Village kindy

Back in May, I wrote the following to my parents in an email...

“I can't decide what to do about helping at the school. I am willing to help and want to, but I don't know about Titus and Lexi going with me. I asked Titus what he thought about us going to school and mommy teaching for a little while a couple of days a week. He said "No, mom. I just want you to be our teacher. Can't you just be our teacher? I don't want to go to school." Then I said, "What if just Lexi and mommy go to the school a couple of times a week and you stay home with Daddy?" He said, "No, I just want us all to stay at home - No one goes to school." I know we can't let him run our lives, but I also don't want to do anything that's going to make him more unsettled or insecure. He never wants anything to do with a large group of kids. And today Lexi said she doesn't want to go to school either. They play "school" all the time, but they want nothing to do with that big group of kids. They love individual kids, but when they see the large group together, they are intimidated (and I can understand that). I guess I can always try again next year.”  

Soon after we moved to the village I found out that the kindy (preschool) had two teachers, 40+ kids, no materials (crayons, paper, books, etc), no visual aids or flash cards, and no toys or games! And on top of that, neither teacher had any training at all, but were simply the only two in the village who were willing to commit to teaching kindy. Now I’ve had lots of teaching experiences, but have never had to come up with an entire curriculum under those circumstances. So I couldn’t even imagine how those two teachers did it! I decided to pray about it and talk to Eric. We agreed that it would be a great way to help out in the community and for the kids to have a little social interaction as well. But, as I wrote above, neither of our kids were interested and I sure wasn’t going to volunteer at the expense of my own children. So, I settled for a different kind of helping. My mom is a retired early elementary teacher (and she was an amazing one) so I always “pick her brain” for ideas for younger kids. I asked the local kindy teachers if they would be interested in having a little training session with her. They were super excited. So, when mom and dad were here in June, she and I went for one day and taught the kids and did a teacher’s workshop with the teachers. It went really well and we all enjoyed it. I still had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to help more, but didn’t have any idea how that would happen. Well...two weeks ago something changed. I wrote this in another email to my parents...

“A BIG day has arrived at the Brandell house...both kids are going to go to Kindy in the village starting next week. We are on school holiday right now and they have both decided that when school starts that they want to go to school. It was totally Lexi's idea. She's SUPER excited about it. We decided that she could go and that she would do just fine. We were a little unsure at first, but finally said “yes.” We decided that it would be a good experience for her. Then earlier this week Eric wanted to get Titus to think about going too. So he brought it up and Titus immediately said "no" but Eric didn't give up. He said, "Why don't you want to go?" and Titus said, "Dad, it's a little bit scary. I think I'll just stay with you and mom at home." Lexi said, "Ty, I'll hold your hand. We can go together! It's not scary." :o) He said, "No thanks, I'll just stay here." And we said, "Whatcha going to do while the kids are at school?" and he said , "Well, what are you guys gonna do?" Eric said, "Well, I'm going to be studying and Mommy will be working around the house." Titus said, "Well, I'll just go play with Wesley" - and we said, "Wesley and all of the other kids will be at school!" So he said again, "But I'm a little bit scared." And Eric said, "Titus when I was your age and I was starting to school I was so scared. But when I got to school, I made a friend who said, "Come with me Eric, you don't have to be scared! We're going to have fun!" Eric said, "Sometimes there are things in life that are a little bit scary, but you just have to try them anyway. Most of the time you'll find out that it wasn't scary at all and actually it turns out to be fun!" So Titus said, "Okay, I'll try it. I'll go to Kindy with Lex." So we told him and Lexi that they both would go every day for a week and try it out. Then we'd talk about it again to see what they thought. They both agreed. And we decided that Eric can take them - they won't be "clingy" to him like they would be to me and I'll pick them up (I plan to go up most days and help for the last hour or so of kindy to that'll work out well). They'll only have about 3 weeks of kindy before we go back to Vila and then we'll come back and have about 4 or 5 more weeks after we get back in November. We'll see how it goes. But if nothing else it's great for them to learn to function in a group setting and follow teacher's instructions (other than mom and dad's).”

Well, I can now report that after two weeks of kindy, we have a success story! It’s the perfect situation for them. The school is literally right across the road from our house, they leave the house a little before 8 each morning and have recess at 9:30. When recess is over (at 10), I come up to the school and do the last hour of kindy with all of the kids (the other teachers are there too). We do activities, sing, play with puzzles, do fine motor activities, and all sorts of other kindy activities. Mom and I were able to make some visual aids, flashcards, etc. when she was here. The other teachers do use them sometimes, but are still a little afraid to use them (it’s new and different). So I choose a couple each day and show them how to use them with the kids. It’s worked great so far.

The best part is that it has been so good for the kids’ social development and language learning.  Being away from mom and dad for 2 hours each morning has been great for their independence. They are making friends and learning how to get along in a group (taking turns, etc). It’s especially good for Titus to play with boys his own age, as most of his friends around the house are much older than he.  They are both communicating well in Bislama. We’ve really seen it flourish since starting kindy. As far as their academics, we still “homeschool” the kids (but at this point with them being 3 and 4 years old, that basically entails reading with them, learning letters, sounds, numbers, writing practice, etc - which are all part of our daily lives anyway). Village schooling is not the answer for the entire duration of our kids’ education, but it is a great fit for now and we are all enjoying it!