If I had to choose again, I definitely wouldn’t choose Challenger. My 3½-year-old daughter cried for four months at Challenger. In the beginning I thought it was my daughter’s problem — she just didn’t want to leave me. But after talking with the headmaster, I suddenly realized: it wasn’t my daughter’s issue — it was their teaching philosophy.
1. They believed my daughter couldn’t control her emotions, and they expected her to — but she’s only three, her brain isn’t developed for that yet. Expecting a three-year-old to “control her emotions” is like expecting a one-year-old to control her bladder — it’s a physiological development issue. And the headmaster should know that.
2. My daughter didn’t know any English when we first enrolled her. Within four months she could understand all the teacher’s instructions and even speak short sentences. Yet the headmaster still said she wasn’t speaking “long sentences.” As an early-childhood educator, she failed to recognize this progress in a child entering a completely foreign environment.
3.Once she cried so badly that the headmaster came over to comfort her, but my daughter refused to talk to the headmaster and threw herself into the arms of her teacher. The headmaster concluded that my daughter lacked the normal ability to communicate. But my daughter had only met the headmaster twice — she was basically a stranger to her — so when she was sobbing, she rejected the stranger and ran to the teacher she knew. To me, that is a completely normal reaction — yet in the headmaster’s eyes, it meant my daughter “couldn’t communicate properly.”
4.The headmaster claimed my daughter would cry loudly, scream, and stomp her feet in class. But from a very young age she never behaved that way; even in the first two months at Challenger she only cried quietly out of fear — never screamed or stomped. Only after being moved to a different class and failing to adapt to the new teacher’s methods did she show those intense reactions. She was using her own way to cry out for help — yet the headmaster and teachers didn’t see it. At home she also became moody and unreasonable.
Because of what the headmaster said, we decided to withdraw her. We enrolled her in a new school, and I was worried she might not adapt — new environment, new teachers, new friends. But after only a few scattered days of crying, she quickly grew to love school! In talks with her new teacher, I, as a parent, deeply felt the teacher’s love for children, her understanding and acceptance. She treated my daughter like a child — a real child. That’s why my daughter was able to feel safe and confident so fast. Now she’s been at the new school for three months, and every day she’s very happy — her English communication is no problem at all. This has only strengthened my conviction: my daughter was never the problem — it was Challenger’s teaching philosophy.