The first few days of this week were full, full, full of parent teacher meetings!  Today I’ll share a little bit about this as part of our aliyah process.

Dh went on Sunday night to meet with ds12’s teacher.  I think the expectations in this school of olim aren’t realistic because they have had so little experience with new immigrant, and it shows when they say what their expectations are.  It was recommended that we get additional tutoring for ds12 (his school is the only one that provides no support for olim/new immigrants), but I don’t think it’s necessary since ds is doing amazingly well, dh is working with him a lot, and since he’s probably going to repeat this grade in the coming year, anything he misses now will be caught then.

The next day began my meetings.  Officially the first one was just to go to the girls’ high school and meet ith dd15’s teacher, but additionally, I spoke with the principal, school advisor, and English teacher.  I spoke to their tutor on the phone the night beforehand since she wasn’t going to be there, and unfortunately missed speaking to dd17’s teacher – I didn’t make an app0intment to speak to her, and got to the school just a couple of minutes after she had left for the evening, which was fine since we can speak on the phone.

Of course, it was all just as I told dd15 it would be before I went – they all told me what a fine girl she is, how hard she’s working, etc.  Two of them were impressed that dd keeps a little notebook where she writes down words that she hears during the day (and every night she asks me to tell her what they mean!).   A couple of the teachers were extremely glowing about dd17 and dd15, and said it’s all a credit to how they were raised, but as nice as it is to hear, this kind of comment makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t think it’s honest to accept compliments like that which really aren’t mine, and I told the teachers that my kids deserve credit for the work they’ve done on themselves.  As a parent you can do your best, but how it turns out isn’t in your hands.  That’s not false humility – that’s the truth!

While there I took the opportunity to ask the homeroom teacher about some social dynamics in the classroom and how they were being dealt with – dd is in the most difficult class this school has ever had and the administration is struggling to figure out how to handle them.  Within less than two weeks of school beginning, I was already researching other options and seriously considering transferring her out, but after we discussed the options, dd decided she wants to stay where she is.  She’s getting a real education about what goes on in school, and has told me she wishes she could speak on the teen panel for the Torah Home Education conference now, after having been in school (she was on it this past summer) – she has plenty of perspective to share!   There are a lot of things that homeschooled kids take for granted about being homeschooled until they’re in a different framework where everyone hasn’t had that, and it’s nice for me that she can look back and now appreciate some aspects of our approach to learning that she wouldn’t have considered noteworthy before this.

The next morning I went to dd11’s school to speak with her teacher.  I had received a note about parent teacher conferences being scheduled for Tuesday evening, but those who wanted to could make appointments for limited slots in the morning.  I chose the morning knowing that it was likely to be more relaxed and with less waiting, while simultaneously ensuring I would be home in the evening for dinner and bedtime.

Her teacher mentioned that she thinks dd11 is having trouble because she was homeschooled until now.  “Really?”  I ask.  “What kind of difficulty?”  Well, she tells me, she is very well-behaved, attentive, pleasant, smiles at the girls and plays with them at recess, but she’s holding back by not speaking much to them.  Is she so closed at home also?  Ahem.  “Don’t you think it’s possible,” I suggest, “that she’s not speaking to them because she can’t speak the language yet?”   Oh, right.  “And don’t you think it indicates a degree of social confidence,” I asked, “that she’s interacting with girls that she can’t talk to, rather than sit to the side?”  Oh, yes, definitely, that’s a very good thing.

Then I told her that in my opinion, it’s because she was homeschooled that she’s made the transition so well.  Then the teacher began asking me all about homeschooling.  I avoided discussions of this sort when I first moved here; I had no interest in immediately becoming known as the person who was different.  But now I feel like people see who I am and I can discuss it in the proper context, without the ‘weirdo’ label attached to homeschooling or to our family.  After answering lots of her questions, I finally laughed and told her that I had come to talk about dd and her school experience, not homeschooling!

While I was in the school office, I learned that I had an appointment with ds9’s teacher that evening.  Ds9  had given the note to dh instead of me, and dh had forgotten to mention it to me, so I didn’t know about it.  The secretary told me she thought it was strange that I scheduled one meeting for the morning and one for the evening, instead of coming for both at the same time!  My efforts to avoid going out in the evening clearly didn’t work out as planned, and so I headed to ds9’s school that evening.

While waiting to speak with his teacher (the line was backed up), I meandered around into the girl’s school next door, and happened to meet dd11’s tutor.  As soon as she realized who I was, she told me, ‘Your daughter doesn’t like working hard.”  This doesn’t match dd11, so I asked her to clarify.  She told me that dd11 was very resistant to  the learning she tried to do with her, and that she doesn’t like to extend herself to learn.

