Last week we started Layla in a local nursery school. This had been a hope of mine to do at some point and I wasn't initially thinking of starting quite this soon, but things seemed to fall into place. Now they seem to have fallen out of place and we are not quite sure how to respond....
The last two days Layla has been unable to stay at school for long by herself without getting into a big crying fit. We just don't know how to respond. The other parents who've had their kids at the school the last few months have said their kids have done just fine - no crying etc. Granted, they either have siblings there or they are older than Layla so maybe that has something to do with it.
We've sort of eased her in to the whole process with Tom staying with her one day and my staying a few days. but she's done two days totally by herself aready which was encouraging. In my time of hanging out as we ease her in to things, I've certainly seen things that would make me understand how she could feel uncomfortable and maybe result in her crying fits:
It's hot. It was at least 97 degrees in the upstairs living room and there was no A/C on. And 30 kids eating lunch.
After they finished their little snack, they are released into the TV room for some down time. Layla tried to go in and came back out and then told me there was no room. She couldn't find a spot for her little tiny self. I went to look and it was PACKED with kids. I counted about 40! It was crazy. No wonder she didn't want to go in.
Then as the kids are squeezing in to watch TV in the other room, I kid you not, but another 30 kids file upstairs to eat lunch. I counted them. They are from a school next door and are a bit older and wear uniforms. Their two teachers spent about 10 minutes haphazardly yelling at them to sit in a circle so they could get their food. In my head I'm thinking...."duh, have them sing a song, hold hands and sit down. Mission accomplished in 15 seconds." They probably do this irritating shouting thing every day. It was interesting to watch it all play out...the teachers eventually got the boys and girls in separate circles and handed out arabic bread with a fried egg inside. Then they put big plates of sliced cucumbers in the middle of circles.
There is still no A/C, by the way. One window is open, however.....
Meanwhile Layla is wandering in and out of all this chaos more focused on playing with her new school bag and trying to wrangle a drink from the teachers of the second load of kids. OSHA would find a whole host of hygeine problems, but in reality there isn't anything worse happening than in your own home....we're just used to hyper-restrictions in our child care places!
So now the older younger kids file from the TV room, through the chaos of the older kids who have basically finished eating and are now bouncing off the walls. There are now five teachers shuffling between everyone sort of hollering at this one or that one. I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be happening...
So Layla's class stays in the TV room (the 2 and 3 year olds) and the 4 and 5s come downstairs for dance practise. There is a national celebration at the end of the school year where every school and town are coming together for some sort of "celebrate our country" sort of thing.
I've seen the dancing before and figured Lj would enjoy it but it is all still so new.
Anyway, we shift downstairs where the entrance to the school is and there are some big play mats laid out. Now there are about 4-5 other teachers downstairs all talking amongst themselves and haphazardly getting the kids into about 4 lines. We are down to about 20 kids now and mercifully, the A/C is on!
Somehow the kids follow the instructions and then for the next 10-15 minutes they stand there in their places waiting while the teachers are all talking about something. I mean really - they stand there! They wiggle some here and there and the teachers holler at them if they wiggle too much, but even the two foreign kids stand in place waiting for the teachers to be ready. Layla, meanwhile, is NOT standing in place but darting back and forth between her spot and where I am sitting on the couch. About every 5 seconds. The other kids try to hold her back, but they know she is new so they aren't trying really hard.
I was getting so bored myself that I decided that Lj and I would call it a day and just leave. As we were doing so, the music got started and the lead teacher took her spot and started to lead the kids in the dance. Layla hopped back in place and tried her darndest to follow along. She still couldn't stay in line, however, and kept coming back to me.
The "study time" is really valuable arabic learning for Layla, but again, I can see it would be intimidating. Her class is decorated really well with all sorts of lovely things on the walls. There are cute tables and chairs and her teacher is really sweet. However, when you walk in all 15 kids ages 2 + 3 are sitting totally still and silent in their chair doing a "call and response" lesson with the teacher. I mean not one child is wiggling. Even I thought it was strange. I just kept thinking about chinese and african schools where I've seen this same dynamic. They are all so still and the teacher says a phrase and they repeat it
"Who is Samia sitting next to?" kids repeat
"Samia is sitting next to Ahmed" kids repeat
"What color is Samia's shirt?" kids repeat
"Samia's shirt is blue" kids repeat.
