Schooling; Part II. David.

David in front of his school in Patría.

Because we did not want David to start in school without being able to speak Spanish like Thea had done, we enrolled him in kindergarten when he was 1, 5 years old. Slowly we could hear he started picking up some Spanish words, then he mixed the two languages together and finally he decided to focus only on Spanish. This meant that when his time came to start school he was as fluent as his class mates.

One worry I had about him starting school, was the diaper changing. I asked one of our forever helpful neighbours, and she replied that the children off course were finished using diapers when they started school. My jaw dropped. David would not even have turned three when he was supposed to start school in mid-September. But we made it, thank God for the long warm summer with a lot of intensive potty training.

It was a great little school, based in Patría, only 5 minutes’ walk from our house. The school had 16 pupils from 3-5 years, two teachers and they were all together in one big class room. The moms took turns in cleaning the school in the afternoons, so we were very involved in what happened at the school. A great and safe way to start your school years.

David is a very active boy; he can find it difficult to sit still for a long time. A typical boy, you might say! The Spanish learning system includes a lot of sitting quietly down and listening to the teacher, with only one break during the whole day at school. When David was 4½ years, his teacher said he was a bit worried about David, because he couldn’t sit still for very long at the time. I tried not to laugh when I commented if it wasn’t just a sign of that he was a healthy boy. Obviously two different cultures meeting!!! They once even made him stay inside the class room during the break to finish his assignment. I’m so happy, that when David came home from school he could go outside and run off all his energy until sunset… or longer 😉  But he was happy there, – I think mainly, because off 12 of the pupils were boys and they played football at every given opportunity.

The year when David turned 6, he started taking the school bus to Vejer and then our two children went to the same school.