Run-up to PSLE

The one-week school holidays just ended but if you ask Andre about it, he's likely to answer, "what school holidays??"

Can't blame him, really. He's had to attend supplementary classes in school for three days in addition to finishing the homework teachers have dished out. It's the final stretch to the PSLE (slightly over two weeks to the first paper, 5 days to the listening comprehension exams) and the school has been going at it in full force.

At home, I had a sudden surge of panic when we realised how close the PSLE was. I know there are parents who plan for this momentous event months in advance... we're not those parents. We're the "oh we still have time let's get some ice cream and have a movie night OMG PSLE IS IN 30 DAYS!!" kind of parents. And we wonder where our kids got their habit of procrastination from.

It's not that Andre hasn't been doing any revision. But while he has been ploughing through his fair share of exam papers, it's definitely not at the intensity of some other kids. In fact, when I compare what he has been doing with Lesley-Anne during her PSLE preparations three years ago, his is undoubtedly more relaxed. Back then, Lesley-Anne was doing as many as four exam papers (one for each subject) every day, in the run-up to PSLE. Whereas for Andre, I only recently started making him do one paper, at most one-and-a-half, a day.

Why the double standard? Perhaps one reason is that I got lazy. And tired. Hey, setting papers means somebody has to mark them and go through the mistakes. Guess who that lucky somebody is.

However, I also like to think that I'm tailoring the pace to each child's capacity. Lesley-Anne's tolerance level for gruelling, repetitive seatwork is way higher than Andre's. It has less to do with ability than personality.

I think we need to realise that even for something like revision, it's different strokes for different folks. Sure, practice makes perfect but for an active child like Andre, if I were to coerce him into spending hours at his desk doing paper after paper, I suspect at some point, diminishing returns would take place, ie instead of performing better, he would actually be so mentally drained that he would make more mistakes. Worst case scenario? Burn out.

So what I've been doing instead is making him do revision in short bursts of time, usually an hour at a go. In between these revision periods, he goes outside to get his daily dose of exercise - anything from badminton and basketball to swimming and table tennis, even mini ping pong!

Exercise clears his mind, helps him release his pent-up energy and gets him refreshed for more studying. And yes, he still watches tv daily although he has voluntarily given up computer games till after the exams.

I don't know if this is the best way of handling PSLE preparations, I just go on my gut feel. But for this past month (after the aforementioned panic attack), I've sort of adopted a que sera sera attitude and I thought I would write this note of encouragement to my friends and readers with PSLE kids this year.

You see, I figure that since I've been praying for a miraculous surge of scholarly brilliance in Andre for the past few years and it has yet to happen, it's unlikely to occur within the next three weeks.

Too often, we give ourselves ulcers over things that we can do absolutely nothing about (I'm extremely guilty of this). We can only do what we think is right and trust that God knows best. He really does. For now, we can barely look past the dreaded exams whereas God has already planned our children's entire education journey, their career path, every step to their last days on earth. Funny how relinquishing control to God is often the hardest thing to do, yet it is also the easiest.

I'm just thankful that Andre has shown a remarkably good attitude towards his revisions, and that he still eats well and sleeps well. Beyond that, we're leaving the rest to God.

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" - Jeremiah 29:11