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| Simon, side 1 |
On Friday morning, we had parent-teacher conferences at the kids' daycare. We had Simon's conference first, and the teachers had nothing but kind things to say about him. One funny story was that apparently they taught Simon to shout, "Mine!" when another kid grabs something from him. Perhaps its a feature of being a second child that he was a little more passive. I do remember when he started screaming at Alice "That's mine! I want it!" when she would grab something from him, but hadn't realized that they taught or encouraged him to do that. This is why I think daycare is really good, because the kids pick up on stuff (mostly good) that we wouldn't necessarily think to teach them.
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| Simon, side 2 |
I'm always skeptical of all the praise for the kid though, because we're paying them, and what parents would send their child to a school where the teachers criticized their kid? I always think a big part of their training is probably how to always say things in a positive way, so as to never offend any parents. One awkward thing is that I always want to know how Simon compares to other children. Not in a competitive sort of way, but just to have a reference point. We can only compare him to Alice, but she wasn't exactly normal, so it's hard to get a sense of his development. Simon is still in the room one step up from the baby room, and he's the oldest in the class now, so we hope he'll move up to the next room soon, so he can start to learn some new things.
After Simon's conference, we had to wait in the hall for a few minutes before Alice's conference. We were chatting with Ms. Georgiana, the head of the school, and she was saying how she thinks Simon is smarter than Alice because he's the only kid in the school who can pronounce her name correctly. She also said that when Alice moved up to the big class, she had told the teachers that Alice was handful, but that they would love her. It is so nice to feel like the teachers really appreciate the qualities of our kids and know them so well.
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| Alice, side 1 |
With that in mind, we went to meet with Alice's teachers. They said she was learning to read and progressing very well. Then they started to scare us, by saying how bored she would be in Kindergarten, because she would already know how to read by then, and that it might lead to behavior problems. I hadn't really started the process of looking into Kindergarten's yet, so this was a big wake-up call, that it's really just right around the corner.
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| Alice, side 2 |
They had a few other stories to share. They wanted us to know that Alice tells them everything. This does worry me, because she is not always accurate (case in point: the other day, she ran and tattled to Zac that I had called her "poopy girl" when in fact I had called her "monkey girl"). Since we often know the truth and see how she misrepresents it, it makes me worry what people think when I'm not there to tell the real story. They seemed to want to share a particular story that bothered them. They said that one day at lunch, Alice had announced, "My mommy told me only three people can touch my vagina: myself, my doctor, and my mommy!" The teachers were mortified that she was talking about this at the table and that other kids were then asking what a vagina was. While I agree it was poor timing on Alice's part, I'm not going to refrain from teaching her important things like that just out of fear that she'll bring it up at lunch. Besides, I was actually proud that she had gotten it right. In my mind, I also had a brief flashback to my time in Namibia working with the HIV/AIDS club to create "peer educators." I could totally see Alice doing that.
Her teachers had another, less embarrassing, story to share. Apparently, one day Alice was not trying her hardest at her work (Exhibit A) and so Ms. Marta, in a moment of creative genius, just gently took Alice by the hand and took her down to spend some time in the baby room. The message was that if she didn't want to do work, that was the room for her.
Ms. Marta said Alice understood the lesson, and the next day worked much harder (Exhibit B). I like that they really understand Alice, and that she almost always responds to a lesson, if you can figure out how to get her to understand. I just hope her Kindergarten teacher is good at figuring out how to deal with Alice!
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| Exhibit A |
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| Exhibit B |
