When my mother finally made the decision to take that great posting as a Divisional Head, I knew I was headed for trouble. Her office hours ran way beyond my normal school hours. And additionally, I was privy to the countless discussions both of my parents had concerning 'Honey, what do we do with the kids while you are working?' Well, in the end, they struck gold - an educational program after the regular school day. Won't that be completely perfect? Children are learning about new and different things all of the time while parents are happily nabbing greenbacks -- thanks to after school programs.

And so, we went directly to another class, our after school program, directly after the normal school day ended. The brochure about the after school program stated that they would be 'using fun activities and innovative teaching methods to fill the gap in your child's understanding'. I suppose that they meant that the teacher would write down homework assignments and that we would spend our time dealing with this homework. At least, this is what did happen most of the time. Of course, we didn't tell our parents about the situation. How could that help? They'd just sent us to another after school class doing the same thing.

I hated the after school classes. I was bored to tears or constantly falling asleep. After so many hours at school who'd want to spend the entire afternoon with the same books and stuck in school for even longer periods of time? But, as children, we had no real choice in these matters. This was particularly true when my parents were cleverly saying that mommy's salary will help get us that brand new TV or that great new video game. Lose some, win some, was my thought at the time.

In the end my sister rocked the proverbial boat. She decided she had enough of studying and refused to go to the after school class. That's when my parents began to smell something funny.

Shortly after that, they enrolled my sister and I in a better program. This new program was bigger, brighter and more enjoyable all around. We had some interesting games to partake in; we had access to a computer, too. Each of us got a chance to do something on the computer on a regular basis -- this was at the point in time when PCs were coming into vogue.

In the end, we had a little bit of everything during our after school programs: Acting classes, speech, games and of course painting.

At this time, so many years later, when I need to take up a job and leave my own child alone till I get back, I know how important these after school programs are to my children -- not only today, but into the future as well.

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