French Class

Conor is starting first grade in two weeks. For some reason that seems so much older to me than kindergarten. It has a real number!

We are very happy with the French immersion program he is in. His receptive French is pretty good although he still is quite shy about speaking French.

Two things we still think about in our schooling decision.

1) Did we do the right thing by holding him back a year? He is bored at school. The most fun thing about school is riding the bus home. Scooby Doo is WAY more exciting than school has ever been. I don't know if this is a Conor thing (I loved school; I'm not sure he does), a boy thing (school is not as much fun for boys as girls in general), or an age thing (he needs to be in second grade now; certainly his math is way beyond what they are doing now). I don't know if it is the right decision for now, but it certainly was the right decision then. Can you imagine starting kindergarten, living in a new house, while we remodel the old house, while two small and needy twins move into the family? Conor was chewing his nails down to the nub at that point without starting kindergarten. I think it would have been beyond his capacity to cope had we started school.

2) Are we doing enough to help him read? It's the parents' responsibility to teach children English until they get into the third grade at an immersion program. We read a lot, but are we doing enough? Probably not, but Conor is actually reading pretty well. He just did an activity from our first grade activity book and could read nearly every word. He's not reading a lot on his own, but he is figuring out words by sounding them out.

So I'm not bragging on him, OK? We have neighborhood friends whose children were reading chapter books before kindergarten and Hippogriff's older son was doing 5th grade math at 5 years old. It's just that I don't want Conor to be so bored by school. I'd like the love of learning to not be extinguished by 2nd grade. We expect him to have quite a few more years of schooling after that.

Any advice you have on keeping boys interested in school would be vastly appreciated!

Kindergarten

I've had some wine with the dinner party we had tonight. Can I still blog?

We'll see.

Anyhoo, good and bad news with Conor's options for kindergarten next year. The good news: our local school is no longer Title 1 Choice. That's great. Sort of. Our local neighborhood school is Good now. But it doesn't feel like it, to be honest. One year out of being "good" still seems sort of sketchy to me. And the real issue is that all of a sudden we've dropped a notch in the lottery standings. In Charlotte, the lottery for the magnet programs goes in this order: within 1/3 mile of the school; siblings; Title 1 folks; in the transportation zone; everyone else. We've moved from "Title 1" to "Zone" in two of our (former) choices and "everyone else" with our final choice. We've subsequently changed what our lottery choices are.

I KNOW it's "political" our choice not to attend our local school. "Good" people in our neighborhood do. And by "good" I mean "good"--people who want to do good in this world and help spread the wealth of resources and attention. I am too selfish in my career to do this though. I can't work and run the PTA at the elementary school to. (I realize no one is asking me to do this, but it my delusional mind, that's the level of involvement needed)

So we got data for the lottery assignments from last year. This is the list of the number of people who applied to the 2009 CMS magnet programs, the number of people who got in and the number of people who were wait-listed. The good news (for us) is that it doesn't appear that there is a problem for us to get into a language immersion program. Indeed, we've decided to opt for French, Chinese and German in that order. We had eliminated Chinese earlier because we heard it was so popular there was a wait list for it. there is not. Since we knew there was one for French, too, we didn't want to go for programs we had little chance to get into. However, we're pretty sure we'll get in to the school (the language immersion) we want to now.

It's our friends who want to get into the more popular traditional and learning intensive/talent development schools who are going to have a harder time now. One very good thing is that our local school also has a magnet program for learning intensive/talent development. And we hear it's really, really good. it is one of the reasons why our school has graduated from Title 1.

And that's good. I understand that it's good. And in 5 years, our local school may be THE school to go to. In fact, it may be *THE* school to go to next year. I GET IT and I FEEL GUILTY that we still are concerned. Still, even if it had been "good" for the last five years, Dave and I still might prefer the language immersion program. it's really appealing to us. We've just thought, since we've lived in our neighborhood, that we'd always at the top of the list to get it. And now, our chances have gone down. Only slightly for our choice, but more for our friends.

