Skipping Rope

March 31, 2009 By 20 Comments

I love Sean’s Deja Vuesday. They are weekly reminders of moments I might have otherwise forgotten. Today I’m turning back to a post originally on Namas Daisy titled, “Writing With My Least Dominant Hand.”

children writingChildren do learn as they live, but so do adults.  Mia is in a Dual Immersion Spanish program.  She is finishing her first trimester as a first grader or “grader” as she likes to refer to herself now that she is not in kindergarten anymore.  Max starts kindergarten next fall and Mia is taking advantage of all the moments of not having to share the playground with her baby brother.

Max is gifted with as much language as she, except he cannot do it in Spanish….yet (though he nailed potty training in about an hour).  Neither can Mommy, though I am doing everything I can to keep pace.  I tell myself daily  “You can do better. Just jump into conversation with the other moms and dads at pick up time, and speak a little social Spanish.”

I am quiet at pick up time.  I listen and observe.  I am learning.  I am in the silent phase of acquiring language.

Stage 1: Listening.

If you enter Mia’s immersion classroom, the vehicle driving instruction is LANGUAGE.  No, not conjugating verbs or memorizing prepared meaningless dialogue.  Rather, one would see children using Spanish by speaking, reading, writing, adding, discussing fractions, measurement, conducting science experiments, arguing, singing, whispering – every bit in Spanish.

This of course is directed by the guidance of a teacher who follows the same curricula as the district’s English only classrooms, but she gives Mia a gift that I cannot – the mother tongue of Spanish with perfect delivery and high expectations.

We wanted this program for Mia, longed for it and cried when we did not get accepted during the first round of school of choice applications.  Mia is able to maintain English and absorb a second tongue while her brain is most receptive to learning language.  Her academic and social gains, across cultural, ethnic and linguistic boundaries are some of the most positive public education experiences I have been a part of in 20 years of teaching.

It is also the hardest and most challenging endeavor for me.

For Writer Dad and Mia, speaking Spanish is like taking a breath of fresh air.  They skip rope with Spanish like we all skip rope with English.  For me, speaking Spanish is like white knuckling the edge of the North rim of the Grand Canyon before dropping into the deep depths of the wild unknown.

This is a recent homework assignment which Mia attacked with enthusiastic speed, proficiently giving it her all, and finishing with the pride and detail that is our family’s trademark.

Estimados Padres,

Por favor ayuden a su hijo/a a escribir un parafo con 5 o mas oraciones acerca de las jirafas.  Adentro de su folder encontraran intomacion importante acercad de las jirafas que aprendimos en clase.  Nota:  Esta tarea los va preparar para el ecamen de escritura del Miercoles.

Gracias,

Senora Alaniz

Translation:

Dear Parents,
Please have your child write a paragraph with 5 or more sentences about giraffes.  Inside his/her homework folder you will find some important facts they have learned about giraffes.  Note:  This homework will prepare them for their writing test on Wednesday.

The light at the end of the tunnel was a note Mia had written to me after our last homework session.  I found it written on red paper (my favorite color) and in her best first grade penmanship rolled up like a scroll tied in white ribbon.  It said: 

Dear Mommy,  You are the best Mom.  You try so hard and you are smart.  Don’t give up, keep on trying because you are the best.  I love you so so so sooooooo much. Thank you for helping me. xoxo Mia

If wouldn’t make you weep I don’t know what would.  Her words of encouragement made me hold tighter and try harder this weekend when we had to plot out a weather pictograph and write a paragraph about it.  I want to be able to skip rope with Mia and Writer Dad in Spanish.  Max and I are ready, and guess what?

Max is also left handed.

I can add writing with my left hand to model for my son, so I can both feel and understand the difficulty of writing with my least dominant hand, then add it to my to do list under master Spanish.  It takes time, but that is the best gift I have to give my children.

Here is Mia’s exam on Giraffes.  She received a score of a “4″  which in Dual Immersion Land means advanced proficient.

Las Jirafas

Las jirafas son mamiferos.  Tienen crias cuidan a sus crias las crias toman leche de su mama y tambien tienen cuellos muy largos, manchas cafes, y colas muy largos.  Viven en la savana de Africa.  Comen hojas verdes de los arbols y palitos.  Algo de sus adapsienes son: manchas, cafes para camuflajearse, cuellos my largos para ver cuando sus en emigos van a atakar y duermen a dos horas por dia.  Jirafas son amigables.

