Foreign Kids - October 2009

Notice how during the school day the foreign kids are frequently left out and lonely and sad. This is supposed to be an international, English-language school, and the foreign kids--the ones who make it international, the ones who came here for the English, not Russian or Kazakh--are getting screwed. Kazakh parents have complained about the little English in the school. Most classes are taught in Russian, and the Russian and Kazakh teachers and assistants expect the children to understand them in Russian, speaking to the foreign kids in Russian. Sure, the foreign kids take 8 hours of Beginner's Russian every week, plus 5 or 8 hours of regular Russian, but, really, how much Russian do they know? Why not do everything in English? Sophia sure has no clue what her teachers are trying to tell her.

My Saudi Arabian boy won't come to school if his nanny isn't with him. My little Korean girl, who probably only is willing to come because there's a Korean boy in the class too, cries almost every day. Sophia is lucky that she speaks English. She's got Christie she can talk to and me next door if something goes wrong. Still, she gets upset sometimes and doesn't like going to Beginner's Russian class.

Notes go home in Russian, the homework "diary" is written in Russian--how do the foreign parents figure out what is going on?

In my 5th grade math class, my Saudi Arabian boy's older sister seems to be doing fine. Those children speak English better, and I heard one girl explaining a math problem to her in English. Yay! However, there's a Turkish girl who is completely lost. I think her math is extremely weak, too, but perhaps she's just very uncomfortable in a foreign language. What to do about her? Not much, just hope this year being bewildered in a foreign school doesn't hurt her too much. The children seem nice and try to help her, at least.

Being foreign is hard on a kid. Even in an international, English-language school. (OK, maybe in a real international English-language school it wouldn't be so hard.)