Found Objects

Her sisters will probably follow in time, but are now mightily annoyed with their teachers (the selfsame two teachers that the grammar-school kid had some trouble with last year) whom they will have to put up with (up with whom they will have to put, to satisfy the prescriptivists) for two years because it’s a combination 7/8 and they’re in 7. Now if that meant that they’d be able to do 7 and 8 in one year it would actually be worth it, but (a) these teachers wouldn’t cooperate even if we tried, and (b) they really are only ten years old, and they’d be starting high school at just or not quite eleven. Not that it seems to matter much at that school (I’m not responsible for their web design, God forbid): of the thirty-one kids in Naomi’s class almost half are less than twelve, and two of those are still ten. She herself is eleven and a half and one of the tallest in the class.

The first day started at 12:30 and was taken up with typical start-of-school things, like getting her locker key and a puzzle tour through the school which caused her to lose herself, and her group to lose each other, in the admittedly confusing corridors. And there was the amazing event of a whole class of very young adolescents groaning in dismay as one (wo)man because there won’t be any Latin this week: the Latin teacher is away to Rome with the third-years. This is what they came to grammar school for. It may be one of the few things that are better about the new school system (well, new since I was in grammar school): it causes the classical-studies stream to be populated by only those people who are actually interested. Nice people, too, the kind that we think of as ‘our sort of people’, who compliment her on her unusual blouse instead of making fun of it.

She came home knackered, of course, despite the lack of Latin, not the least from carrying six kilos of books on her back (though some of those were in her locker for part of the day, I hope). And then homework. A bit miffed about having parents look over her shoulder, but she’ll have to get used to that, because we intend to keep looking over her shoulder until she gets the hang of planning.

But she has more coherent geography than I did, and more interesting maths, and music lessons that actually teach something about music. The maths book came with a CD-Rom which was only-for-Windows, unnecessarily because all the example and practice programs were simple Java things, and Boudewijn managed to get it working under Linux quite easily. We’ll fight the ICT teacher (or at least the people who thought up the course, which is basically Windows-for-dummies) after Christmas when she gets ICT. Something will have to give way for that; her schedule is full. The only relevant thing I can find in the school guide is that both music and art are on the curriculum for one hour a week, and that she has two hours of music and no art now, so probably she’ll get two hours of art after Christmas. Perhaps it’s ‘study skills’ that’s only for the first semester.

She’s enjoying it immensely. Let’s hope it persists.