fact that the teacher visited our home before school start, the kids stay together for the whole year, very low attrition of teachers (almost zero), lots of games and learning, a fun place for kids and lot more good things. Since day 1, Avni has loved to go to this place and has almost never said she doesn’t want to go to school that day.
So, ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರು ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು :)
