As a foreigner with a five-year-old bilingual son, my perspective is limited and ongoing, i.e., I might have more thoughts several years down the road. For the most part I think that kids are under far less pressure here than in my own country(USA!) in an almost uncountable multitude of ways. Sometimes my sister has written of issues that her children have and they are usually something that me and my girlfriend just can't relate to--I end up thinking, thank God we are not in the gigantic competitive pressure pot that is the US of A. Even though there's a lot more entertainment for the kids there(and I miss that), I personally think life is so much more psychologically difficult.
With that lengthy caveat, my biggest worry about my son is that the teachers will somehow single him out in English classes in the futue. I know several expat parents whose bi-lingual children have been literally failed in class; sometimes this is for using words that aren't in the book(often American words vs. textbook's typically southern English dialects); sometimes because of some misguided notion that their accent is 'wrong' (even though expat kids' accents are often more developed than their teachers'; and sometimes because the children act up in class out of boredom(imagine as a native speaker, having an class in your native language at the age of 7 where you are being taught colors and numbers and so on--how dull would that be?); and finally some teachers seem to have an unconscious issue with native speakers who show them up--I suppose it's an envy thing.
My other fear is that many of the schools in the Czech Republic are very conservative where it comes to handwriting; cursive is taught first(in fact, printing is not really taught at all) and they can be very strict about people with unacceptable handwriting. AS someone who struggled to write cursive legibly as a child and, in fact, who would struggle now if I had to do it, I worry that my son will be singled out and even put in remedial schools if his handwriting doesn't make the cut. This could drastically influence his entire life for the negative. How rational this fear is, I really can't say.
Lastly my fear is that the Czech Republic education system, which is really good for maths and sciences and technical things does not excel at teaching critical thinking. To be fair, I'm not sure that if the test-based curriculum of many American schools is any better, though--it's been a long, long time since I was in school there. In any case, I don't think that my son is going to end up being particularly technically adept and so will miss the benefit of this school system. My son is bright but his brain works like mine, in a fashion more abstract than concrete, unlike many Czechs or even his half-brothers
So there you have it: I worry about school for my son. Those worries are mostly based on his character and my fear on how he will react to a rigid system. They probably wouldn't apply to every child. For most children I think the school system is probably just fine.
With that lengthy caveat, my biggest worry about my son is that the teachers will somehow single him out in English classes in the futue. I know several expat parents whose bi-lingual children have been literally failed in class; sometimes this is for using words that aren't in the book(often American words vs. textbook's typically southern English dialects); sometimes because of some misguided notion that their accent is 'wrong' (even though expat kids' accents are often more developed than their teachers'; and sometimes because the children act up in class out of boredom(imagine as a native speaker, having an class in your native language at the age of 7 where you are being taught colors and numbers and so on--how dull would that be?); and finally some teachers seem to have an unconscious issue with native speakers who show them up--I suppose it's an envy thing.
My other fear is that many of the schools in the Czech Republic are very conservative where it comes to handwriting; cursive is taught first(in fact, printing is not really taught at all) and they can be very strict about people with unacceptable handwriting. AS someone who struggled to write cursive legibly as a child and, in fact, who would struggle now if I had to do it, I worry that my son will be singled out and even put in remedial schools if his handwriting doesn't make the cut. This could drastically influence his entire life for the negative. How rational this fear is, I really can't say.
Lastly my fear is that the Czech Republic education system, which is really good for maths and sciences and technical things does not excel at teaching critical thinking. To be fair, I'm not sure that if the test-based curriculum of many American schools is any better, though--it's been a long, long time since I was in school there. In any case, I don't think that my son is going to end up being particularly technically adept and so will miss the benefit of this school system. My son is bright but his brain works like mine, in a fashion more abstract than concrete, unlike many Czechs or even his half-brothers
So there you have it: I worry about school for my son. Those worries are mostly based on his character and my fear on how he will react to a rigid system. They probably wouldn't apply to every child. For most children I think the school system is probably just fine.
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