He passed!
Now, of course, I can't believe I ever had any doubt. Here is the pertinent bit of his 'report card':
Lucas has acquired the skills necessary to proceed to Infantil V.
'Infantil V' being preschool for the five year olds. Here's a couple other choice bits written by his teacher:
(Lucas) is a boy who is clever, communicative, and friends with everyone.
And from a list of things he 'always says':
"Teacher, will you sit next to me today?"
I could go on and on- the proud papa. I like how she says he is very creative with the art projects. She does mention that he has trouble with the numbers from one to ten.
Although tired, and with other stuff I should be doing, I roused myself to make the following short film of an absolutely delightful document they assembled for us at the school: it is eleven drawings, glued side-by-side, one from each month of the past year. I love how it shows his progression from simple lines and squiggles to fully colored pages. My apologies for the atrociously bad production, including the shadows and my feet- I did take the time to swap out the soundtrack for one of YouTube's authorized tunes- the first on the list of instrumental cuts. But hey- I kinda like it!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Summer Vacation
Both of the kids are now on summer vacation, which must seem odd to those of you in the northern hemisphere, or those of you teaching at the Pan American School (I know there's at least three of you out there that read my blog). Ruan has passed the year and will enter 5th grade, and there is a parent/teacher conference for Lucas tomorrow at two.
I must confess I'm a bit nervous about this conference. Lucas is only four, and still in preschool, but I'm concerned they might suggest that he repeat a year. I know my kid is smart, I'm not worried about that, but there's a couple reasons I'm nervous.
Maybe school has changed a lot in the States since I was a kid, but it seems like they push kids a lot harder at an early age here in Brazil. Evani is always telling me how Lucas' cousin who is almost the same age as him has been able to write her name for almost two years now, and has homework, and writes, and maybe is even reading some already. I know another little girl, who I believe is eight, who has forty minutes of homework every day. Ruan used to have the same thing, although it used to stretch to an hour or longer depending on how much he wanted to fight us to not do what he was assigned.
I know very little about early child development but this seems like too much too soon to me. I had no homework until the fifth grade, and was not reading until first grade. Even here, alfabetização, which seems to imply learning to read by its very name, won't happen for Lucas for two years- if so, this is out of date- most kids here are already expected to read by that time.
I was discussing this with a Brazilian friend of mine and he said the reason for teaching someone to write their name at such an early age is very cynical- it allows them to vote. They may not learn to read, may not learn to write, may drop out of school at eight years old (there are no truancy laws here) but if they can write their name and pick out a number on a voting form then by gum they can fulfill their civic duty.
One of the things I really like about Lucas' school is that they have a different teaching method- they don't try to jam reading and writing down a kid's throat at three years old. For the past two years Lucas has been painting pictures and having books read to him and such, and then this year he learned his vowels and his numbers, did a big unit on colors and plants, and also learned how to write his name. So now he can vote. Well, he'll need to learn his last name first, and with a name like 'Pfohl' that could take a while. Oh yeah, and he does get homework, on Fridays- things like "color the animal on top of the table green," or "draw a line between the triangles." You know, starter homework.
So why am I concerned? Well, for one thing, my wife thinks he's woefully unprepared for the coming year and blames the teachers. She's not nearly as fond of the school as I am. The other thing is that Lucas still has a really hard time with a couple of those numbers, particularly '9' and '6.' And he gets confused with the vowels sometimes as well. And he keeps leaving the 'c' out of his name.
But the big thing is something I learned just yesterday: there is a new law here that sets the cutoff for a given school year at April 1st - no joke (har har, couldn't resist). That means that Lucas, whose birthday is March 30th, is within one day of being the youngest possible student in his class. And anyone who has had kids (and raised them, and paid attention) knows how much of a difference a year, or six months, makes at this age. I found this out because a student who left his school, and now wants to come back, is being asked to repeat a year. He's only a week younger than Lucas.
I can't believe I'm even worrying about this. He's only four years old! He's probably going to be fine. But I'm one of these idiots that hears a story on the news and then lets it unduly influence me- like the one I read about parents deliberately holding their kids back a year so they'll be more intellectually developed. Or the one about how the kids that exceed in sports are more likely to be born during some three or four month period during the year, because they end up being the oldest kids in the class. (does that mean it's the opposite 3 or 4 months here in the southern hemisphere?) My brother was born on one of those cusp periods, and she opted to let him be one of the oldest rather than one of the youngest in the class. She claims to this day that he resented that- and he ended up graduating a year early anyways.
