Tales from the Steppes

2005-09-16

11:50 a.m.
Friday, September 16

Who needs sleep?
well you're never gonna get it

- Barenaked Ladies

Last night was the EM's Back to School night. In theory, it was supposed to be adults only but this was far from the case. It was a real problem because there were often too few seats by half for all of the people that needed to be in each room. And then it was difficult to hear the teachers over the sound of the various children and people translating into various languages. I have no solution for the problem - the school did the best they could. All documents were in English and Spanish and translators were used for the main meeting. They just did not have enough so that there could be a translator in each classroom.

Most of her teachers seemed pretty cool. It was an interesting experience because almost all of her classroom teachers knew who I was without my telling them. Ok, we do look similar but this went beyond the usual degree of recognition.

My main goal of the night was to understand why she is taking both English and reading. I am still not sure I got it and I suspect her reading teacher would support me if I said I would much rather her take Spanish than reading. But the EM has not expressed any interest in learning Spanish and I can tell she has already hit it off with the reading teacher. Between English and reading, she will be required to read an hour each night and finish 50 books by the end of the year. The 50 books will be no big deal but an hour a night is pretty stiff. She has a maximum of 5 hours a night to get everything done in - all homework, dance classes, dinner, spudding, etc, so an hour is significant. Of course, I'm pretty sure she reads that much already, it just isn't always assigned reading.

I had a nice chat with the reading after our classes allotted 5 minutes and I allowed as to how I would like the EM to read less and perhaps be mentally present more. The teacher agreed, as the EM would rather read in her desk than participate in a discussion. I completely sympathize with her inclination but it is my job as a parent to get her to cooperate in the learning process. Sounds like her teacher is going to really push her a bit though - she will be reading a children's version of Homer and some other interesting things.