So you know the weird part? After writing all this out, if we ended up NOT getting into the language immersion program and getting into the talent development/learning intensive program at the local school, I think that would be fine. I think it would be more than fine---I think it would be good.

We'll see. We finalized our choices today. Fingers crossed, mes amis.

ETA: Our good neighbors and why our local school has improved.

Overwhelmed

I am cutting myself some slack.

Nonetheless, things are feeling quite overwhelming to me today what with the move and still unpacking and finishing the house, trying to clean an unpacked house, starting back to school in one month, prepping a new class, learning a new computer system for class, revising an NSF grant, submitting at least one conference paper and preferably two and/or perhaps a symposium in one month, shopping for Christmas, deciding on and sticking to our Christmas budget when I can't get out of the house to shop and Amazon's days of free super saving shipping are drawing nigh, transitioning to a new nanny, providing the nanny with resources and family beliefs on bonding and interaction and feeding, learning appropriate interaction activities for the twins and nanny(s), trying to keep on the good side of nanny(s) because losing them screws us in innumerable ways for this semester, keeping track of Christopher and Bridget's health/eating/development, trying to eat different foods to help Christopher's skin, going to the bazillion wonderful Christmas recitals Conor is in, finalizing Conor's kindergarten choices, deciding whether twins are going to stay with a nanny in the fall or go to Conor's daycare (applications due in February), figuring out how the HELL we're going to make it financially until July when Conor stops daycare, and generally just trying to remember to breathe and eat and pee.

There is more, but these are the top things on my mind.

It is times like these that I do realize that THANK GOD I AM PAST TENURE and I can just relax and do things one at a time. (Instead of everything all the time, faster and better, which was life before tenure)

The doctor called Christopher's eczema "run of the mill" typical eczema and prescribed a very mild oily cortisone steroid for flare ups. We are to keep the child lubed twice a day with Cetaphil lotion (or one the doc recommends, which I imagine is expensive and has paid him money to recommend). I'm glad we went. The 1% cortisone cream did make a difference, but I'd rather have a doctor's advice when putting steroids on my child's face.

In any case, I feel better getting it out. And now I shall self-medicate with a glass of wine. Have any idea when I'm going to fit exercise in my schedule? Cause that's really what I'd like to self-medicate with.

Towards the End of the Semester

My grad students walked into the class this morning looking particularly bleary eyed. There's the normal grad student, stressed out, overwhelmed look. And then there was this morning, with extra bags under their eyes and a glazed expression on their faces.

"Wow!!" I say "You all look like crap!!"

"Thanks!!" they cheerily replied. "So do you!!"

I love my grad students.

Now is the time that all the faculty and all the students are overwhelmed and panicked. We're not quite halfway into the school year but we're almost finished with the first semester. Every single one of us has not done everything we've wanted to do this semester. I don't care how long we've been professing, at this time of the year we're all surprised by how behind we are.

Let me restate that: we're all surprised by how big our "behind" is. And we haven't even started eating our way through the holiday parties yet.

My Little Innie

Oddly enough, I'm not going to talk about my belly button.

Instead, I want to blog about Conor's adjustment to his new room in daycare. It's a much bigger, much more exciting room with lots of toys and lots of noise and kids. It's very stimulating and we think it would fun to hang out there and play for the day. However, Conor has not adjusted to it as well as the teachers would like.

After a few weeks, they told us that he preferred playing by himself or reading a book instead of playing with the other kids. Then they told us that they were concerned about his attention span because he didn't like to spend a lot of time doing the circle activity. I questioned any problems with his attention span (he's always been able to focus and do whatever he wants for a long period of time). I suggested that it may be just a little too stimulating for him. I also was concerned a bit that he wasn't playing with the other kids. (Isn't that every parent's fear?) However, I think I let my concern ramp up their concern.

