Teachin'

The conservative Christian turn that Reilly Kate's preschool took this year is not my only bitch. I'm none too thrilled with the teaching aspects of the school, either. While I personally haven't any problems with the academic nature of the classroom activities, I know several parents from last year aren't too happy. They feel the children are being pushed to do more book learning and less fun free time. As I said last post, Reilly Kate loves her teacher and the work they do in class so I have no problem there.

I do however have a few problems with the teaching policies.

For one, as I went over before, we have Head Start here on base for those with special needs, be they developmental, monetary, or linguistically. So why then does my daughter have several children in her class that speak no English and a teacher's assistant who primarily speaks in Korean to the Korean speaking children? I have no problems with my daughter being exposed to another language. In fact, I rather like it. But when the primary teacher is also speaking in heavily accented English (she's Filipina) and the teacher's assistant speaks very little broken English, I think this is a problem.

You can see there's a problem by just looking at the bulletin board in the hallway outside her classroom. "Blast off into THE space?" THE space? Misuse of articles is classic Konglish (a mix of Korean and English). As one who taught ESL here in Korea, I know Konglish when I see it and that, my friends, is Konglish.

And then there is that whole spelling thing. I'll give you, English spelling is difficult. But, um, we're talking teachers here. Teachers teaching Konglish and bad spelling. Vacuum. It's a bit of a tricky word. Hence the reason to have a dictionary close by... in a classroom.

And perhaps the most disturbing part of this is not that neither of her teachers are fluent enough in English to put together a correct bulletin board. No, the most disturbing part is that the director, a native English speaker, did not catch this. Hmmm... she's amiss in her duties. I know the director has a dictionary. She brought it out to show me. Granted it is a Bible reference dictionary featuring ancient Greek and Hebrew. But you'd think if she can clear up any confusion on Ephesians 5, she should be able to handle the word vacuum. Right? And the whole "Blast off into the space" thing is just plain incompetence.

Then there was the community helpers parade. For weeks this thing was touted to us parents. At drop off, at pick up. "Remember, next week Friday we're doing the community helpers parade! Please plan on attending." Last year they did several things that involved the parents and I just figured this was going to be similar. In my head, the kids would dress up, introduce what kind of a community helper they each were pretending to be, and then do a few nice Jesus songs. Several times I asked Reilly Kate about it, but she didn't have a clue which I thought was a little strange. Last year the kids practiced for weeks. Reilly Kate would come home singing the songs they'd practiced that day. She would sing them so often at home that by the time of the class performance, Roman would also know all the words. This time, the only song she sang from school was that horrible "Squishing up the baby bumble bee" song.

So I showed up at the school at the allotted time and looked around for Mike since he was supposed to leave work early to catch this big shindig. There were only a few of us standing in the hallway which surprised me. I figured a lot of parents must not be that interested in coming because as much as it was pumped into our head, the day and time, I doubt anyone forgot -- hell, I was even there. Early! I went outside to look for Mike, but he was no where around. I went back into the hallway and waited. Then I decided to take a peek in the classroom. There was Mike and the parents of three other kids. The "program" had already started... several minutes early. A lot of parents missed it. I missed it. I asked the director why they had started early and she looked at her watch and said, "Oh, it's just a minute early." I can tell you, I was standing out in that hallway for more than five minutes.

Then the "parade" began. The parade consisted of the kids walking around out in the parking lot, willy nilly, without any order, and us parents following behind. There wasn't any structure to this. It was literally just kids walking around in dress up clothes. The same dress up clothes that they play with every day during free play time. Some of the kids wandered away from the group, moms trailing behind. Most of us didn't know where they were going or if we should follow, so we kind of just huddled in the parking lot. Those that weren't trying to herd our kids, that is. Then the teachers assembled the class in the playground where they all posed for pictures.

Back in the classroom, the teachers had the kids redo the beginning of the program for those of us who were either standing out in the hallway or those who didn't come early. There the children performed that hateful song about killing and mutilating one of God's creatures... a baby no less. Yes, yes, people. The overly Christian preschool that has my daughter learning early that she is to submit to her husband, couldn't be bothered to teach my daughter a little "Kumbaya" or "This Little Light of Mine." No, they focused instead on "Smashing Up a Baby Bumble Bee" and sang it thrice. I guess that's the only song they practiced.

The best part of the program was when after the third rendition of Bumble Bee ended, Roman took it upon himself to begin singing, in a rather loud voice, "It's time to say goodbye. It's time to say goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goooooooooooodbyyyyyyyyyye!"

It's just bad teaching, poor planning, and stink ass organization. I'm so disappointed this year. Hell, the kids can't even celebrate or discuss Thanksgiving. It's not a biblical holiday. Bah. Roman's right. It's time to say goodbye.