Can you translate this without running to Google?

Cindy Platt is an educational consultant and home school expert.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Hi! I’m Mia

March 18, 2009 By 44 Comments

Today is the first ever guest post from my daughter. She was really really excited to do this. Enjoy!

img_0075My name is Mia Maria. Well, not really. That’s just the name my daddy gave to me when he’s writing about me on Writer Dad. I am seven years old and my birthday is in January. I love drawing, cuddling with my mom and dad, and watching movies. I do not watch television.

I go to a dual immersion school and I get to speak Spanish all day long! My teacher is a lady and only speaks Spanish to us but she speaks English when she is speaking to other grown ups. My favorite things to do in school are read, write, and play. I am in this program called Ballet Folklorico. We are learning two dances right now called, “La Michuhacan” and “La Azteca.” I wear a purple skirt and a kind of shirt called a chino poblana. I also wear a pair of black shoes.

I love to draw because it makes me feel happy and makes me smile. My favorite things to draw are bunny rabbits! My favorite things to eat are Chinese food, Mexican food and all kinds of seafood. I think seaweed is really yummy. My favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. My favorite kinds of ice cream are rainbow sherbet and spumoni. I like to cuddle with my mommy and daddy because it makes me feel beaming. I think that’s how you say it.

My brother’s name is Max, but only like my name is Mia. He is the rascaliest brother I have ever met. He always wants to kiss me and is always antagonizing me. We always get along and cuddle on movie night. Movie night is every Friday. We get to watch a movie and have movie treats. My favorite movies are American Girl doll movies, Tinkerbell, and movies about baby animals like the arctic one with the polar bears and snow foxes. (WD NOTE: She means Arctic Tale)

I love being seven. Bye-bye and adios.

Mia

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Two X’s the First Grade

March 10, 2009 By 27 Comments

This Deja Tuesday post on dual immersion was originally written late last summer, before Mia entered first grade.

Speaking to my children in Spanish, like the morning cup of coffee or hot water beating on my back, is a small pleasure that polishes each of my days.

I exaggerate my accent and send my gestures sailing straight across the top of ridiculous.  My voice swells, especially when my tongue rolls along the outside of a double R, or when I’m delighting in the oral treasure of an Ñ.

Amid the million daddy do’s of any given day, it’s brilliant fun to steal a moment and step inside the skin of a character that isn’t quite me as though I’m dressing up for a kind of verbal Halloween.

I am not fluent in Spanish, in fact I struggle for every well constructed sentence.  This is part of the reason for my inflated accent.  I treat Spanish exactly like singing: since I cannot do it well, I make sure to do it loud.

I long for the authority of a second tongue.  Spanish is my first new language, but I plan to follow it with something more eclectic, I’m considering Klingon.  I never learned Spanish as a child, despite my Honey and Papí both being born in Mexico, and raising their daughter with fluency. As an adult, I struggle to absorb new vocabulary into a mind already littered with everything from next week’s list, to every thread from the last five seasons of Lost.

I want my children to have what I did not. As some Writer Dad readers already know, Mia attends a Dual Immersion program. 90% of her school day is in Spanish. Yes, I love my daughter, and no, this isn’t cruel.

“Why don’t you just drop her off in Tijuana?” That’s what one of my best friends said when I first told him (quite excitedly) that we wanted to place Mia in this particular program.  This beautiful philosophy, not everyone understands. Music and language are highly beneficial to the development of the mathematical mind.  The internet is an awfully big place, filled with towering terabytes of text, but you’d have to comb it all day to find a half pile of research that disagrees with this elemental truth.

But Writer Dad, how will I know when my child is ready for music, or a second language?

Because you will look down and see their ears. Children are sponges, and we should not ever underestimate them, because they will absorb all that we ask. Delivery is important, of course, which is why we would never throw her into a school in Tijuana. That would be immersion, not dual immersion.

What makes dual immersion successful is the consistent practice of full body response.  This means that the teacher employs language, in addition to gestures, when teaching their class. This was wonderfully illustrated one day at the dinner table, sometime toward the end of Mia’s first month of Kindergarten. “Is it hard sometimes,” I asked. “Not knowing what Sra. is saying,”

“Only if I’m not paying attention,” she said, barely lifting her head.

Exactly.

