School Updates

So I thought it might be time to send an update on the state of school.  The girls have finished their first trimester and Marc and I met with their teachers to see how things are going.  First our impressions, then the teachers’ impressions, and finally the girls impressions.

From our perspective the girls seem to be doing much better.  No more crying at the gate, no more tears before bed because of the stress, and more smiles at pick-up.  They seem to enjoy seeing their new friends at school and still really like lunch.  I will devote a blog post soon entirely to the school lunches here; they deserve their own post.  They get a 2-hour break for lunch and play time so I’m sure this really helps to break up the day and all the time spent at their desks.  They both seem to be doing better with homework and in starting to understand their teachers. Lola’s teacher did mention during our meeting that she now has to remind her not to talk with her neighbors in class … what a nice problem! (have to admit that this problem does run in my side of the family  :-) )  Also Téah added one day of “French School” to her schedule and she now goes every Wednesday morning by herself, which is quite an accomplishment. Although Marc had warned me, I was surprised that one of the biggest adjustments at the beginning for the girls was the style of teaching used by everyone. Lots of yelling at the kids, barking orders and threats constantly, particularly at the boys. And sure enough, the French kids don’t know any better, they just roll with it.  Actually, I believe the boys in particular are so used to it, it does not have any effect on their behavior anymore. We did have to help our girls understand that all this yelling was not directed at them and although we all miss their teachers from last year and the awareness our school has on emotional intelligence, adaptation was the only way through.

The teachers are happy with their progress, their French language teacher, Beatrice, did point out a low "buy-in" from the girls for the first month. She felt the girls had not been processing the move enough and where behaving as if they were going to return to the US soon. We both agreed with her observation, since we didn’t really have time to process the move ourselves. But over the fall, the girls started integrating themselves more socially, which in turn helped change their attitude towards their new situation. Lola has made huge progress in her cursive writing and is almost caught up with her math. Reading is still a bit behind, but that’s understandable since she is now learning to read in two languages at the same time. Téah is struggling a bit more, because of her year as a TK last year, she essentially has skipped a whole grade and is thrown into a class of kids that are expected to already have the building blocks of reading and writing. Poor Téah, she has had to grow quite a bit in 3 months. We have the alphabet down, still working on numbers, and if we are lucky, she will have almost caught up with the class by July. Téah’s regular teacher, Francoise, has unfortunately no English to fall back on to explain things to her, so Téah’s had to really figure it out on her own and that makes for very long days sitting at her desk. Lola’s teacher does have a little more English to help when needed, but Lola does come home not understanding big chunks of what happened during the day.

Now, let’s hear how the girls feel about their progress and school in general.  For consistency sake I went ahead and asked them the same questions I did at the beginning of the school year plus a few new ones.

Lola's Thoughts:

Q. What are you working on right now in school?

A. Before the break I was working on a calendar, making ornaments, practice writing cursive, learning multiplication and working on long addition

Lola's writing at the start of the year

Q. What do you like doing at recess?

A. I like playing tag prison and gamel with Jade, Roxane, Amelie, and my sister 

Note: over the Fall the girls actually got pretty into marbles and Pokemon too.  One thing that really stands out for me is that the boys and girls play together a lot during recess, on their own accord. I don’t feel like that happened as often back home.

Q. Are you still liking lunch at school?

A. Sometimes but it depends on what they serve, I like the mashed potatoes and meatballs, some of the desserts, and I always take a lot of bread

Lola's writing now -- having gone to school in the U.S. I have to admit that I can't help her much with the cursive here; many of the letters are actually written differently

   

Q. What do you think about “French Class”? – Lola is pulled out of her class twice a week to work on her French with other children in the district who are not native French speakers

A. I don’t like it much anymore because I feel like I’m missing out in my class at school and then I have to do make-up work when I get back to my class, I am learning new words in French class but I’d rather not miss out in my main class

Q. How do you feel about your progress overall?

A. I think I’m doing way better in writing, I’ve learned a lot of French and can communicate with my friends really well and I understand my teacher most of the time

Q. What do you like about school here?

A. Some of the work is fun, sometimes at the end of the day we get to do art, I like the lunch sometimes

Q. What do you not like about school here?

A. I don’t like it when I don’t understand my work and I have to wait for the teacher to come over and explain it to me, I don’t like on Mondays when I have to be at French school in the morning and then I can’t be with my friends at lunch, sometimes the kids are mean

Q. What do you miss about school at home?

A. I’m missing all my friends a lot and I miss my teachers, I miss all the freedom and the art

Teah's Thoughts:

Q. What are you working on right now in school?

A. Writing in cursive, a lot more math (learning our houses), some reading

Note: The math houses, if you're not familiar, are a way to learn all the different ways to get to a number (see photo below)

Q. What do you like doing at recess?

A. I like playing with my sister, play tag, play French games with my friends (Roxanne, Amelie, Eve)

Q. Are you still liking lunch at school?

A. Sometimes it’s yummy and sometimes it’s not, I like the mashed potatoes with butter and meatballs and the days they serve the fat fish

Q. What do you think about “French Class”? – Teah is pulled out of her class three times a week to work on her French with other children in the district who are not native French speakers

A. The school that it’s at is very overwhelming with lots of kids yelling and screaming, in the class I like to write things on the tableau (the white board), doing the morning questions with “tiki” (stuffed squirrel)

Q. How do you feel about your progress overall?

A. I’m getting way better at French and math, reading is hard, writing is a little hard, and I’m understanding my teacher better

Q. What do you like about school here?

A. Playing at recess, lunch time, going to the library

Q. What do you not like about school here?

A. The mean kids that don’t let me play with them, the mean maître (the male teacher that fills in for her main teacher), sitting all day at my desk is not fun

Q. What do you miss about school at home?

A. It’s much more fun and I really love all the play time and my friends