On Weds, we found out that during the regular teacher/specialist meetings, they alerted the inclusion specialist that they were concerned about Conor's participation in the class. The teacher told me that although Conor is receptive to other children approaching him and wanting to play, he does not initiate interaction with other children. Also, they felt he should be more active in the circle group. He hasn't seen a child that reticent in the 7 years he's been teaching. (That scared me a bit)

Then he pointed out that just that day Conor had taken some toys into circle time and was poking another child with them. They had asked him to sit outside the group for a few minutes until he was able to come back in.

Without missing a beat, I said "It looks like he was initiating interaction right there, wasn't he?"

The teacher looked slyly at me and pointed out the difference between "appropriate and inappropriate initiation."

I'm just saying.

The inclusion specialist wasn't concerned at all and when I asked if we should try to schedule more playdates, she said No. Just keep reading to him, playing with him and loving him. Not too hard. But the teachers seem more concerned.

Here's the pushback part. Conor does not have any of the signs for Asperger's Syndrome. The only thing that is happening is that he appears to be a little slow to warming up to this new classroom.

Since I know his father pretty well, I'm voting that our little guy is a bit more introverted than the average bear. Introversion is not shyness. Shyness involves a social anxiety that Conor does not have. Introversion, on the other hand, has to do with where one gets one's energy.

Here's a question for you: You have a completely free day with no obligations. What would you like to do?

No seriously. Think for a second, what would you do on your free day?

Ready?

If your fantasy free day involves going out with friends and doing things with others, you are likely to be an extrovert: you get your energy from stimulation outside of yourself. I am an extrovert. People pump me up.

If your fantasy free day involved reading a book at home or doing some other thing alone, then you are likely to be an introvert: You get your energy from inside yourself. You likely have a rich inner life. A lot of external activity and stimulation can be overwhelming and tiring. Introverts often need to be alone to recharge themselves. Dave is an introvert.

Introversion/extroversion has a strong genetic component and does not have much to do with the environment in which one is raised. It is such a fundamental part of people's lives because introverts' and extroverts' brains are wired differently. It's a fundamental part of how people want and need to process the information around them.

So I think Conor is an introvert, or "innie" as they are sometimes called. And introverts function differently in classrooms than extroverts do. (And of course, the bias is for outies and not innies). They don't like group activities as much and they need time away from everyone else to process the information they are learning.

This sounds a lot like the "problems" Conor is having in school. The good news is that innies will eventually start participating like everyone else after a few more weeks/months in the classroom. But it does take them longer than average. And I don't want to walk into the classroom and say "YOU'RE WRONG! HE'S JUST AN INTROVERT!! BACK OFF!" Actually, I DO want to do that, but I'm not going to. I do want for Conor to develop more social skills, like I would want all toddler kids to do so. I just want there to be no pressure on him as he does so. And they just let him warm up at his own pace.

That said, I do have a fantasy of saying to his teachers:

Maybe the circle activity is boring? Huh? Have you thought about that? Picking your favorite colors? Conor's been doing that at least since his ((brilliant, genius, friendly)) cousin Carter* came to visit last Thanksgiving. And you're going to TEACH him that his parent's have their own names and then get him to learn his address? PUH-lease!! He not only knows HIS own address but he knows his friend Ollie's address!! MAYBE he doesn't participate in this group because it's BORING and he doesn't want to do STUPID THINGS that he already knows how to do. And maybe the other kids? Do you think they might be boring too? Huh???? Maybe our son is just TOO SMART to identify colors in a group. What about THAT!

So, ummm, yeah. I won't be saying that. It does come off a wee bit more defensive than I'd like. And I don't think the issue is as much our-son-is-too-smart-and-is-bored as it is our-son-is-overwhelmed-by-all-this-kid-noise-and-craziness. Introversion is not a Bad Thing. But it is likely to present some challenges in some environments. I think we're going to have to educate the teachers about it when they worry that Conor is just following along.

So there. *I'm trying to find Carter's personal web site, and I can't! He's one of the main reasons we are not going to argue Conor is so smart for his age. The second one is Ollie. Conor's not bored in that group. He's overwhelmed. I've seen his father do the same thing.