Now that Joan has a placement, i went to look into the registration process for getting John into Kindergarten. In my hunting, i discovered that the other school in our neighbourhood - not the one I can throw a stone at, but one about a 15 minute walk away - is french immersion.
French immersion had always been our plan for John in hamilton, but here, the schools are fairly far between, so we had dropped it.
So, now, with it being so close, we have a dilemma. Do we stick with the school we live beside, and do regular afternoon kindergarten, to coincide with Joan's pre-k program. Or do we enroll John in french immersion, which is only available to local kids in the a.m., and staggar the kids' schedules?
Our day, in the first scenario would go something like: Head out for John's school after lunch, drop him off, then head to Joan's, which starts about 45 min later. I go home for a couple hours. Then, head back to John's school, let him goof around on the playground, then head to Joan's school, which gets out an hour later.
Scenario 2, has all of us heading out first thing to drop John off at school - or just letting the little ones sleep, while Mike gets ready for work. Then, we head down to pick him up. We either play on the playground for an hour or so for lunch, or head home, or run a quick errand. Then, we take Joan to school. Head home. Then, we go pick her up.
In the first scenario, we have both kids in school at the same time, albiet for a short time, because of overlapping drop off/pick-up times.
In the second, the kids are staggared - I'd always have at least two with me all day, unless Joan is accepted into the full-day gross-motor program at her school. (she's on the wait list, but they said based on her therapist's report, she's an ideal candidate, so they may bump her up.)
Either way, weekdays are shot. It'll be a lot of ferrying around. In the second scenario, it might be good to have time each day to focus on each kid - it would be good for Joan's therapy, and good to do stuff with John, and they'd still spend time together for lunch and after school. Plus, John would learn a second language. The first scenario would just encourage them all to sleep in late, and stay up late, which is no good for us. Though, the pro for the first is a glorious two hours every day with just Dave and I. Can we say...NAP.
We're pretty sure John can handle the french. here, it's 100 per cent immersion - no english is spoken in the classroom until grade 3, when it's introduced as a formal subject. It's hard to know if he'd find that frustrating, or if he'd take it in stride, because that's just the way it is, and 20 other kids are in the same boat. I think the real challenge will be on our end. Not so much in Kindergarten - I can muddle my way through O Canada in french. there's no homework. But it could get interesting in grade school. They say it teaches them to be self-disciplined and independent workers - probably because mom and dad are too confused to help. But we always figured we'd try to learn along with him, so we could help him out.
I think we're leaning towards the french, but haven't decided for certain. The schedule issues are only going to be there for a year - next year they'll likely both be in full-day programs. But then, John will have an extra year of french under his belt (Kindergarten is optional here, and french K isn't required to get into the immersion program - it's just a bonus.) Do you think it's a good idea in general? Does this scream "big mistake" to anyone out there?
6 comments:
I think John is going to be 'interesting' for whatever teacher gets him in her/his class. Being part of the herd doesn't appear to fit into his genes.....
Don't know what to say about French. We in Ontario convinced ourselves that it was absolutely necessary 20 years ago - but I'm no longer so sure.
No help at all, eh?
Good Luck with it -
Paw in Law
John is sensitive, very verbal and a natural ham. I can see him being frustrated if he couldn't use French the way he's accustomed to using English....to entertain, to shine...to be John. Of course he can learn a new language but it's going to be a challenge to let John be John and still have him fit into a more traditional English classroom, let alone one that is seriously teaching new words, tenses, etc. And it would take a while before he could crack up an audience in French the way he can in English.
Is this important? To John, it might be. Connecting with people has been a huge part of his personality since he was a baby. And how neat is that?!I'd say, go with his strengths, put him into an acting class - an outlet like this might even help with more sedate classroom times ahead - and forget the French!!!
How can you tell I didn't enjoy French in school. Took it grades 5 to 12 and can only recite a few phrases now. 'Cause if you don't use it, you lose it anyways.
So that's my two cents. Still, your call.
Mom
I don't know. I don't think you really need the french anymore for bilingualism, but if there's a higher level of education available for no extra charge, why not take it? Though, you do see job postings for bilingual only. So it does still open doors. And it's something we both wish we'd buckled down and worked harder at growing up, in retrospect. But it's hard to learn a language as a class - they say immersion is really the best way to do it.
I'm concerned about the ham element, too. He sort of has this idea of what school will be, because he's been in preschool, and then he'll get there and get broadsided by a teacher who only speaks french. I think it will throw him off. But then again, he might rise to the challenge, just because he is such an enthusuasic communicator. He loves learning words in other languages, and likes to figure out what Joan is saying - he's our little translator.
I think in terms of an acting outlet, we've found a few solutions. We're signing him up for an acting camp this summer, to see how he likes it. Then, in fall, there are larger acting sessions through the city. THEN, once he turns 6, if I'm quick, we can sign him up for this theatre company, which puts on excluively kids plays, and they run a paralell theatre school for kids- it's 6-10-year-olds, and they all work together for about 2 months and put on a real performance. We're also going to check out the Beaver registration night this week, to see if that would be right for him. Mike wants a sport, as well. John's not the most athletic guy in the world, but he has expressed an interest in T-ball. We'll see. The french is only at school, only for three hours a day. One option is to try it out for Kindergarten. If it's just a mess, we could pull him and start him in Grade one in english. But if we wait, he can't jump into the program again until Grade 7.
Not many kids go to kindergarten at a normal school anyway. Not many of them will know each other in grade one, so he wouldn't be behind that way, if we switch to english in grade 1. I don't know. Tough call. They want us to decide by the end of the week, so they can make class lists and designate rooms, so we have a little time yet.
here's a link to that kids' theatre company, and theatre school. It looks neat!
http://www.storybooktheatre.org/
The trial idea sounds like a good plan. Maisie started out in French immersion and I think the reason why they took her out was because her basic schooling was suffering. You could ask Ashley about that. Reading , spelling, arithmatic etc. more of an issue in grade school, tho. Just a matter of keeping a watchful eye as these are also important in the earlier grades.
Neat on the acting camp! Mom
Well, I looked at the acting camp site - got as far as "Revenge of the Space Pandas" - and thought how neat it would be to take John to a performance - so he could see a 'finished product' and other kids performing. Mom
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