To School, or Not To School, That is the Question . . .

The decision to send Wynn to school was not an easy one.  What a hard, hard thing to ask her to do!  She certainly does not have enough English to grasp curriculum content, and she will be challenged by even the routine - having a locker, changing classes, navigating the crowds in the halls - which she complained about a lot after visiting the school with Conor - crowds and noise.  (I think it's funny that a girl from China hates crowds.)  She is so shy.

I think, though, that spending 5 months tagging along after me has got to be boring for her!  (But good for family-building.) I really want her to make some friends her own age.  I even want her to have peer role models to help her learn confidence in her way of being an American girl.  She has asked a lot of questions about how to do hair and how to learn about fashion - and I try to help but cannot be as instructive as peers!  She is EXTREMELY modest.  She has asked me to leave the room to put a shirt and sweatshirt over the top of the two tank tops she was already wearing.  She was also quite distressed the other day when I lifted up the bottom of her sweatshirt, exposing a half inch of skin on her side (I was trying to clip a wayward string from said sweatshirt).  I hope that learning from peers will help her feel less self-conscious and maybe shed some of the multiple layers of clothes before warm weather gets here.  (Not TOO much of a reduction in modesty, though, peers, OK?!)  Although she still clings to her security layers of clothing, she no longer wears her coat continually, and her layers are tank top, T-shirt, long-sleeve T-shirt (sometimes), and sweater or sweatshirt.  In other words, very similar to what other girls wear - though I don't think she will want to wear any less when the sunshine finally comes out!  All that to say that one of the motivators to sending her to school is to introduce her to peer influence.

The main reason I finally decided I had to push the school issue, though, was to let her wade into shallow waters before she has to dive into high school.  I really felt (feel) that it will be much better for her, if, as expected, she needs to try high school in the fall, she goes with a group of students whom she knows who are also new to the chaos of the high school.  That doesn't stop me from second-guessing myself a lot and wondering if challenging her with school now is the right thing to do.

So, how did it go?  We met with the principal and worked out a potential schedule:  Science (unless it proves to be far too much of a language challenge), Math (which I listened in on and am worried it will be too much of a language challenge), English/History (from which she will be pulled out for ESL help along with a couple of other English Language Learners.  It is a small school district; I think she is one of three), Choir (hard to join band in progress having never held and instrument and not reading music), and Math Support (which I hope will enable to her to begin to grasp some of her math class).  I nixed P.E., though she expressed an interest, because of the aforementioned modesty that would make dressing down unnecessarily stressful.  She will miss school on Tuesdays to continue her English tutoring with her teacher from Kunming.

As was almost expected, her locker combination did not work, and we had to have help from the custodian.  Then, we practiced the combination repeatedly (along with the pledge of allegiance over the intercom, a combination lock was something totally new to her).  Then we walked her class schedule twice, and at her request, went and talked to the ladies in the cafeteria to rehearse how to get lunch.  After that, we had reached the middle of second period.  Understandably, she did not want to walk into the middle of a math class in session. So we sat at a table and drew a map of the school with her route, class schedules, and times.  Then I walked with her to third period but could neither persuade her to enter nor drag her into the classroom as she clutched my arm.  (This was a 10 minute break between classes, so the classroom was not filling up quickly.)  One of the students asked who I was, and as I introduced him to Wynn, the teacher came for introductions, and we gathered a small crowd of a few students.  I explained that she was from China and this was her first day in an American school.  I brought out her translator and showed some girls that they could type into it and translate to Chinese if they weren't sure she was understanding them.  I got the girls' names and told Wynn that they would take care of her.  They agreed, and I left with her no longer clutching my arm.

I rushed home after work to see how her day went and found her in high spirits.  She kept shoving a field trip permission slip in my face, telling me she brought me homework, I needed to do my homework, homework time for me.  Before bed, I asked her if she were going to go back to school in the morning or come to town with me for her English class.  She hesitated, then shook her head, and said, "I don't know!"  I had fully expected her to reject the school idea, so I thought it was a good sign that she did not immediately protest.

She came with me for English tutoring yesterday and went back to school today without protest or apparent reluctance.  We shall continue to monitor this experiment.