Should Choosing a School for your Toddler be Such a Stress?

"Education should ignite passion and foster awareness of the world beyond one's own. Ultimately, good education is more about who you are than what you do." - Jackie Bezos, Bezos Family Foundation.

As a parent myself, there's no doubt that I want my daughter to go to a good school to ensure she is future-ready. But, I hate the pressure going around with the arduous process of registrations, interviews, etc. to give your toddler a fighting chance to get into a school. And, despite all the conversation about how Indian smarts are an asset for the country, it's always seeming like supply of good schools falls far short of the demand? Why can't all schools just be good?

The pressure to get their child into right school for most parents I have met is unreal. As if it were a stamp of good parenting. When I hear other pre-school mothers discussing schools, the doubt invariably creeps in - Am I doing enough to ensure a good future for my child? A few months ago, my sister was really sad that she missed the deadline to a coveted Mumbai preschool, a registration deadline for when the child is only a few months old! Understandable that she missed this deadline - she was busy navigating the ambiguities of new motherhood and a very stubborn infant. Surely, the child will not enter the school till they are at least two years old. So why the early deadline? I can't imagine any admin needs two years to sift through applications. So, is it a Hermes like strategy?

So, I broke down the problem and here's what I think we need to answer. 1) What skills are needed early to make children future-ready? 2) What makes a good school? 3) How important are school to future success?

1) What skills are needed early to make children future-ready

It's been amply established through research that soft skills trump hard skills. More so, in our ever changing world, where 'doing' trumps 'degrees' and AI can now analyse big datasets, summarize thousands of research papers in minutes, write code and so much more.

Hence, what then makes a child future-ready?

I draw on Adam Grant's book Hidden Potential that draws on multiple studies and research:

The key character skills that have a stronger impact on future success than early academic skills are agency (the ability to make decisions), prosocial behavior (helping others), and grit (passion and perseverance).

While not undermining academic excellence, rarely anyone leverages what they learnt in school in their lives after. What is helpful, however, is learning to learn quickly. Making friends, working with your peers. Making decisions on a test, choosing subjects pique your interest and so much more. And, most importantly helping kids to lean into discomfort.

In the same book, Adam Grant breaks this myth about adaptive learning styles in the context of encouraging kids to embrace challenges. Now, most elite schools sell parents on the concept of learning styles: the idea that we all learn in different ways, and that we learn better when lessons are tailored to our preferred style, whether that be visual, auditory, or otherwise. But, as Grant writes, research actually suggests the opposite: That kids learn at least as well, if not better, when lessons are not tailored to their learning style.

As one paper concluded, “the recommendation to ‘teach to learning styles’ does not result in improved learning. In many cases, teaching to a learning style will result in stymied development and poor achievement because the approach to teaching does not address weaknesses.”

Put another way, “avoiding discomfort holds us back.” The reality is that the real world does not tailor experiences to suit your preferences. The idea is for children to learn from early on how to adapt themselves, no matter the teaching style or the experience.

So, why do we gravitate towards adaptive strategies and making things easier for our children? I think it’s largely because we are products of a fixed mindset culture — we believe that our kids (and we ourselves!) are either good at things or we aren’t. We’re born with ability or we’re not. But the fact is, skills can and do improve with practice aka grit. Many exceptional athletes, artists and scientists did not show obvious talent when they were young. They excelled in part because they leaned into what was hard and kept working at it until they got better.

2) What makes a good school?

Most school rankings post emphasis on academic success or physical infrastructure to indicate the quality of the school. By that measure, the toppers in grade examinations and best athletes in the country should come from the ranked schools. But we know, this is generally far from truth. Most excellence comes from middle class and diverse lower economic backgrounds. Then there is legacy - schools that have been operational for hundreds of years are considered "great". Just like legacy businesses are frequently disrupted time and again, it's time that perception moves away from pedigree and legacy academic institutions operating in traditional ways to more rational newer institutions that move to adapt to the changing times.

But the truth is that there is no objective way to rate schools. We can only assess how great a school is by walking the hallways, looking in on classrooms, talking with teachers and students, chatting with parents, and watching kids interact on the playground. Honestly, I believe most schools that anyone reading this essay will be considering are great schools. That's because you are already privileged and have won what Buffett calls the ovarian lottery because you are most likely in India's top 1% (earning ~Rs 20 lakh a year).

Subjectively, you can judge the quality of schools by breaking it down to answer questions: 1) Do students feel safe and cared for? 2) Are students being challenged? 3) Do students have opportunities to play and create? 4) Are students and teachers happy?

Indicators to assess school quality

And, while good schools are important. It's equally important to have parents back off and let schools do their jobs. Anand Sanwal wrote an excellent essay on a similar theme titled The Problem With School Might Be… Parents, and while rooted in America is as applicable everywhere.

Here, he shares how teachers report feeling pressured to immediately respond to parent emails about homework questions that students should be asking directly. Some schools have eliminated consequences like detention or failing grades which teach resilience and behavioral consequences and have replaced them with endless “second chances” often due to parental negotiation. This isn’t entirely the schools’ fault as they’re responding to parent pressure and liability concerns. But the result is an education system that increasingly treats parents as co-managers rather than supporters of their child’s learning journey. However, when parents pull back strategically, something remarkable happens:

• Teachers can focus on teaching instead of parent management

• Schools can set higher expectations because they’re not constantly negotiating them down

• Resources get directed toward actual education instead of damage control

• Kids develop real resilience because the system stops rescuing them

3) How important are schools to future success?

Maria Montessori got it right - early childhood education shapes our adulthood. Consistent research findings indicate that high-quality schools, characterized by well-trained teachers, rigorous curricula, and supportive environments are closely correlated with improved academic achievement and better long-term outcomes for children. However, this outcomes apply to the difference between good and bad schools. Crudely for most Indians, it's the difference between private versus government schools that are riddled with lower accountability and poor infrastructure.

If I look around me for most "successful" persons like an Indra Nooyi or Satya Nadella, most of these come from no-name middle schools. If I look at my peers, there's little perceived correlation between where they went to school and where they ended up in life. Primarily, because given the privilege we come from, no matter the schools we go to, we have self-selected these. And there's little difference between most education in most schools, no matter what curricula or board, etc. In fact, I argue that elitist schools that are really expensive (costing upwards of tens of lakhs) should in fact not be the preferred choices, because here you are self-selecting the peers that your child is interacting with, robbing them off friends who come from diverse experiences and are likely to work harder and challenge them greater.

So, if schools aren't all that important, then what is?

It's not that schools aren't important. It's that schools are only a factor in determining future success. Forming habits early is a great way to start. Elementary and middle school students with a strong work ethic and above-average performance are more likely to earn higher degrees, make more money, and be more satisfied with their life. But it's not just about the grades. Just as important is the child's mindset and attitudes to determine their future successes.

In conclusion, a child's future success is shaped by a complex interplay of cognitive and non-cognitive skills including and definitely not limited to family background, education, genetics, and environmental factors. While innate ability and early academic skills matter, the role of character development is equally if not more important in determining long-term outcomes.

So, I guess, we all should just chill and stress less about getting into that great school. It doesn't matter that much.