Last week, I took Gareth for his second session at Heguru. I met a mother who was attending Heguru with her 4th child – or rather, she was attending a right brain education school with her 4th child. Her first child attended Shichida. She switched over to Heguru because it was more convenient for her. With all her experience in right brain education (her oldest is now 7), I couldn’t resist asking her to share her thoughts. This was what she had to say:
- Read as much as you can about right brain education and attend as many talks as you can because it is important to fully understand it.
- Relax and love your child. It’s all about the love.
- Don’t worry if your child isn’t paying attention. Don’t even worry if your baby falls asleep in class. Even asleep, your child can absorb what is being presented.
- TweedleWink/Shichida/Heguru – it really doesn’t matter which school as long as your child is happy and feeling loved.
Observing her, I have to say that she is one of the most calm and relaxed women I’ve met. According to her, she wasn’t always like this – although I would never have guessed it. With her first child, she was too anxious to make sure her daughter was paying attention and learning. Since realising her mistakes with her first child, she has adapted her reactions with her other children. She says she can see the effects of her projections on her first child compared to the others.
I didn’t get to talk to her as much as I would have liked, but I was glad to get what little insight she shared. Her comments echo what little I have read from Makoto Shichida and Pamela Hickein so I guess we are on the right track. I still haven’t decided which class to cut for the boys – TweedleWink or Heguru – but I figure I’ll wait until the end of term to observe the boys’ reactions to their respective classes.
Currently, I think Gavin prefers Heguru over TweedleWink. Although he told me he prefer TweedleWink over Heguru, I have discovered that his interest in TweedleWink is largely to do with the trains in the play area and the colouring activity at the end of the class. Other than that, he seems intent on making a general nuisance of himself. In Heguru, he actually enjoys the games that they play and he participates in more activities.
As for Gareth, he seems to be quite happy to be in either class. He’s just a very curious baby who is interested in everything – including the stickers on the floor in TweedleWink and the blinds in Heguru. The choice on Gareth’s class is now largely hinging on how I feel. I find myself more comfortable in the TweedleWink class because the room is bigger and there are fewer students. I like the structure and order of the lesson and the laid back environment within the classroom that allows me to nurse Gareth and to pace up and down when he gets fussy. The nature of the class allows me to slip Gareth into the routine more easily.
You could say that how I feel is irrelevant. I thought so, too, at first. However, if you consider that children are very perceptive of our emotions and will reflect how we feel then how I feel is also important because Gareth will react to my emotions. If I am not comfortable in the class, he won’t be either. I have been trying to keep my feelings as neutral as possible, however, I still find myself to be a little more “gan cheong” (not sure if that’s how your spell it) in Heguru compared to TweedleWink.
While Gareth seems quite happy in both classes, I do think he pays more attention to the flashcards in Heguru because they are faster. When the flashcards are slow, he often looks away. He seems to pay more attention to rapidly changing scenes.
For reasons completely unrelated to the class, TweedleWink does have a couple of other benefits over Heguru. They offer replacement classes if you have to miss a class for any reason. They also allow you to stop lessons without penalty fees. So if I were to take the children to Australia for a month to visit their grandparents, I won’t have to pay anything at TweedleWink. However, I would have to pay a RM200 absence fee per child at Heguru.
So which class? Right now it looks like Heguru for Gavin and TweedleWink for Gareth. Since I have paid for the semester in TweedleWink, I think we should reserve the final decision until the end of the semester. Who knows, in a couple of months, the boys may react very differently…
Have your children been to Heguru and TweedleWink? Which did they prefer? Which did you end up staying with? Please share your views in the comments below.
Nurture for the Future 
I’d love to hear from anyone who is sending his/her child to Heguru. How does it compare to Shichida? My kids previously attended Shichida and Tweedle Wink classes, but we have no experience of Heguru.
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I’m happy that i found your blog, thanks for sharing your experience. I have no chance to attend of this right brain classes, so your experience really help me alot. The most important things to educate/bring up the child with “LOVE”. I always have worry on my child who always not paying attention when i read to him or flash the card for him. So, after reading this… i understand now, the child will absorb it. 🙂
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TW and Shichida is very near to my house in Damansara but still I chose to go to Heguru in MidValley because I love the class environment, my girl always enjoys flashcards there, and nice to see the kids go to front and introduce themselves – early public speaking for them. I like the teacher too, fast and good English pronounciation.
