Chinese Parents

Today was parent visitation day, so the parents arrived with their children to meet me and look around the classroom. The first day of school starts tomorrow, but everything was set out as if it was a real school day.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that two of the children in my class are siblings of children that I had my last year in Taiwan, so I already knew the parents. All eleven children and their parents showed up, although three were more than half and hour late and missed the introductory spiel.

Then all the parents wanted to come up to me and tell me about their child. One mother said her son had "severe" separation anxiety. Another said that her son had a real problem with discipline and that she would like me to focus on that with him. Later, my teaching assistant told me that the same mother had told her that the boy's grandmother was constantly complaining about his behavior, so she was sending him to my school to correct it. I have a feeling the problem lies more with the grandmother than with the child, but we'll see. I also have a little half Italian, half Chinese girl whose father (the Italian) must not like Americans because he spent awhile blacking out the white lettering "American" on the girl's backpack. Our school is called "Happy Kids," but when I was here before, it was "Happy Kids American School" and the backpacks still have that on them. Good thing I'm Canadian, or he might pull his kid out!

Meanwhile, Michael was having a pretty rough first day of school. As the parents were leaving, his class was leaving the recess room and passing right by my door. He saw me and lost it. So, as I was saying goodbye, I was trying to calm down my screaming son and hand him off to his teacher. Despite this, I've heard that I've made a good first impression. I hope so, considering the parents are paying over $2000 Canadian for their kids to spend 2.5 hours a day with me for the next four months.

After the parents left, I realized that I had completely messed up the dates on the calendar that I had made for them last night. That's what happens when you're tired and working in the dark. So, I had to redo it, along with an apology and a few other items that I had forgotten to mention to them.

By 12:30, Michael and I were very ready to leave, which was fine, as that is when I finish on Tuesdays. I only work full days on Wednesdays and Fridays. I figured out the correct two buses to take home without any problem, and we spent a quiet day, mostly holed up in our bedroom as it was still cold and rainy.