My First Day of School

For a full week now we've been asked by everyone we meet some form of the following question.

"Et vos enfants? Leur installation a l'ecole? Ca va bien?" (And your children? Their first week of school? It is going well?) or the English version, "How are the kids doing with school?"

Of course my answer is always, "Oui, ca va. Mais c'est un peu difficile, parce que mes enfant ne parlent pas le francais. Pas encore." (Yes, it's fine. But it is a little difficult, because my children don't speak any French. Not yet.)

But as it turns out I'm finding "a little difficult" might be an understatement. Last Friday, on what would have been his fourth day of school, Bohdan was home "sick" with a stomach ache which then turned into a sore throat by noon. I was skeptical of the severity of his symptoms but figured he needed the break. He still says he doesn't really want to go to school, but at the end of each day he claims he's having a great time. Bo seems to prefer dealing with his frustrations with school and the language by being "sick" or behaving rudely with me and his sister. I'm left vacillating between compassion and justice, mercy and murder as he drives me crazy with his attitude.

Then this week, after five days of saying school was "great," Vivi burst into tears Tuesday morning and begged not to go. She was upset because no one played with her the day before, she has decided she has no friends and school is too hard because her teacher doesn't speak English. (I love how the issue is with the teacher needing English instead of Vivi needing French!) David and I reassured her, encouraged her, and told her to go to school to see if the day went differently, while inside my heart broke to bits. The minute she walked out the door, I burst into tears, too.

Apparently the morning did not go that differently, as Vivi's teacher phoned around 11:00 to inform me "Vivi pleure." She then prattled on in French about something I didn't understand because I was too distracted with the knowledge that my little girl was crying somewhere without me, without anyone who really knows or loves her deeply. This has never happened in her life before and I wasn't about to let it happen for long. After a quick chat with a rather distraught Vivi and another brief clarification with her teacher, I was in the car and on my way to the rescue.

By Vivi's account, the tears were shed over wanting to eat lunch with me. I'm pretty sure she thought this would be her ticket home, because typically eating lunch with a parent in France means eating at home. Leave it to me to break this social norm by suggesting to the teacher that I sit with Vivi at the "Canteen" (cafeteria) . Even though I had rapidly thrown together a perfectly acceptable lunch by American standards (bread, cheese, sausage, a pear, a drink and a Twix), I was not "allowed" to eat that and was forced to indulge in a full French lunch consisting of watermelon, roasted chicken, bow-tie pasta, cheese, and chocolate mousse.

I know I have gone with the translation of "cafeteria" for the "canteen,"however a more accurate translation would probably be "asylum." Forty to fifty 3-6 year olds were sitting at miniature, long, picnic style tables in a room with white stone walls, large curtain-less windows, a white tile floor and a high ceiling. Very nearly every child was speaking in a "haute voix" (loud voice) all at the same time. Which actually is quite the mark of rapid success because speaking in a loud voice is one of the academic objectives for this grade level. (I'm not joking - I read it in the school handbook.) Check that off the list as mastered. Next skill? Perhaps listening and taking turns to talk? Certainly manual dexterity isn't a necessary component of the curriculum as every child over the age of three ate their boned chicken with knife and fork. It was quite amusing to hear such savage behavior emanating from the visually civilized image of small children wielding knives with such graceful decorum. Alas, the noises overtook the sights and my impression remains one of complete and total chaos as many of the children attempted to chat with me in rapid-fire French amidst the din.

After lunch, I walked with the children back to their classrooms, holding the hand of my daughter in my left and another child who apparently wanted to hold my hand in my right. Vivi's teacher delighted us all by inviting me to stay for the afternoon and placed a medium-sized chair (my knees were only chest level as opposed to chin) next to Vivi's desk in the front row of the class.

I spent a glorious afternoon playing "teachers aide" in a room full of children anxious to chat with me. More than once I got some poor chap reprimanded for talking. We worked on studying the names of all the children (like Margot, Cyprien, Emeline, Romain, and Johan) in the class and counting how many boys (11) and girls (13) there are. We decorated a cover of a notebook with shapes and then turned the shapes into "les gens rigolo" (funny people). Then we went to the multi-purpose room (which was sort of like a gym and sort of like a theater, but not really and truly like either) to play some active games. One was a race where children were assigned colors in pairs (2 reds, 2 blues...). Then they were divided into two teams so the color-pairs were split. They had to race to the center when their color was called out. Vivi won a point for her team and impressed the boys tremendously. One boy in particular seemed quite smitten and, sure enough, on the walk back to the classroom the teacher informed me she believes Pablo has a bit of a crush on my daughter. (Hmph. Reason #4,235 why we homeschool!!) The children entertained Vivi and I with a couple of songs in English - one about colors and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."

Vivi and I returned home that afternoon both feeling we'd spent one of our best days here yet! Too bad I can't go to school everyday! I would learn a lot more French and I sure would eat better.