On and on.
She last about 5 minutes in there the other day and started hollering.
So all this being said, I really have no idea what to do. In some ways I recognize that we are just dealing with a foreign educational system. This is how they do things. Anytime she goes into a school it will have these dynamics - teachers hollering, lots of kids everywhere, organized chaos, hot, cramped quarters etc etc. So part of me feels like she might as well just get used to it....it isn't going to change much!
We're just not sure how much to push it now. We were dreaming she could actually go a couple of hours every day and have something for herself when the baby is born. Sure doesn't look that way now.
I have had all the teachers and various other mothers tell me I just need to leave her there and let her tough it out. I've tried to explain that EVERYTHING is so new for Layla now, that I'm trying to sort it all out as well. She's only been in the country about 5/6 weeks and we're having a baby in the next week or two. I'm doing all this in Arabic, of course, so who knows if I'm actually communicating what I am intending to!
Soooo, I just sit in the corner, watching things, praying that I'll have a clear sense of what to do and then eventually decide when we can head home. I don't want to baby her too much by sitting at school with her, but I also don't want to push her. While she is a very expressive and talkative 2.5 year old, she still is ONLY 2.5.
I'll take any thoughts and opinions you all have (= No pictures this time....
The last two days Layla has been unable to stay at school for long by herself without getting into a big crying fit. We just don't know how to respond. The other parents who've had their kids at the school the last few months have said their kids have done just fine - no crying etc. Granted, they either have siblings there or they are older than Layla so maybe that has something to do with it.
We've sort of eased her in to the whole process with Tom staying with her one day and my staying a few days. but she's done two days totally by herself aready which was encouraging. In my time of hanging out as we ease her in to things, I've certainly seen things that would make me understand how she could feel uncomfortable and maybe result in her crying fits:
It's hot. It was at least 97 degrees in the upstairs living room and there was no A/C on. And 30 kids eating lunch.
After they finished their little snack, they are released into the TV room for some down time. Layla tried to go in and came back out and then told me there was no room. She couldn't find a spot for her little tiny self. I went to look and it was PACKED with kids. I counted about 40! It was crazy. No wonder she didn't want to go in.
Then as the kids are squeezing in to watch TV in the other room, I kid you not, but another 30 kids file upstairs to eat lunch. I counted them. They are from a school next door and are a bit older and wear uniforms. Their two teachers spent about 10 minutes haphazardly yelling at them to sit in a circle so they could get their food. In my head I'm thinking...."duh, have them sing a song, hold hands and sit down. Mission accomplished in 15 seconds." They probably do this irritating shouting thing every day. It was interesting to watch it all play out...the teachers eventually got the boys and girls in separate circles and handed out arabic bread with a fried egg inside. Then they put big plates of sliced cucumbers in the middle of circles.
There is still no A/C, by the way. One window is open, however.....
Meanwhile Layla is wandering in and out of all this chaos more focused on playing with her new school bag and trying to wrangle a drink from the teachers of the second load of kids. OSHA would find a whole host of hygeine problems, but in reality there isn't anything worse happening than in your own home....we're just used to hyper-restrictions in our child care places!
So now the older younger kids file from the TV room, through the chaos of the older kids who have basically finished eating and are now bouncing off the walls. There are now five teachers shuffling between everyone sort of hollering at this one or that one. I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be happening...
So Layla's class stays in the TV room (the 2 and 3 year olds) and the 4 and 5s come downstairs for dance practise. There is a national celebration at the end of the school year where every school and town are coming together for some sort of "celebrate our country" sort of thing.
I've seen the dancing before and figured Lj would enjoy it but it is all still so new.
Anyway, we shift downstairs where the entrance to the school is and there are some big play mats laid out. Now there are about 4-5 other teachers downstairs all talking amongst themselves and haphazardly getting the kids into about 4 lines. We are down to about 20 kids now and mercifully, the A/C is on!
Somehow the kids follow the instructions and then for the next 10-15 minutes they stand there in their places waiting while the teachers are all talking about something. I mean really - they stand there! They wiggle some here and there and the teachers holler at them if they wiggle too much, but even the two foreign kids stand in place waiting for the teachers to be ready. Layla, meanwhile, is NOT standing in place but darting back and forth between her spot and where I am sitting on the couch. About every 5 seconds. The other kids try to hold her back, but they know she is new so they aren't trying really hard.