And then I hear stories about kids who have to be in the 90th percentile to get into kindergarten at the best private schools in NYC. Well, that's clearly over the top, not to mention the many thousands of dollars a school like that must cost. I don't want to put that kind of pressure on my kid.
And there's one other factor. The public schools here are utter, total, crap. The public elementary school I attended in the sticks in Western Massachusetts had better facilities than the private school Lucas is attending. And even though it's not one of the more expensive schools here in Salvador, it's still a lot more than I would ideally be paying for a decent education for my kid. And I can't afford to repeat a year, especially if he's only four. And I really don't want him to switch schools- not at all, if I can afford it, but at least not until he's really reading so he doesn't get thrown into a class where they are all reading and writing already.
I would prefer that to be sooner rather than later.
I will post an update tomorrow on what happens at the meeting.
I must confess I'm a bit nervous about this conference. Lucas is only four, and still in preschool, but I'm concerned they might suggest that he repeat a year. I know my kid is smart, I'm not worried about that, but there's a couple reasons I'm nervous.
Maybe school has changed a lot in the States since I was a kid, but it seems like they push kids a lot harder at an early age here in Brazil. Evani is always telling me how Lucas' cousin who is almost the same age as him has been able to write her name for almost two years now, and has homework, and writes, and maybe is even reading some already. I know another little girl, who I believe is eight, who has forty minutes of homework every day. Ruan used to have the same thing, although it used to stretch to an hour or longer depending on how much he wanted to fight us to not do what he was assigned.
I know very little about early child development but this seems like too much too soon to me. I had no homework until the fifth grade, and was not reading until first grade. Even here, alfabetização, which seems to imply learning to read by its very name, won't happen for Lucas for two years- if so, this is out of date- most kids here are already expected to read by that time.
I was discussing this with a Brazilian friend of mine and he said the reason for teaching someone to write their name at such an early age is very cynical- it allows them to vote. They may not learn to read, may not learn to write, may drop out of school at eight years old (there are no truancy laws here) but if they can write their name and pick out a number on a voting form then by gum they can fulfill their civic duty.
One of the things I really like about Lucas' school is that they have a different teaching method- they don't try to jam reading and writing down a kid's throat at three years old. For the past two years Lucas has been painting pictures and having books read to him and such, and then this year he learned his vowels and his numbers, did a big unit on colors and plants, and also learned how to write his name. So now he can vote. Well, he'll need to learn his last name first, and with a name like 'Pfohl' that could take a while. Oh yeah, and he does get homework, on Fridays- things like "color the animal on top of the table green," or "draw a line between the triangles." You know, starter homework.
So why am I concerned? Well, for one thing, my wife thinks he's woefully unprepared for the coming year and blames the teachers. She's not nearly as fond of the school as I am. The other thing is that Lucas still has a really hard time with a couple of those numbers, particularly '9' and '6.' And he gets confused with the vowels sometimes as well. And he keeps leaving the 'c' out of his name.
But the big thing is something I learned just yesterday: there is a new law here that sets the cutoff for a given school year at April 1st - no joke (har har, couldn't resist). That means that Lucas, whose birthday is March 30th, is within one day of being the youngest possible student in his class. And anyone who has had kids (and raised them, and paid attention) knows how much of a difference a year, or six months, makes at this age. I found this out because a student who left his school, and now wants to come back, is being asked to repeat a year. He's only a week younger than Lucas.
I can't believe I'm even worrying about this. He's only four years old! He's probably going to be fine. But I'm one of these idiots that hears a story on the news and then lets it unduly influence me- like the one I read about parents deliberately holding their kids back a year so they'll be more intellectually developed. Or the one about how the kids that exceed in sports are more likely to be born during some three or four month period during the year, because they end up being the oldest kids in the class. (does that mean it's the opposite 3 or 4 months here in the southern hemisphere?) My brother was born on one of those cusp periods, and she opted to let him be one of the oldest rather than one of the youngest in the class. She claims to this day that he resented that- and he ended up graduating a year early anyways.
And then I hear stories about kids who have to be in the 90th percentile to get into kindergarten at the best private schools in NYC. Well, that's clearly over the top, not to mention the many thousands of dollars a school like that must cost. I don't want to put that kind of pressure on my kid.
