Day Two

Anna rode her bike to school today as I tried my best to keep up. It takes twenty minutes if we hit all the green lights. 

As she was  v e r y  s l o w l y getting ready this morning, Anna said several times that she hated her new school. But, knowing that this is the child who has spoken in superlatives since she first began to communicate,  I choose to believe that, " I hate my new school," really means, "I'm pretty tired this morning and would rather stay in bed." Which was how I felt this morning too.

Why the new school? 

She is at this small, bilingual school because I came along to a class picnic three and a half months ago. During the month of May, 1st and 2nd graders spend a day in an olive grove in the city, and each class performs a traditional Nicois dance. It's supposed to be fun. 

There are hundreds and hundreds of kids; and in my experience, it is either extremely hot or rainy. As I remember, Justin got the rain for both years. 

Anna got super hot. When I arrived around eleven a.m., the kids were either sitting in a small strip of shade along the stone wall or playing in another small piece of shade under a nearby olive tree. The children up playing were eventually instructed to come and sit in the shade strip because it was too hot.

So they sat. Their performance was scheduled for 3pm. It wasn't time for lunch yet. The teacher went off to get their class portion of socca, a traditional Niçois chick pea pancake thing. It took about forty-five minutes. The kids were hot, bored, and hungry. They were supposed to wait. They weren't allowed to play. 

You get the picture.

It wasn't really fun for anyone. Some parents eventually rebelled and allowed the kids in their charge to start in on their lunches. Our shade strip was getting smaller, so we moved to a large olive tree where the kids sat. Some played card games. Then it was time to change for the dance. Which the kids did under the olive tree. We walked over to our stage and waited in line while the fifteen classes still ahead of us took their turns. It was all behind schedule.

So, within the context of this day that wasn't very pleasant or fun for anyone, Anna was quietly miserable. Perhaps not more than anyone else in terms of comfort or expectations vs. reality. But I saw how socially ostracized she was and saw what her interactions were like with her classmates and how she is perceived by others. I suddenly switched from thinking that with lots of support, Anna can make it in the French school system to realizing that she could never thrive in this system. 

This last year was incredibly difficult for her at school. She showed increasing signs of stress from the very first days. Her only friends were in the grade above her. She struggled with the work.

Now that we have a diagnosis of sensory processing disorder, we know the causes of her struggles with school work. But I am also very sure that the small bilingual school is a place where she will be happy and cared for in a way that she wasn't in a large school where the emphasis was on children adapting to the system instead of teachers adapting to the child.

Even with a good teacher, which she did have last year, it just didn't work.

As I said to Anna, the new school is not magic. It will not all be perfect and easy. But it will be a better fit for her.

Next post...Inventions.