The seeds for founding a kindergarten were sown as early as 1995 when Betty Ho had her first child, Christopher. 'When I found out I was pregnant, I decided to quit my job, and became a 'full-time' mother. I started taking courses on early education, including right-brain training and prenatal education,' Ho recalls.
Two years later, Ho's second son, Kevin, was born, and this served as another nudge towards her current work. 'I was pondering what kind of job would allow me to observe and experience the development of my children,' she says. 'And coincidentally, an aunt of mine - who was about to retire - was selling her kindergarten.'
In 2005, Ho renamed Jimmy's Kindergarten the Rightmind Kindergarten, which served to mark eight years of honing her philosophy and the curriculum.
Ho also currently owns Rightmind International Nursery (Shum Wan) and was a co-founder of the KinderU Suzuki Music Academy.
Fundamental to her projects is an overarching belief in the importance of right-brain education in teaching, which allows children to learn 'in a pressure-free environment by means of music, games and flashcards.'
This is unsurprising given that Ho was the recipient of a largely Western education. What is more surprising, perhaps, is that the curriculum at her projects includes the Chinese classics, and the teaching method much vaunted by the Chinese - recitation.
'Chinese culture and wisdom has been around for thousands of years and I do believe that parents and educators will find solutions within classical thought and literature,' Ho says.