First of all, the exciting news is in – Yirmi has officially been accepted to gan safa!

“Do you mind sharing a little bit more about how and why you decided to put Yirmi into the school system and not to homeschool him at this point?”

When it comes to homeschooling, there’s what I want to do and then there’s what I  actually do. If the two lined up, Yirmi would continue homeschooling.

There are two things that currently concern me: 1) acquisition of Hebrew language and 2) acquisition of friends.

I live in RBS, the largest English speaking community in Israel. It has some wonderful unique features that make living here a pleasure; the flip side is that as a homeschooler Hebrew is something I need to work to expose my kids to, and I’m not finding this easy to do. The most effective way to learn Hebrew is by being in a Hebrew speaking environment and having Hebrew speaking peers. I’m not providing that.

Secondly, though Yirmi enjoys playing with his brothers and their friends who come over on most days, he doesn’t regularly play with friends his age. This isn’t because there is a lack of kids around or because he doesn’t play appropriately (he does), but because I don’t get him out in the afternoons. I’m not regularly setting up the playdates that mothers have invited him to, I’m not getting out to the park  – while I’m not beating myself up for this, I’m being honest about my limitations because our kids need us to be honest about what we can really do, and to find alternatives if we can’t do it.

After years of being the mom who took her kids everywhere, who took her kids to the friends they were invited to (since most mothers would rather invite kids over than go out), who after moving to Israel took her kids to the park daily for years… I’m tired. And while I’d like to have more energy to take him out daily, I don’t.

“Can you share why you prefer gan safa to special ed?”

While gan safa is officially part of the special ed framework, in my area it is filled with typical kids who have language challenges of some sort.  (It’s not coincidental that our sizeable English speaking population has a high number of kids in gan safa – in other areas I’ve been told that gan safa is filled with kids with significantly more learning challenges.)  Kids who are cognitively more limited are put into a different gan system (gan ‘pigur’); kids with autism are put into yet a different system (gan tikshoret).

I’d like Yirmi to participate in an inclusive environment as much as possible. With the law that just passed here in Israel, I don’t know if it will be realistic anymore once he gets into grade school.  It will unquestionably be much, much more difficult than it has been for kids with special needs until now, and it hasn’t been a walk in the park for any of them even with favorable laws to work with. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But at least for now, he can benefit from a mainstream environment.

I’ve been asked why I don’t want to put him into the typical gan classroom. Going into school will be a huge transition. When taking into account not yet speaking Hebrew and having expressive language delays, it would be overwhelming for Yirmi to be in a class of 35 kids. I think all kids benefit from being in a smaller class environment, and gan safa is usually a class of about 12 kids with three teachers. Honestly, I think all kids would do best in an environment as supportive as this, but certainly it sounds like the best fit for him at this time, when taking into account the various options.

I don’t have any information on the specifics of the gan yet, but hopefully this will be a wonderful new experience for Yirmi!

Avivah