Dear fellow parents ,

Greetings from The New School, so glad you are here.

I am Abirami Thiagarajan, a mother of two lovely children, who teach me so much about life. What I would like for my children in a school is what we do for every child in our school.

Being a mother literally transformed my life. When my son was old enough to be enrolled in a school, I wanted a space that would not focus only on academic excellence. There is more to a child than the marks he scores.

When we were growing up, many of us were told if we work hard and perform our best in board exams, our life would be sorted and settled for good. Running behind scores, we devoted most of our time and were trained to compete and outperform from an earlier age.

But all of us now well settled or not, would have understood that working hard doesn’t stop there. To sustain ourselves in a heavily competitive environment, we need strong willpower, good physical and emotional health, presence of mind, competency, ability to foresee, be creative, manage time and achieve work-life balance. For an adult to have all of these abilities, he as a child should have grown up in a space that supported and fostered a holistic approach towards education.

All the extra-curricular artistic activities that make a child happy should be given a great deal of emphasis as they lay the foundation for life. A keen interest in academics should be kindled and the need for learning something new should be established while children feel loved, cherished, supported and encouraged.

The New School was born out of a mother’s longing for such a space where the joys of childhood are protected yet the future is shaped.

Abirami Thiagarajan,
Correspondent,
The New School.