Journée de la Gentillesse

Anna's school sent out the schedule for special events and vacations yesterday, and I saw that today is "La Journée de la Gentillesse" (day of kindness). I asked Anna about it, and she said she was just going to keep her mouth shut all day. Fair enough. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all works and would probably help the dinnertime sibling squabbling here...

Scott and I go in to meet with the director of the school this afternoon to make sure she is up to date and get some things sorted. Things like asking if Anna can park her bike at school. And seeing if changes can be made in Anna's lunches.

Tomorrow, Scott has an informational meeting about the Mark drama (Marc L'Expérience). Our new team member will go along to cheer Justin's basketball team, and Anna and I go to a birthday party at a farm.

Farm pictures and basketball report next time!

Picasso

As we talk on the way home from school, daily I question Anna to find out about her day. Interrogate may be a more accurate description. I'm dying to know everything.

Her first answers this week were what she hated. On Monday she hated the school because she spilled her water during lunch, was scolded (maybe), and the kids laughed.

On Tuesday she hated the first graders. Really hated the first graders. This took a while to understand. I couldn't figure out how a small group of cute six year olds could incur Anna's wrath. Through a great deal of questioning on my part, I discovered the source of the conflict-- her class doesn't eat lunch until  1 pm because the first graders go before them. And Anna was hungry that day. She's eaten a good breakfast every morning since. She's frying up bacon to add to her regular fare to make it through (we're working on the kids learning more kitchen skills). And they have a mid-morning snack.

No school on Wednesday,  though next week she will try the Mini Club that the school runs.

Yesterday, she didn't hate anything. This was progress.

As I questioned her about her day, she recounted a long story (she drew it out because she knew it was dramatic and worth telling well) of how one of the school cooks cut her forehead while the third graders were eating lunch. This was told with lots of pantomime of how the cutting may have happened  and  completed with example of the kid' facial expressions and reactions to the yell of the cook. This was clearly the most memorable event of the day.

Using my advanced interrogation skills, we stopped at the Italian gelateria, where I bought her a single scoop cone, hoping to glean some more information. We sat down on the bench outside next to an older French woman.  I asked Anna again about her day, and the French lady asked me in English if I was American. I said yes, whereupon she embraced me, kissed me on the cheek, and thanked me for coming to France's aid during World War 2.

I'm not kidding. Anna and I didn't get much talking done on the bench.

It wasn't until 8:30 that Anna filled us in on the best part of her day. Her class of sixteen had been split in two so they could do art and music in smaller groups.

Instead of telling me about music, she walks over to the piano (a used digital piano that we bought for Justin's piano lessons last year), and with correct finger positioning (as far as I can tell), shows me fa sol la ti do while naming the notes. Then she takes a notebook and draws the treble clef and shows where fa is. And then she says some Italian words because the music teacher is Italian. And the class takes place in Italian. Too cool.

Then we move on to art. Miss Helen showed the class works of art by three artists. The children  chose one of the artists and drew their own picture in that artists' style.
Here's what is cool and what led Anna to say, "God is really taking care of me."

Several days ago Anna pulled a book off our shelves that we had never read together. It's a picture book that tells about Pablo Picasso's childhood. Pablito drew pictures on walls, painted his sister's face with egg yolk, and engaged in other inappropriate artistic behaviors until his father, an amateur artist, saw one of his drawings in the sand and turned over his art materials so his kid could draw and paint on more appropriate surfaces. Anna identifies with little Pablo being misunderstood and feeling frustrated. So she had me read it twice, and we decided that we would visit the Picasso museum Saturday to celebrate the end of the first week of school.

So, of course this Thursday,  one of the three artists was Pablo Picasso, and though I don't know what she drew at school, at home she drew four line drawings of his work as she told me about it.