Now, I had seen the homework dd was bringing home from this tutor and was dismayed that it flew in the face of the approach I had agreed upon at the beginning of the year with the principal and teachers – the focus this year is for her to learn the language so that she can communicate and understand what’s going on.  Dd is not going to be expected to participate in class, be tested, have to do homework, etc, for the first half a year.

During our conversation I learned that this very nice and well-meaning tutor wasn’t told about this, nor did she have any idea of what dd’s spoken Hebrew was like (basically non existent).  And so she went about tutoring her the way she would have tutored girls who were living here for a year or two and were already fluent in the language!  She felt it was critical for dd to be able to stay on par with her class, so she was teaching her Biblical Hebrew, isolated words that had absolutely no daily application, and dd11 was struggling to remember words that didn’t connect to anything.

Also unfortunately, the tutor doesn’t speak English.  She told me that was no problem because she would have dd look up the words in the dictionary.   When dd had first showed me the work she was doing with this tutor, I decided not to make an issue of this, since I knew it was a short term arrangement and someone very good would be replacing her soon, and dd was getting concrete assistance from her other tutor.  I realized while speaking to the tutor how much she really didn’t understand of the situation.  But it bothered me that she was still unfairly categorizing dd.

So I explained to her that dd11 can’t even say or understand more than the most simple of sentences, and didn’t understand most of what the tutor was telling her.  I told her that what she did was like teaching Shakespeare to a child who doesn’t yet know how to read .  And because the tutor didn’t speak English, dd had no way to express to her that it was all way over her head.

Her tutor felt so badly after we spoke and kept saying she wish she had understood all these things before, because it was clear to her how unhelpful her approach had been.  (I told her not to feel badly, that it was just how the circumstances were and no one’s fault.)  Then she told me that she saw during one of their very last lessons, she had given dd easy words, of colors and numbers, and all of a sudden she perked up and was involved – and it was only as she told me this that she realized that dd hadn’t been more involved then because she was lazy, but because it was finally something on her level!

If I had any inkling that no one had told her about how to approach learning with dd (this is arranged through the school, during school hours), I would have spoken to her.  But I had spoken to the other tutor, and the principal, and the teacher, and the new tutor, and everyone was on the same page with me, and I assumed this tutor was teaching in this way because it was her approach.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell people how to do their job, once they know what their job is – but she didn’t know what the job was, unfortunately.  I learned that over- verifying isn’t a bad thing to do.

I was really glad to have bumped into her and straightened that out, and then I went back to the boy’s school and met the math teacher of ds9.  She told me to tell him that she understands English well, though she can’t speak it, and that he can answer questions that are asked in English.  She also told me she sees he understands not only the math, but the Hebrew, and shared the following example with me: she asked the class a question, and ds’s seat partner answered it very quickly. She asked him how he figured out the answer so fast, and he told her that ds had written down the answer on the paper and showed it to him!

It was interesting speaking to her, since she came to Israel from Russia at the age of 13 (she’s in her twenties now), and understands exactly how hard it is to be a new immigrant.  It was nice to have someone right away get it, without me having to explain the obvious (eg the above examples regarding dd of the reality of not being able to talk to those around her).

Then I met the music teacher.  I had learned just a few days before that ds9 is the only boy in the class without a recorder, and asked the teacher about this.  She immigrated from Russia at my stage of life, with school age children, and she also was very understanding of the difficulties for a child his age.   I told her that I’d like him to have a recorder, and would send money to buy one at the office the next day (after learning that parents are supposed to buy one – I had never been notified about this).  She told me that she had given him a recorder to use on several occasions, but feels that he has so much to adjust to in learning Hebrew, that she doesn’t want to pressure him more.  She explained that music is like a second language, and felt that since next year this class won’t be having the recorder, it was better for him to not have the added expectation of himself to learn how to read music and how to play the recorder.

I appreciated her thoughtfulness, though I thought ds9 would feel left out continuing to be the only one in the class without an instrument.  But when I asked him about it, he told me he’d rather not play and is happy to sit and watch.

Then I finally spoke with his teacher (I got in about an hour or more after my scheduled appointment), who is such a caring and devoted teacher.  He asked me what our expectations of him are – isn’t that a thought provoking question?  I told him that some things are simply going to take time to improve, until ds can speak Hebrew.  He wanted suggestions for the ways I felt it would be best to engage ds in class – he doesn’t want to ask of him something that’s too much, but he doesn’t want to ignore him, either.  He understands English though ds doesn’t seem comfortable speaking to people in English unless they speak to him in English also.  Definitely limiting!

All in all, I enjoyed all of my meetings.  All of the kids’ teachers are good people who want them to succeed, and I feel like we’re working on the same goals.

For those of you who have moved overseas with children (or been children) who are in school, does any of this sound typical?  Better or worse than usual?  Any suggestions or tips you’ve learned along the way to make the system work better for your children?

Avivah