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How time flies. Blink (of) an eye, as the Chinese saying goes, and it has already been 3 years since Caitlin started pre-school. And as with tradition with her school, the annual concert is also the graduation ceremony for the … Continue reading
Hot Mummee and I had a chat with Caitlin on Thursday night, after I had updated HM (her majesty!) on what’s been going on with Caitlin’s schooling this week year.
Since Saturday was a schoolday (replacements for Chinese New Year long break) we decided to go chat with Teacher Rachel again.
Turns out that Teacher Rachel has already had a word(s) with Teacher Ann; twice in a week in fact.
In a nutshell, Rachel now is having a slight issue broaching this with Ann, because Ann tends to be the sensitive type. Having been told twice in a week already, Rachel thinks it’s best not to highlight her teaching style again so soon….
In the meantime, Caitlin has again seem assured now that both her parents have gone into her school to try and solve her problem. Also, HM has also convinced Caitlin that she should remain in the classroom when Teacher Ann enters for her lessons, and not be tailing Teacher Rachel so much. She has agreed to “comply”, but like all 4 year olds she may succumb to her “fears” again when the time comes.
So this morning on the way in the car, not surprisingly Caitlin starts whining about going to school again. But this time she was complaining about the length of the schoolday itself. I managed to convince her that it is for her own good, because she can use this time (and she does) to complete all her homework, and be free of them when she returns to Grandma’s.
She accepted that, and off to school she went. At least there were no more tears from my “brave girl”.
I shall see how her day in school went today.
Posted in A father's POV, Caitlin the heiress, Education, Ergonomics, Parenting rules
Tagged brave, handling stress, preschool, school
So I was telling my friend Al when Caitlin & I were in Adelaide recently, that I had wanted my kids to grow up in Malaysia, like Hot Mummee & I did; and specifically, for them to get at least Chinese medium primary education, like I had.
Growing up here alone would already expose them to the various Chinese dialects; and especially in Kuala Lumpur where Cantonese is widely spoken and used for everyday transactions.
Already, spending her days at Grandma’s after school, hearing them speak Cantonese, and being exposed to the Chinese soapies they watch just before dinner, are already slowly but surely equipping her with the language. Hot Mummee and I cannot use this as our secret language anymore- yes we’ve benn caught out a few times already! Hokkien or Fujian is my dialect, but I’d rather she knows how to speak Mandarin well first.
I am not too worried about Caitlin not getting enough chances to learn English. Both Hot Mummee and I speaks very good our English, and also given the podcasts and TV that she watches I seriously doubt she’d be missing out on being able to learn this language good.
This week Caitlin went back to pre-school. We had earlier enrolled her in the Chinese medium for her age, called Pre-2; she’s just finished Pre-1. Then, few days before Christmas the school calls up and says that due to insufficient numbers, that syllabus is cancelled.
Oh, believe me- Hot Mummee can kick up a fuss when she wants to. And I let her do most of the talking! Being the date it was, they didn’t leave us much time to look for alternative schools, and we wanted Caitlin to start being exposed to Mandarin this year, since it will be 2011 when she start proper primary school lessons in Mandarin in full force. Leaving only 2010 for this exposure frankly will not be enough to prepare her.
The long and short of it (mostly long!), we have come to an agreement with the school on this: We enrolled her into Pre-3 level Mandarin syllabus- meaning she is actually in the group a year older, and where she will probably repeat Pre-3 again in 2010. We haven’t highlighted this fact to Caitlin, only that she will be in a new class (“yay!”) with new friends (“yay!”), just not the older part.
So on Monday I dropped her off at school. She’s “graduated” to attending a classroom upstairs, where her ex-peers are still downstairs. I walked her to the classroom door and the new teacher took her in. I went downstairs to check some things with the principal, and went back upstairs to see how she was doing; seeing as the class would now ALL speak Mandarin instead of her most comfortable English, and that they were older, and likely already knew each other from being together from last year.
I peeped.
She was standing backed against the wall, between first and second row of chairs / tables, body weight on one hand on a chair, watching someone / something incessantly / interestingly out of my sight. She had that very apprehensive look on her face that she gets when she is very unsure of what is going on / if she is in very unfamiliar territory.
She turned to look at the doorway where we parted earlier; probably cos in her peripheral vision she saw a figure (me).
Her face relaxed, broke into a very wide grin, and waved the kind of kid-wave that shakes the body.
She is okay.
I waved back. It’s okay. So I left. All warm and fuzzy.
Posted in A father's POV, Caitlin the heiress, Education, The future
Tagged language, life, multi-lingual, preschool, school, skills