I was getting so bored myself that I decided that Lj and I would call it a day and just leave. As we were doing so, the music got started and the lead teacher took her spot and started to lead the kids in the dance. Layla hopped back in place and tried her darndest to follow along. She still couldn't stay in line, however, and kept coming back to me.
The "study time" is really valuable arabic learning for Layla, but again, I can see it would be intimidating. Her class is decorated really well with all sorts of lovely things on the walls. There are cute tables and chairs and her teacher is really sweet. However, when you walk in all 15 kids ages 2 + 3 are sitting totally still and silent in their chair doing a "call and response" lesson with the teacher. I mean not one child is wiggling. Even I thought it was strange. I just kept thinking about chinese and african schools where I've seen this same dynamic. They are all so still and the teacher says a phrase and they repeat it
"Who is Samia sitting next to?" kids repeat
"Samia is sitting next to Ahmed" kids repeat
"What color is Samia's shirt?" kids repeat
"Samia's shirt is blue" kids repeat.
On and on.
She last about 5 minutes in there the other day and started hollering.
So all this being said, I really have no idea what to do. In some ways I recognize that we are just dealing with a foreign educational system. This is how they do things. Anytime she goes into a school it will have these dynamics - teachers hollering, lots of kids everywhere, organized chaos, hot, cramped quarters etc etc. So part of me feels like she might as well just get used to it....it isn't going to change much!
We're just not sure how much to push it now. We were dreaming she could actually go a couple of hours every day and have something for herself when the baby is born. Sure doesn't look that way now.
I have had all the teachers and various other mothers tell me I just need to leave her there and let her tough it out. I've tried to explain that EVERYTHING is so new for Layla now, that I'm trying to sort it all out as well. She's only been in the country about 5/6 weeks and we're having a baby in the next week or two. I'm doing all this in Arabic, of course, so who knows if I'm actually communicating what I am intending to!
Soooo, I just sit in the corner, watching things, praying that I'll have a clear sense of what to do and then eventually decide when we can head home. I don't want to baby her too much by sitting at school with her, but I also don't want to push her. While she is a very expressive and talkative 2.5 year old, she still is ONLY 2.5.
I'll take any thoughts and opinions you all have (= No pictures this time....
4 comments:
Oh, this is hard. I understand why you want her in the school. But I also understand why she doesn't want to be in it. We tried putting our kids in a local school when they were 2.5 in SL (where we were before). They lasted about 3 days. They just weren't ready and I decided to wait. I don't have any solid advice, but just try to think about what does she need, what is your vision/goals for her education and socializing, is this the best/only option for her, timing, etc. Then all we can do is trust that someone else is guarding and holding our childrens' hearts and lives.
Hi Steph -
Oh dear, this is so hard! I like what your friend above said.
I do think it is probably difficult for Layla for you to be there while she is there. While I understand why you're doing that, I wonder if you can start leaving her for just 45 minutes a day completely by herself and then work your way up to the 2 hours...?
When you initially told me the teacher/child ratio I was a little concerned, because that would be so different from what Layla has experienced. Hmmm...
What does Judy LeVan say?? :)
love you!
Jennifer
This is a big decision. I'll be lifting you up. Steph.
Hi Steph,
I've been loving your blog. Since you asked for input...I don't know a lot about your thinking about this, but from what you've written it sounds like preschool is somewhat optional for you guys at this point- not vital, but something that could be nice for Layla? With that in mind, my 2 cents (admittedly, coming from a western, potentially over-protective, mindset) would be to wait out plunging into the school system until she's older. The environment you've described sounds like it could be stressful for a toddler (crowds, yelling, heat, having to stand still, etc)- I was thinking that as an independent introvert I wouldn't like it very much myself! And especially as she's still getting used to the culture in general. As she grows older she will develop more coping skills and resiliance and all that good stuff. And in the meantime, I'm sure she could continue to learn a lot about the culture/language, etc by just living the life you live there.
Of course the transition to having a younger sibling will probably bring its own stresses and challenges, but at least you and Tom can be there with her to guide her through them. For what it's worth, those are my thoughts. I definitely agree with the other commenters as well, abt trusting God in it all.
love,
Elizabeth
Post a Comment