Inventions

There are other things going on in our lives besides Anna's new school. Some are worthy of a blog post--like Justin playing on a basketball team this year (first practice was last night). Others not so much.  For example, my battle this week against the tartar build-up in our toilet and the replacement of the toilet seat (it looks so much better already) are a part of my daily life and could lead to sharing of anti-tartar build-up suggestions  and other helpful house cleaning tips.

But for today, the post once again is about the new school. 

Here's what happened last Thursday.

Anna had briefly met the French teacher and seen the school last June, but I wanted her to meet her English teacher and have time to look around. 

Scott called to set it up since I was sure they would say no since teachers are busy and of course don't have time for this kind of thing two days before school. 

It was a yes, come anytime.

So, we headed down to the school Thursday morning. As she road her bike beside me, Anna started asking about inventions. She loves science. In fact, she loves it so much that she burst into tears last night when she saw Justin's lab coat that he needed for chemistry. We'll be making one for her. 

Her birthday party this year had a science theme. The kids created their own robots out of boxes, buttons, bottle tops and lots of aluminum foil. We mixed up cornstarch and water and made a huge, lovely mess on the outside table. The kids formed it into to balls, dropped them on the table, and watched the ball turn to liquid. It was a very cool birthday party.

Anyway, back to Thursday, she said she wanted to invent something and happily prattled on about it. She wanted to know if inventing something is hard and decided that she wants to make her own invention.

We arrived at the school and went up to the classroom with Miss Helen, who started to tell us about what they'll be studying this year--grammar, the human body, etc. Then she enthusiastically said that the big project that the class will be working on throughout the year will be--inventions. 

Within the context of what Anna went through with school last year and both of our jitters about the beginning of school this year, this felt like way more than a happy coincidence. It felt like a large, beautifully wrapped, hand-delivered gift from God to Anna.

The class has started already by working together on an invention this week. As Anna tells it, it's a robot that is supposed take ones' glasses off. They are hoping to be able to make it talk. It was missing two large nails that someone is bringing in today.

Justin, who is definitely a product of the French school system, doesn't quite believe her. He can imagine no scenario in which this kind of activity could occur in the first week of school. Then again, sailing is a part of his physical education curriculum this year.  And he gets to wear a cool lab coat on Fridays.

                            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.

La Rentrée

This is not an amazing back to school picture. I was in a hurry, the light was bad, and I think I moved as I took it. But it is amazing because Anna is excited and happy to be starting at her new bilingual school. Some of you know the story. I will tell it here soon, but I need to go pick her up now so there is no time.

But I will say that I am grateful for new starts. I am thankful for lovely friends who have supported her, encouraged her, and prayed for her. For her French teacher who smiled and said that Anna seemed to have grown since she met her last Thursday (it's the new haircut which ended up being a lot shorter than expected). And for her very kind new British teacher, Miss Helen, who took her hand and led her up into the building this morning.

Amen.

Expanding Horizons

This is a poster that went up at school last week during the annual "Week of Taste".  Parents were invited to bring in food--in particular regional or international dishes.  This poster is from Anna's class.  It says, "Today, Mexico.  We tasted tortillas and Mexican chips.  We found that it was a little spicy and salty.  Some thought that it was potatoes and meat, which was not the case.  There was cheese, red beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes and cumin."
So, I was the one who brought in burritos and chips and salsa.  I did specify that this was Tex/Mex, but labeling it all as Mexican was probably easier for little French first graders to wrap their minds around.  The kids all had a piece of bean burrito and then the teacher had them guess what was in them as she wrote their responses on the board.  It was extremely entertaining.  Over half of them liked it, which I was impressed with.

After the burrito guesswork, I went around with chips and salsa.  I had warned them that the salsa was a little spicy (although I did tone it down), but they were so afraid to taste it that I had Anna demonstrate the proper piling on of salsa on a chip.  She was happy to do it.
Parents aren't generally as active in French classrooms as they are in American classrooms.  So, it was nice for me to be able to see the class and interact with the kids.  And it was delightful to see how the teacher gathered the kids responses and artwork together to celebrate the experience.