How is this different from life?  How much do we miss, simply because we’re not paying attention? Being in the Dual Immersion program has not only taught our daughter the basics of another language, it’s taught her some of the fundamentals of a fulfilling life. If you really want to learn, you have to pay attention.

Our last summer was wonderful.  I helped Mia with her Spanish and she helped me with mine. I had a bit more vocabulary than she, but Mia strings what she has together as beautifully as if she were born in Barcelona (Gracias Señora Mochila).

The two of us exchanged words all day long in a room full of toddlers without anyone wise to what we were saying. It was like we had our own secret code. Of course, we were also using our bodies as we spoke, so if the toddlers were paying attention, eventually they’ll get it too.

Writer Dad

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter, creative blogger, and occasional potty training expert.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , ,

Back to School, Back to You

August 29, 2008 By 47 Comments

Every man’s memory is his private literature. 

~Aldous Huxley

This weekend is the anniversary of two things woven inside one other well enough to tell a story.  

That story is the prologue of how I came to be here, exchanging words with you.

Mia starts first grade next week.  

It’s no less sad than starting Kindergarten, but admittedly less monumental.  Last year at this time, I was sorting a mess of feelings as my tiny peanut, who it seemed was just a bundle in a blanket a few months before, was laying out her uniform and requesting pigtails for the first day of school.

We wondered about Mia’s teacher and what our girl would hear on the playground.  We hoped she’d make friends easy, and crossed our fingers they’d be nice.  

We prepared to release our daughter like a cub on the Savanna, free to find herself as predator or prey.

Anyone with a five year old and a beating heart knows exactly where I’m coming from, but this was last year, so it was still new to me.

How did you deal with it, Writer Dad?

I wrote.

I didn’t Dear Diary, or any such thing.  I kept a journal, but it was just random thought strung together by memory in an ernest attempt to never forget.

Like taking pictures with a pencil.

I’d been doing that for a while, but even Daisy’s best efforts had still not swayed me to sit long enough to spin a yarn.  

Mia moving to Kindergarten… well, that did the trick just fine.

We were reading a lot of chapter books; an even mix of what Mia liked and what we wanted her too.  I thought I’d write something we could all agree on.  So I sat down at the keyboard and started to write.

The story that spilled, was really little more than my own daughter talking for a few thousand words, as if I were rapidly scribbling as she pontificated about her life on the final week before Kindergarten.  When the story was finished, I printed it out and folded it in half, in the worst mockery of a bound book.  

I read the story, Daisy cried.  

Then I read it to Mia.

This is my favorite part…

As Mia was hearing the book for the first time, she started to finish my sentences.  Now that first little booklet could probably never get published, but it captured my baby better than a coffee table full of glossy photographs.

The next week, Mia went to school, and everything started to change.  

In a couple months, I’d be midway through the first draft of a novel, and often assembling my thought in loopy rhythm.

This project is special.  It’s exactly as old as my life as a writer, both sharing their first birthday this weekend.

Little has changed since that first draft.  

I looked at the story with fresh eyes a few weeks back.  I changed the names of people and locations, but otherwise the book is identical to the thirty pages printed (and awkwardly assembled) one year ago.

I hope you enjoy it.  You’ll find an excerpt below:

Writer Dad

If you enjoyed my words, please subscribe.  I’ll be back on Monday.

 

Mia Maria and Two Times the Kindergarten:

Hola! (That means hello in Spanish).   

My name is Mia Maria Robinson.  I am five and a half years old, and in one week my life is going to change forever!   

At least thatʼs what my mom and dad keep saying. 

Next week, Iʼm starting Kindergarten at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.  My parents have been telling me about Kindergarten since before I was even four, but they just started acting weird like a couple of months ago.   

I think it actually started when we went to buy my new uniforms for school. We went shopping for clothes, just like we do at the end of every Summer, but the whole time we were there, my mom and dad kept looking at each other with these really sad faces, even though they were still saying really happy words. 

Like my mom said: “Youʼre such a big girl, Mia.  I canʼt believe your going to be in Kindergarten,” and my dad said, “I canʼt believe how big you look in your uniform.  Youʼre such a little Kindergirly.”  And then he scooped me up with a great big hug and passed me to my mom like I was a churro.  

Even though they were taking turns hugging me, they both seemed kind of sad… 

Disclaimer: This is not Writer Dad’s voice. It’s Mia’s. Writer Dad just types a lot faster.

