A rare peep

When people ask me how the twins are doing in school and more specifically, what the twins do in school, I give vague answers. From 7.30 to 1.30 pm, what they do is a black hole to me. Most of the time, they can't quite tell me what they did either. On occasion, they report homework and some learning.

This morning, I got to see for myself, a little bit of what it was like in Evan's class. Some mums went in to conduct some activities for the boys and I was one of them. We told them stories and ran some activities.

I came away with a few observations.

1. My son is doing just fine in class. He has friends, he is surrounded by boys (in his group) like him; slightly endearingly geek like and he is well behaved and polite. I could ask for nothing more.

2. We don't give them enough credit for their abilities. Even though some of the activities we had were challenging, they figured out how to eventually do them. If they didn't, they would ask and they would eventually produce something approximating what we asked them for. And admirably, at 6 years old, many of them were able to work together collaboratively quite successfully.

3. Class dynamics are always the same. There is a class clown, there is one that disrupts the class, there is the brat but the kids are generally good kids.

4. The teacher is strict and values are always communicated. Within the first half an hour, she had reminded a boy that by not touching another boy's possessions, he was according his classmate respect.  She also reminded the class that self- control was about not opening the prizes that we gave out on the spot.

5.  I am in awe of their class teacher. In fact, any teacher who chooses to teach Primary One. Even though the boys were generally well-behaved, they needed a lot of reminding to keep quiet, to be on task and to only answer questions. Even though their teacher, a teaching aide and 3 of us mommies were around to keep things running, I felt that I had been run over by a truck after. And I am a trained to do this, albeit with older kids. But after 2 hours with Evan's class, I was confounded, dazed and badly needed a nap. Anyone who could do it daily and with as much dignity and quiet sternness that Evan's teacher does ought be awarded the Purple Heart, a National Day medal and a super Performance Bonus. Well, that is if it were up to me.

So I've come away proud of Evan, overwhelmed by 30 six year olds and humbled by his teachers. It certainly has been quite a day.