Womze - Cross Cultural Parenting

We stopped over at a neighbors place who’s starting a home daycare.  Hubby and I have decided to move Baby Brother from his regular daycare to this home daycare and we were there to go over final details.  We talked about naptime, meals, emergencies, lesson plans and a myriad other details.  The new home daycare owner was very excited and animated as she displayed all the learning materials she had purchased for the kids.  Her excitement was contagious. 

As soon as we got home, Darling Angel asked “Can I learn with Baby Brother?”.  She had been listening as we discussed lesson plans and she wanted in. 

“But those are for one year olds”, I told her.  “You already know all that.”

“But I want to learn too”, she whined.

I understood what she meant.  I have been worried that she was bored at school.  I told her teacher that much but she disagreed.  She insisted that my daughter was well behaved, gave her teachers no trouble whatsoever and therefore was not bored.  In this teacher’s estimation, boredom is only diagnosed by outwardly anti-social behavior.  How could I prove to this teacher that my daughter was bored?  And what would the teacher do with this information if she had it.  From our conversation, I figured “nothing”. 

“It doesn’t matter that she’s advanced now.”  Do you even know how advanced she is?  Have you bothered to find out?

“Maturity and the ability to listen to instructions is more important.”  Agreed, but can’t you cultivate those while stretching her limits?

“Our program is already advanced so we don’t have a special track for advanced students.”  And that’s why you have my daughter who’s already reading at the 2nd grade level spend a whole day identifying the letter J!

“We have never had a student skip a grade before.”  Why am I not surprised?  You are unable to or choose not to identify gifted kids.

I still feel a lot of disappointed over that conversation with the teacher.  Obviously, the responses above were not what I said to her.  I mostly smiled and nodded my head and asked the next question.  She smiled too and answered me patiently.  But I was screaming in my head.  “How can you not know that she can read?  How can you not bother to find out what your students know?!”

I do not want to judge.  She’s probably a good teacher.  She’s been doing her job for 20-something years.  She does a great job of keeping the kids in line.  I have never been a teacher to 4 and 5 year olds and I imagine it is not an easy job.  But my daughter remains bored.  I do not mean to imply that she’s not learning anything new.  She is.  And when she does learn something new, she gets animated and talks about it all day.  About two years ago, that excitement was the norm.  Now, it is the exception.

Now, back to present.  She’s saying “Mommy, please please, I want to learn too”.  I realized I have not worked as hard as I should to create exciting learning opportunities at home.  It has been a while (a long while) since my last visit to Holcombs.  Then I remember it is not just about buying stuff at Holcombs.  It is about me dedicating time for her.  Stuff do not make up for time. 

So I tell her, “That place is for babies to learn.  You have many places you can learn.  You can learn at school, you can learn at home..”

She cut in, “I want to learn at home mommy”.

I say, “Why don’t you write all the things you can do to learn at home”.

She ran to get her notebook and started to write painstakingly, asking me for directions and spellings, fretting over the mistakes she made as she made her list: reading books, doing puzzles, riding bicycles, coloring pictures, writing…until it was dinner time.

For the past week, I’ve been trying to write about my Darling Angel starting school but everyday I digress on the topic and end up with an unsatisfactory draft.  I’m looking at the multiple drafts I’ve written, trying to figure out which one to complete but I don’t like any of them.  Monday, 3 days ago was her first day of school.  It was exciting.  I had butterflies in my tummy just like it was MY first day of school, yet I couldn’t write about it.  What’s the matter with me?

I just figured it out.  Or rather, I just admitted it to myself.  I’m disappointed that she’s not starting in kindergarten.  She’ll turn 5 in a few months and I can’t believe how strict the schools are about their August cut-off dates.  So you’re wondering, then what school is she starting?  We found a school with a K-4 (pre kindergarten) class.  We decided that getting her into a formal/structured program now is better than another year of preschool.

You may wonder why we’re in such hurry to get her into kindergarten.  Her preschool teacher thought she kindergarten-ready at the age of three.  She was very excited about learning, she was a sponge absorbing everything she was taught.  We moved to another city.  New school.  Boredom, rapid decline.  We tried to stem the tide, varied learning material, changed schools, a little improvement.  At the age of four, I felt like we were working so hard just to get her back to what she knew a year ago.  We decided that rather than spend so much energy trying to ’save’ her knowledge, we should get her into kindergarten, and do it quickly.

I feel disappointed that we didn’t do it.  I wonder if we tried hard enough.  The obstacle seemed to huge to surmount.  If the issue is the knowledge, then test it.  “Oh yes, she’s very bright, but she doesn’t turn 5 until December.  It’s our rule.  We’re sorry.”  What happens on the day she turns 5?  Does she reach some magical maturity milestone?  I don’t think so.  I believe kids (and adults) of the same age will always exhibit different levels of maturity.  Her preschool teacher thought she was ready and mature enough for kindergarten.  No less mature than the other kids, a few months older who were headed for kindergarten.  But we have to accept the schools’ decisions.  They’re sorry, that’s the rule.

I’m glad we found a good school that has a K-4 program.  She’ll be in a school and hopefully learn more than she would have in preschool/daycare.  Will she learn enough?  And what’s enough?  I don’t know.  But I want her to become excited about learning again.  I hope we made a good decision.  It’s been three days, and I’m watching, listening for signs that she was excited by what she learned in school.  I’m still watching and listening.  And the teacher?  We’ll be having a lot to talk about. 

In the meantime, we really are EXCITED about school.  It’s a whole new experience and Darling Angel is loving it.  Once I work out the disappointment from my system typing fingers, I’ll be able to write more about school and all the fun that goes with it.