ABC had bought these really elegant graduation outfits and wanted the parents to pay 55 euros for one, or you could rent it for 25 euros. (remember the exchange rate here...multiply by 1.4 ish) It wasn't just the cost, to be honest I didn't see the point of the outfits except for the school to have great photos for publicity purposes. Just my opinion here. Cause really, if the kids have to wear uniforms everyday, why can't they wear their own nice clothes for the graduation? And he's only graduating Pre-school, not college! And only kids in the outfit could "graduate."
Well, we chose to go to Terra Amata's event. Is that wrong? Will I regret that when I'm older? Don't know. But, I thought it would be good to show T his new school so he'd feel like he's already a part of it when he starts in September. And he was only at ABC for 2 months then 2 more months.
It was quite full. But then I realized that the classes are twice as big in public school so in reality there should be twice as many people attending. Anyway, the kids were cute and they had a big fair after the show where T played some games.
T and I sat eating some cakes and we talked about him going to school there. How they would only be talking in French to him and there wouldn't be any English classes to fall back on. We talked about how he'd have to do some French lessons over the summer. He said he was fine with it. We'll see.....
All seemed good until.....on the way out I decided to stop at a table the Director was manning, some sort of "guess who the baby pictures were". I spoke in English, obviously, and said, "Hi, remember me? This is Taylor you're new student." He looked at me, gave the slightest of a smile of acknowledgement, maybe a tiny nod of his head and looked away. Not to be turned in my direction again for what seemed like a year or so. I checked to see if I had interrupted anything, or if his attention was pulled away to something more important, anything. No. A man was filling out his sheet and they had a little giggle about the game.
Finally I just said, "Well, Taylor just wanted to say hi." He then gave T a moment and said, "Hi, (and then some words in French that T seemed to understand, coz T answered him and the Director smiled)." And that was it, he again turned away, again no chatting with me. I said, "Well, ok, au revoir." And not a peep or look my way. So off we went.
I went home and cried. Yes, I did. Not just from him, but from a number of frustrations lately. This was just the breaking point. Language is at the core of all of them, and I know that's my fault. But he made it feel like we were unimportant. Did he not remember me? Was he just rude? I mean really, he could have at least engaged a little more, said it was nice to see us (again), maybe even goodbye. SOMETHING!
Hmmmm, now I'm not so sure about my decision to move T anymore. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive-it has been a hard week, but I don't know if I want a school where the Director made me feel like we were so unimportant. T is going to struggle, maybe I'm assuming too much, but if he's struggling I want to know the school will know who he is and help him. Make sure that he feels important and that they care about him.
This decision may need some more investigation and thought...
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