 The last three Fridays: “The Truth in our Make-Believe,” “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” and “Bye Bye Butterfly.”

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

Just Pay Attention

August 20, 2008 By 92 Comments

If you can speak three languages you’re trilingual.  If you can speak two languages you’re bilingual.  If you can speak only one language you’re an American.

~Author Unknown

Speaking to my children in Spanish, like the morning cup of coffee or hot water beating on my back, is a small pleasure that polishes each one of my days.  

I exaggerate my accent and send my gestures sailing over the top of ridiculous.  My voice swells, especially when my tongue rolls along the outside of a double R, or when I’m delighting in the oral treasure of an Ñ.  

Amid the million must do’s of any given day, it’s brilliant fun to steal a moment and step inside the skin of a character that isn’t quite me.  

Like I’m dressing up for a kind of verbal Halloween.  

I am not fluent.  In fact, I struggle for every well constructed sentence.  This is part of the reason for my inflated accent.  I treat Spanish exactly like singing.

I cannot do it well, so I make sure I do it loud.

I long for the authority of a second tongue.  Spanish is my first new language, but I plan to follow it with something more eclectic… Klingon perhaps.  

I never learned Spanish as a child, despite my Honey and Papí both being born in Mexico, and raising their daughter with fluency.  As an adult, I struggle to absorb new vocabulary into a mind already littered with everything from next week’s list, to every thread from the last four seasons of Lost.  

I want my children to have what I did not.

As some Writer Dad readers already know, Mia attends a Dual Immersion program. 90% of her school day is in Spanish.  

Yes, I love my daughter, and no, this isn’t cruel.  

“Why don’t you just drop her off in Tijuana?”

That’s what one of my best friends said when I first told him (quite excitedly) that we wanted to place Mia in this particular program.  This beautiful philosophy, not everyone understands.

Music and language are highly beneficial to the development of the mathematical mind.  The internet is an awfully big place, filled with towering terabytes of text, but you’d have to comb it all day to find a half pile of research that disagrees with this elemental truth.

But Writer Dad, how will I know when my child is ready for music, or a second language?

Because you will look down and see their ears.

Children are sponges, and we should not ever underestimate them, because they will absorb what we ask.  Delivery is important, of course, which is why we would never throw her into a school in Tijuana.  

That would be immersion, not dual immersion.  

What makes dual immersion successful is the consistent practice of full body response.  This means that the teacher employs language, in addition to gestures, when teaching their class.  

This was wonderfully illustrated one day at the dinner table, sometime toward the end of Mia’s first month of Kindergarten.  

“Is it hard sometimes,” I asked. “Not knowing what Sra. is saying,”  

“Only if I’m not paying attention,” she said, barely looking up.  

Exactly.  

How is this different from life?  How much do we miss, simply because we’re not paying attention?  

Being in the Dual Immersion program has not only taught our daughter the basics of another language, it’s taught her some of the fundamentals of a fulfilling life.  

If you really want to learn, you have to pay attention.  

This summer has been wonderful.  I help Mia with her Spanish, she helps me with mine.  I have more vocabulary than she, but Mia strings what she has together as beautifully as if she were born in Barcelona (Gracias Señora Mochila).  

The two of us exchange words in a room full of toddlers, without anyone wise to what we’re saying.  

It’s like we have our own secret code.  Of course, we’re using our bodies as we speak, so if the toddlers are paying attention, eventually they’ll get it too.

Writer Dad

If you enjoyed my words, please subscribe.  I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.

If you click here, you can read Writer Dad’s thank you to Señora.

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

Gracias, Señora

July 18, 2008 By 4 Comments

 

Two years ago, when Daisy and I were first looking for a school for Mia, our main criteria was finding an environment where she wouldn’t be bored.  Fortunately, we found a fantastic public school in our city that had a Dual Immersion program where ninety percent of a Kindergartner’s day is taught in Spanish. 

Surely, that would keep her eyes open.

There aren’t a lot of schools like this, at least in our district.  There was quite the waiting list, and though we collectively wore the armor of optimism, Daisy and I were silently worried that our alternative education wasn’t going to happen.  

Fortune prevailed and Mia was accepted.  Her school year is over, and now we can reflect.  

The school year was so much more than we ever imagined.  Mia grew beyond our expectations, and learned a mass of lessons that we could not have taught her.  