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PF – I’ve never taken the kids to Shichida so I can’t compare. Everything I know about Shichida is hearsay.
Jade – yes. It’s hard to accept that they will learn when we’re so used to the way we learn. We have to look at things and pay attention and it’s so easy to assume that it is the same way for children.
LadyD – Thanks for sharing. Who is your child’s teacher?
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My daughter attended Shichida since she was 7 months old to almost 3 years old. I am throughly impressed by the impact of Shichida. A lot of it depends on how mch you practice with the child at home. Not aware of TW or Heguru.
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Yes, I have heard the same thing from other mothers regarding home practice. I, too, have noticed bigger improvements with my son if I do home practice.
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My gal been to TW & Heguru, she preferred heguru more than TW especially the activities in Heguru. TW offered the music note and the sound and instruments for them to listen the different tone i.e. C sharp and G sharp sound, this isn’t have in Heguru.
my gal’s teacher is Evon @ Heguru. She still missed Sensei Evon, we stopped the class due to unable to find the car park and her Heguru time-table crashed with other activities if we choosen weekend. Daddy preferred her learning Mandarin rather than Heguru. 😦 (soob soob) so I’m pratice the activities at home with her.
Patience & Love is important, but I’m still learning, coz my weakness is lack of patience.
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shen-li,
this is probably not related to the post,but have you taken ‘wink ‘ program from TW? i am currently doing TW online overview course and wondering if doing wink program now, for my hubby and myself will be any good for our daughter, perhaps make us better parents?
also, I am doing flash cards in capital letters for my daughter, she knows her phonics, but the flash cards shown in TW dvd are in small letters. do you think this is okay?
thanks.
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Jo – Personally, I find the activities at Heguru more fun, too. But then I suppose that is because adults can do them, too, whereas TW activities are more geared towards children.
It is hard to decide what to send the kids to since there are so many great activities they can do but we have only so much time and money. Not to mention, if we send them to too many, they might not handle the hectic schedule well. I, too, wanted to send Gavin to Mandarin, but I also want him to do martial arts, and music, and tennis, and swimming, and golf – you see? :-p
I don’t practice with them everyday either – sometimes Gavin will say, “Mummy, I don’t want to do this.” So we don’t.
Irene – I have the wink program from TW and I practice from time to time on myself (although I have to admit, it is hard to find the time to be consistent about it). I do think being immersed in right brain education ourselves does help us be better parents. The more I understand about the workings of the right brain, the more I am convinced that we are better people for being able to use our right brain – and that applies not just to our children but to us as well.
Glenn Doman advised teaching children lowercase letters first because everything we read is usually printed in lowercase. It is not often you read words written in uppercase unless it is the first word of a sentence. IMAGINE READING THIS, FOR EXAMPLE. So I guess that might be why TW focuses on lowercase letters first. But there is certainly no harm flashing upper case for your daughter so she learns that there are two representations for each letter.
When I first started teaching Gavin it was before I read Doman so I started with capitals. Only after I read Doman that I quickly switched to lowercase. Seems to have been okay for him. He can read words in both uppercase and lowercase now.
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my daughter knows the phonics, so i am thinking that maybe learning to read by whole words method might not work so well for her. i am currently doing tw, and am thinking of a curriculum to supplement our curriculum at home, do you have any suggestion?
thanks.
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Mixing whole words with phonics can be complementary – that’s what the TW program does. They do both – whole words and phonics.
There are a lot of things you can do at home and you don’t have to follow any specific curriculum. I don’t. I take bits and pieces of programs I read about and implement them. We’ve done a bit of Montessori, Doman, Charlotte Mason and Tools of the Mind but I don’t follow them strictly. I also do TW and a bit of wink at home with the kids and also some replicated Heguru activities. Recently, I have been interested in the Waldorf program and I’ve been meaning to study the Brain Gym movements so I can do them with Gavin.
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thanks shen-li.
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hi, thnks for the info.now im looking for tweedle wink bcoz im also find a difficulty whr heguru ds not hv replacement class for whtever reason. plus we have to py 200 if apply for a leave. But d learning method is very good n intersting esp flash card….hmmm
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