Words from a 5 year old who Monday came home from the Kinderschool with a fat lip and yesterday came home with a small, but still bloody, cut on his head due to a rock throwing incident.
Prior to our move here, Lyle was at The Denver International School in the Spanish program. Full immersion, led teacher from Spain and only spoke Spanish and French, assistant from Mexico, 14 kids in the class, all the kids native English speakers.
The kinderschool here in La Manzanilla has 3 classes of 30 kids each, one teacher per classroom and no one speaks English.
When I asked the teacher about Lyle's fat lip she remarked that it was probably an insect bite. Lyle later told me it was from getting punched in the mouth.
When I asked Lyle about the rock incident he said after the boy hit him with the rock one of his friends went and told the teacher about it. I asked Lyle, "what did the teacher do?" - it's hard to get exact details from a 5-year-old- but my conclusion is the teacher did nothing.
Poor kid says to me, "Mom, this is harder than I thought it would be." I just burshed it off and told him, not to worry and to just ignore those mean boys, but inside my heart is breaking for him.
I'm sure in a month or so he'll have the lay of land and a better command of the language.
WE'RE DONE HERE!
10 years ago
7 comments:
OMG - my heart breaks for him! I hope it gets better.
Do you know Helga? Talk to her about her granddaughter.
he'll be fluent in spanish before you know it and as you said, hopefully he will soon have the lay of the land. that sounds like a lot of kids for those classes, especially for that age. my boys are now 22 and 24 but i remember how much it hurt when anything like that happened to them. being moms, we'll always feel their pain. good luck with everything in your new life in manzanillo.
teresa
Poor thing - I am so sorry!!! Our class sizes are very small - I think we have 2 K3s with 8 kids each. My older one had a problem with a bully, but weirdly enogh I felt a bit better about it when I found out other Mexican kids were being bullied by the same child. It's just that much more painful when you think your child is being bullied for being the "outsider" when this is the choice that we have parents have made for them!
Yes being an outsider seems to be part of the problem and it's heartbreaking for me because he is extremely outgoing and wants to be friends with everyone. He's very confused when the kids say, "no" when he asks them, "quieres jugar?"
Oh, now my heart breaks for you! We are new to Mexico from Australia. With little to no spanish under our belts i just translated your last sentence. I instantly felt a heavy feeling in the heart when i seen what he was asking and the response from the kids. I too have a five year old and i feel your pain.
L xo
Things are getting better! Less fighting, more friends. Language is the key. Find a good tutor and practice, practice. From Australia? Where in Mexico are you?
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