Today I took Pixie's little sister to an 'enrichment center'. I thought I was going for a beginner's Mandarin playgroup, but later I realized the center where the class was being held called itself 'a children's enrichment center.'
So we reached this place, located in the maze-like Publika mall. Baby Pixie was all grumpy and making her 'going home' face for which I guess her 5:30 morning wake up was mostly to blame. Anyway we entered a small rather clinical room with a faint musty smell about it. I guess the organizers felt some Chinese character wall charts and a few Ikea mats and tubs made the room all nice and cozy for little children. The airconditioning was minimal. Three small children sat on the ground. The youngest looking one was in the arms of a very sad-faced helper, while the child's bouncy smiling mother sat nearby; another little one came accompanied by her grandmother.
The teacher was a harried looking well-meaning lady who didn't quite know what to make of me (the only non-Chinese mother in the room, excluding the helpers). She asked if 'mummy knows a little Chinese?" rather hopefully then said something to the others about this in Chinese.
Baby Pixie was beginning to positively hate the entire set up and I was wondering if I should beat a hasty retreat even as this thought went through my head, the teacher began a parts of the body session. The little children roughly between the ages of 10 months to about a year and a half were then treated to a song demonstrating body parts in Chinese. It got more complicated as the kids were rapidly introduced to eyes, ears, mouth, long neck, nose and then some animals were used and to add to the confusion the nose became the trunk.
The teacher next moved on to a strange game of numbers where she laid out a row of objects before the bewildered children (while baby Pixie, fingers tightly clutching bunches of her hair, began making her dangerous 'very big tantrum coming' face) These objects were meant to resemble the numbers unfortunately nobody quite got the resemblance and the whole point was lost in fidgety kids, a flustered teacher, some inane song on the CD player and a momentarily distracted baby Pixie staring hard at a plastic elephant's trunk.
The next step in this rapidly unraveling 'playgroup' was an egg and spoon race where the teacher seriously expected these little children to walk with an oversize plastic egg and spoon from one point on the tackily carpeted floor to another without dropping the plastic egg down. When the confusion got sorted out with the little ones deciding to take a little water break and promptly lost all interest in silly eggs and spoons, the teacher introduced her next 'interactive game' -- I have no idea what it is she wanted to achieve but we decided to leave at the point she was getting barely able to walk babies to give their carers a 'massage' to bond with said carer and learn Chinese rhymes.
Obviously the organizers have no idea what a playgroup is about which is rather sad, especially when I think back to Pixie's fun early Mandarin playgroup at her teacher's apartment in Discovery Bay, HK. I came away firmly deciding to stay away from all 'enrichment centers' for a while. Especially those which used words like 'brainy' in their names.
So we reached this place, located in the maze-like Publika mall. Baby Pixie was all grumpy and making her 'going home' face for which I guess her 5:30 morning wake up was mostly to blame. Anyway we entered a small rather clinical room with a faint musty smell about it. I guess the organizers felt some Chinese character wall charts and a few Ikea mats and tubs made the room all nice and cozy for little children. The airconditioning was minimal. Three small children sat on the ground. The youngest looking one was in the arms of a very sad-faced helper, while the child's bouncy smiling mother sat nearby; another little one came accompanied by her grandmother.
The teacher was a harried looking well-meaning lady who didn't quite know what to make of me (the only non-Chinese mother in the room, excluding the helpers). She asked if 'mummy knows a little Chinese?" rather hopefully then said something to the others about this in Chinese.
Baby Pixie was beginning to positively hate the entire set up and I was wondering if I should beat a hasty retreat even as this thought went through my head, the teacher began a parts of the body session. The little children roughly between the ages of 10 months to about a year and a half were then treated to a song demonstrating body parts in Chinese. It got more complicated as the kids were rapidly introduced to eyes, ears, mouth, long neck, nose and then some animals were used and to add to the confusion the nose became the trunk.
The teacher next moved on to a strange game of numbers where she laid out a row of objects before the bewildered children (while baby Pixie, fingers tightly clutching bunches of her hair, began making her dangerous 'very big tantrum coming' face) These objects were meant to resemble the numbers unfortunately nobody quite got the resemblance and the whole point was lost in fidgety kids, a flustered teacher, some inane song on the CD player and a momentarily distracted baby Pixie staring hard at a plastic elephant's trunk.
The next step in this rapidly unraveling 'playgroup' was an egg and spoon race where the teacher seriously expected these little children to walk with an oversize plastic egg and spoon from one point on the tackily carpeted floor to another without dropping the plastic egg down. When the confusion got sorted out with the little ones deciding to take a little water break and promptly lost all interest in silly eggs and spoons, the teacher introduced her next 'interactive game' -- I have no idea what it is she wanted to achieve but we decided to leave at the point she was getting barely able to walk babies to give their carers a 'massage' to bond with said carer and learn Chinese rhymes.
Obviously the organizers have no idea what a playgroup is about which is rather sad, especially when I think back to Pixie's fun early Mandarin playgroup at her teacher's apartment in Discovery Bay, HK. I came away firmly deciding to stay away from all 'enrichment centers' for a while. Especially those which used words like 'brainy' in their names.