And there's one other factor. The public schools here are utter, total, crap. The public elementary school I attended in the sticks in Western Massachusetts had better facilities than the private school Lucas is attending. And even though it's not one of the more expensive schools here in Salvador, it's still a lot more than I would ideally be paying for a decent education for my kid. And I can't afford to repeat a year, especially if he's only four. And I really don't want him to switch schools- not at all, if I can afford it, but at least not until he's really reading so he doesn't get thrown into a class where they are all reading and writing already.
I would prefer that to be sooner rather than later.
I will post an update tomorrow on what happens at the meeting.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Fire!!
Just to prove I'm not the only one here in Salvador that has crazy adventures without even leaving the house, I'm going to reprint this email I received today from my friend Pardal. Pardal is the driving force behind the incredibly informative Bahia Online and also runs Cana Brava Records in Pelourinho. I've made a couple notes in square brackets for the non-Portuguese speakers out there.
Well. That was alarming. I wrote Pardal and told him thank goodness most of the city is constructed of non-flammable materials. When I lived in Putney, Vermont, I knew a guy who worked on the (much more organized and equipped) volunteer fire department, and he told me the majority of the fires they got called to were car fires. I figure that's why even though there's no annual inspection of cars here (even for such minor safety equipment as say... brakes) every car is required to have a fire extinguisher in it, with a valid one-year sticker, and they will ticket you for it if you don't. I know- I've been ticketed.
Stories like this are why my house bristles with smoke detectors and fire safety equipment. My house, as I mentioned in this previous post, is not built exclusively of non-flammable materials.
Which reminds me: I need to check the validation on my fire extinguisher...
If your building/house is burning down here in Salvador, don't count on well-organized, well-equipped bombeiros [firemen] to show up.
Approaching 4 a.m. this morning a car in the garage in our building caught fire (don't ask me how). The fire eventually spread to a total of 6 cars, and in the meantime we residents skedaddled down the back stairway in panic, with smoke and the sound of explosions coming up.
Talk about a rude awakening!
Half an hour later or so a fire truck pulled up, with barely any water in the tank, the barely water soon exhausted. But there was another truck on the way, it took another half an hour or so, the only other functioning truck in this city of millions (these two trucks had been broken down and had beer repaired yesterday evening, thank god!). Two other trucks (four in Salvador?) are still not running.
Two old ladies hadn't come down, one bedridden, the other the aged mother of a guy in the building who'd been told by some moron that the fire was no big deal. The guy'd descended, leaving his mother up there to look after the other woman (his mother-in-law) because of the idiot advice, and soon thereafter it was impossible to get back up that back stairway. I know because I tried and it was thick, black, blinding sooty smoke...very scary.
There was a chefe [fire chief] there. I asked him if there was one mask with a breathing apparatus anywhere in Salvador, told him I'd get in a taxi and go get it.
He responded that the firemen were doing everything they could.
I said no, there were two old ladies (at least) trapped up there, and asked if he could find out about a mask.
He said I was nervous. I said no, there were two trapped women, he said...
You get the idea. Total incompetent dumb fuck!
So the son, one brave fireman, and myself got into the smoky elevator and went up (all three of us scared shitless), stopping at several floors along the way to see if we'd be able to breathe, hoping we wouldn't get trapped. We got to the women and brought them down. There were several other older people up there and we got them down as well (I haven't felt so young for quite some time!).
The Corpo do Bombeiros [Fire Department] is run by o Estado da Bahia [the State of Bahia], run (down) by Jacques Wagner [our current state governor]. Broken and non-existent equipment! No funding! A disgustingly dangerous disgrace!
Well. That was alarming. I wrote Pardal and told him thank goodness most of the city is constructed of non-flammable materials. When I lived in Putney, Vermont, I knew a guy who worked on the (much more organized and equipped) volunteer fire department, and he told me the majority of the fires they got called to were car fires. I figure that's why even though there's no annual inspection of cars here (even for such minor safety equipment as say... brakes) every car is required to have a fire extinguisher in it, with a valid one-year sticker, and they will ticket you for it if you don't. I know- I've been ticketed.
Stories like this are why my house bristles with smoke detectors and fire safety equipment. My house, as I mentioned in this previous post, is not built exclusively of non-flammable materials.
Which reminds me: I need to check the validation on my fire extinguisher...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
