What's going on with Daniel?

Wow, where to begin?

First of all, to start with the hard stuff--Daniel is picking up Italian but not at the rate I anticipated. Everyone told me before I came, and I reasured myself in the same fashion, that "kids are sponges" and learn foreign languages very easily. However, I have to report after 6 weeks here, that Daniel is speaking only single words here and there and understands almost nothing in sentence form, beyond basic greetings such as "Come stai?" (how are you), "Come ti chiami?" (what is your name) and "Quanti anni hai?" (how old are you). I guess I was naive in my belief that children have a magical, natural assimilation of another language, and admittedly, his ear is better than mine was at the beginning of my study of Italian, but the process is MUCH, MUCH slower than I thought. However, he is happy and not stressed out and begs to stay in Italy--more about that later.

What about the Montessori School? Again, where do I begin? The entire philosophy and mode of instruction is completely different than anything else I have experienced, but I have a limited view since I have not been in his classroom during "school time." However, I can tell you that the Montessori School in Perugia is much more personal and warm than what I have encountered in the United States with my three children. For example, Daniel's class has 13 children (yes, 13, not 23, not 33) and there is a main teacher, Paola who he is VERY attached to and who has a true concern for him, and a couple of other teachers in the classroom at all times. The other classes are larger in the school (my friend Caterina has about 24 in her class, but she says this is because she is very experienced; she is too modest to say that she is a brava professoressa) and the justification for Daniel's small class size is that there is one child with autism in his class. However, Daniel has always had at least one child (or two) with autism in his class in the States as well as a multitude of other problems, including Asperger's Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder, Learning Disabilities, etc, etc, etc. and the class size has still been around 24 kids.

In addition, what I love about the Montessori School is that the children move at their own pace in some of the subjects, from what I can gather. For example, there appear to be math modules (groups of material) in which the kids work at their own pace. As I said earlier, Daniel was learning his multiplication facts right at the beginning of the year. But, one problem, is that a lot of the Montessori math involves specific types of teaching which the teacher cannot offer until he becomes competent in Italian; therefore, I have resorted to basically homeschooling him in math until his language skills develop a little further (and all of my friends know how I said I would NEVER homeschool one of my children :)).

In addition, I have always had an unwritten rule that I would NEVER send one of my children to an afterschool program, as no one could possibly care for and love my child as much as me (which I still believe to be true, ferocious mamma that I am). But, I have to eat my words and admit that the afterschool program at the Montessori School isn't bad. I have to leave Daniel there until 5 pm one day a week and 3 pm two other days per week (school only goes from 8:15 am until 1:15 pm which is a real pain in the ass for working parents, but it eliminates a lot of wasted instructional time as lunch, recess, computer, etc, etc are not done during class hours). So, three days per week, Daniel goes to afterschool. One of the directors of the program, Alessandra, was VERY reassuring to me, saying that she would look out for Daniel and help him with his Italian homework. In addition, she secured a babysitter for me one day a week to walk him home from school since I don't get out of literature class until 6 pm on Fridays (and she did this with one day notice, taking it on as her own personal imperative when the Universita' per Stranieri gave us one day notice of what our schedule would be). Daniel actually likes going to the afterschool program as the afternoon goes like this: lunch for about an hour which consists of several courses: pasta served with either a red/other sauce or olive oil, a "secondo" meat dish along with a "contorno" (usually a vegetable, which he refuses, arrrgh!), "pane" (bread) and fruit for dessert. This is followed by gym in which the kids play a very active (sounds somewhat vicious actually in that they try to "kill" each other with a ball, but he loves it!) round of what Daniel thinks is a version of sharks and minnows and then, his least favorite, homework time.

Of course, everything isn't ideal. The building is old, as is everything else in Italy, but the classroom is very large (about twice the size of his in the US) and has large windows and little specific drawers for each child's materials; apparently, self-organization and self-care is a big concept in the Montessori school. "Extras" such as computer, PE and music aren't as developed as in the US; for example, Daniel says they have PE only once a week and it consists of mainly throwing a ball wildly around in the the converted lunchroom. There are no computers (but most of my friends know what I think about the use of computers with small children--basically, that they are useless at best and mind-numbing and creativity-killing in reality). In music, the kids are learning to play a plastic "flauto", which he wouldn't have gotten until fifth grade in the US; however, we aren't able to do violin lessons here, so I guess that's a trade off. The other problem is that he can't really participate in sports here as I have no car and all of the gyms, soccer lessons, etc. are a considerable distance away (about 30 minutes by foot or bus) and I really don't have the time to deal with it with my class schedule. The upside is that we are spending a LOT MORE time together, just he and I, talking, taking long walks in an amazing park with beautiful trails through a wild olive grove at the end of the Mini Metro line, in a more non-frenetic way in the US. Basically, it's me and Daniel in our own little world, outside of my time at the university and his time at school.

So, in the long run, I hope that he will look back on this experience in Perugia as a special time with his mom and an opportunity to experience another culture, way of life, and (what's really important) some ass-kicking food :)!

But, I have to deal with reality, and the school in Virginia quasi-threatened me before I left that Daniel "may not be promoted" to fourth grade if he attends school in Italy for the entire school year. So, what I have decided is to keep him here through spring break in April and then send him home with his father to finish April and May in his school in the States, followed by 13 days of summer school. The school still says that this isn't a guarantee that he will pass third grade but I guess I have confidence in the intelligence of my children and also that there are other things that he is learning in Perugia for which there exists no equivalent in Yorktown, Virginia. It will be excruciatingly difficult for me to remain here for three months without him (as my program won't finish until the end of June), as I have never been away from any of my children for more than thirteen days at a time. But, hopefully, he will survive and will still pass third grade and will always have a sense of Perugia and Italia in his soul.

I would appreciate any comments on this, but please, not in a public forum.
You could send them to me via email at: carlacornettebriscoe@gmail.com.
Thank you.