Daisy and I each wrote letters to Mia’s primary teacher, as well as her principal.  In addition, I wrote this little verse for the two of them.  I thought I’d share.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent:

Dear Maestras,

I knew we were lucky, though I had no idea, what a year would be like with Señora Mochila.  As the curtains draw closed on my first year as a dad, with a child at Lincoln, I’m a little bit sad. My children grow older (it seems faster than me) and one day their changes will get harder to see, but the changes this year I can not even count, because they arrived every day in a countless amount.

We’ve watched our girl grow from inquisitive and ready, to just over six, now skillful and steady.  Before, she could not roll the “R” in burrito.  Now she orders in Spanish when we’re at El Torito.  We’ve lost nine pages from the calendar since her first day in dress.  May I have a moment Maestras, so that I may confess?

Daisy and I harbored no second choice.  It was Lincoln we desired to give our girl voice.  We waited and lingered with anticipation for a letter of acceptance to provide us elation.  We received our letter in the post, but the program was filled and a small part of my spirit was a little bit killed.  But it doesn’t come close to stinging my pride to tell you straight up, I actually cried.  

I called on the phone and asked, “What can I do?”  Sra. Reina said, “Be patient Señor; just see it through.”  So I listened to her, swallowed my tears, and allowed encouraging words to flood through my ears. 

Two weeks passed, then on Good Friday it was, we unfolded another letter and read with a buzz.

We stayed unerring, sound in our choice, and now we could finally begin to rejoice.  Not only for Mia, but for our Maxwell as well.  We were so happy, we started to yell.  A wonderful institution had become in our reach where our children would learn things that we could not teach.

The next four months fell like leaves in the Fall, taking Mia that first day we’ll always recall.  Señora was perfect.  She had command of the room, like a pregnant mamí has command of her womb.  We knew without doubt, as we knit hands with our boy, that our next nine months would be brimming with joy.

And they were, mis maestras, es todo verdad.  Nunca en su escuela es una facade.  Mia’s learned how to read and then how to write in a new tongue by doing assignments each night.  She’s learned how to sing with such beautiful grace, I can easily picture my gone grandmother’s face.  She knew how to learn, but now she digests, and she does it all with such flawless finesse.

Lincoln’s a school that’s surpassed expectation by providing a solid, substantial foundation, and that is the bedrock of great education – a group of teachers who offer such deep dedication.  Please believe me when I say: this is no aberration.  You have earned our family’s sincere admiration.  It would be a benefit to the whole of our nation, if such practice were applied to the next generation.

We wanted for our child to be challenged, not bored; a wish which was granted, instead of ignored.  Thank you kindly for all that you do.  Daisy and I are so grateful for you.  From nuestras corazones, quiseramos to say.  Gracias por todo hacen every day.

Writer Dad

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Adios!

June 12, 2008 By 2 Comments

Today, Mia said farewell to school for the summer, and Kindergarden forever.  In six years, I don’t think Daisy or I have ever been more proud.  Mia pulled straight fours on every report card this year, and she did it in another tongue. 

Her school’s farewell program was adorable; a chorus of sixty kinders, half awkward, and half not – the perfect harmony for a Kindergarden performance.  The morning was as predictable as a late eighties sitcom with only one exception:

I certainly didn’t see myself crying.

I am, at the least, a reasonably sensitive guy.  Often thoughtful, and sometimes too tender, but also every bit the thirty something version of the rascal that our little Max is right now.  But I didn’t expect to cry, not like I did anyway.

I teared up a bit on Mia’s first day, of course.  Who wouldn’t?  If there isn’t a bit of salt on your cheek when delivering your first born into the arms of strangers for a nine month eon (no matter how qualified those strangers may be), then I’d have to say you need your ducts checked, if not the valves of your heart. 

So, yes, on the first day of school I got a bit misty, but the tears today were the real deal. 

Mia’s Señora had assembled a portfolio for each child in her class, stuffed with nine months worth of their best effort, and crowned with a handwritten letter home.  I made it through reading the letter to myself just fine; it was reading it out loud to Daisy that did me in.

We’re so grateful for the education that school has given to our family.  Before entering the program, I have to admit, I did’nt have the highest regard for public education, having been a product myself.  

This school shows me the very beginning of what is possible.

Writer Dad

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , ,