More Expertise

Yesterday we had a meeting at the school to discuss the education plan for Douwe. We were there, Douwe's teacher was there, the, um, I guess we would call it a resource teacher was there and the coordinator from the speech school was there.

For most of the meeting unhappily I was not there. Douwe decided that the meeting was far too long and he furthermore objected strongly to everyone sitting around talking about him when he was not there and besides he was tired and wanted to go home. All of which added up to him being such a little pill that I would up leaving Paul to handle it and went outside with him and Daan.

Which was just as well since nothing really concrete came out of the meeting as far as I could tell. It lasted two hours, at least half of which evidently consisted of Paul and the coordinator from the speech school expressing their, um, differing opinions about whether it was a good idea to teach Douwe to read in English. So I am pleased that I was not there. Though I have no idea what I would have been able to say beyond pointing out that it is now too late, he can already read English.

I think this is fair to say. I mean, he isn't reading epic poetry or anything. He can read "Ten Apples Up on Top" and "The Berenstain Bears Go Up and Down" and so on with only a little help. The help he requires is to call his attention to the actual word he has to sound out, as he has a tendency to start making up the story when he hits a word or two he does not immediately know. So you do have to now and again put your finger under the difficult word and ask him what that word is. Then he sounds it out mostly, or guesses at it, depending on the mood he is in.

In any event, the conversation between Paul and the coordinator ended in Paul saying that we had no plans to stop him from either reading or speaking in English since half his family is American, and that was sort of the end of that. I have gone round and round this circle myself both in the states and here, so I am pleased to have missed it. Though as I say I am not sure I would have gone round and round again; I have worked out after many times around this maypole that the best response is to politely but firmly state that if one language is to be given up it will surely be Dutch -- since English is the only language every single member of this family can fluently speak -- and that they can surely agree with me that this would not be a good idea. People find it hard to argue with that.

No, of course we have no plans to quit speaking Dutch, are you mad? But it does put an end to a really fruitless conversation which serves mainly to reveal just how deep xenophobia does go. And yeah, I know I am a jerk, this is not news, lol.

In any event it was also a fruitless conversation because the school's position has always been that since the child is truly bilingual, the most sensible response to the occasional english word is to ask him if he knows the Dutch word for that, and to tell it to him if he does not and congratulate him if he does. Which is pretty much what we do at home. The school's only concern was whether we expected them to teach him in english and that was never a question -- I mean, it is a Dutch school in Holland, one rather expects the teaching to go on in English.

On of the interesting things about the process is that the problems the coordinator had written down to address are in large part entirely gone and irrelevant now because things are changing rather quickly. So she was all ready to talk about way to get Douwe to rhyme words and the teachers were like, "oh, no, he can rhyme all over the place, no need for that" and then going on with other things.

In any event, after all of that, the school is going to make a plan, rather like an IEP with goals and recommended strategies for dealing with them and so on and give it to us on Thursday. Then we will add and subtract whatever we think and give it back to them, it will be finalized and that will be that. But the actual plan is coming from the school itself, which is at this point quite helpful. If we get a bad teacher/student/parent combination in future this could become a problem, but there is no need to create such a problem now. At this moment, Douwe's teacher and I are entirely on the same page so it works out rather well.

There is some concern about next year, as learning becomes more structured and formal in group 3 (just as it does in the states with first grade) and no one is really sure what effect that will have on Douwe. I personally expect that it will make things much easier with him, he likes formal schooling and is good at it. However, there is no knowing for certain until we get there.