So – a brief blog update after a rough week, one that started last week by a disastrous and ridiculous detention of G by his fifth grade teacher for being late too many times, a detention we didn’t know about and which meant that he missed in the indoor soccer game with his Indonesian team that he was looking forward to so much. It set the cause of schooling for G back by three weeks, and he has been resisting school loudly, again, ever since. I talked to the teacher about how I felt about it, about the stupidity of detention for fifth graders, and insisted that we be given 24 hours notice the next time it happens (it won’t happen again – the latenesses up front were all out of adjustment, and the tardy that caused this detention happened because Laura and G were in the principal’s office explaining that G needed to leave early that day.) Sometimes, as a person who trains teachers, I bemoan some of the shortcomings of teacher education in the United States, but this year, when my children are being taught by untrained teachers who digress about the evils of abortion (in the fifth grade) or the flaws in evolutionary theory (in the biology class) I am grateful that my children attend schools in the United States where teachers have been professionally prepared to teach. That’s a shout out to Lisa.
The worst part of the last week has been the rolling GI problems, which I will not describe in the meticulous detail I have aimed for in my writing here. However, yesterday, I thought that perhaps I was short for this world – somehow I seem to be recovering well today, which I would have told you yesterday was impossible. It started with Laura, who had a mild but extended illness, then S got hit hard, with a fever too, last week, and then me. On top of that S got badly sunburned over the weekend, completely due to lack of parental oversight. And along with all of it came a kind of mental exhaustion. G was suddenly entrenched in his hatred of school again, S spent a good portion of our first Skype conversation with my parents complaining about how he didn’t like it here (he has not left the comparative mindset, the “this isn’t how we do it in America” brain) and had somehow convinced himself that we were going to send him home early. And of course I engaged in this debate with him, predictably and short-sightedly (Sue, I try, I promise). G was like a firecracker, inert and pleasant until the smallest thing sparked his almost non-existent fuse. And by Tuesday morning, I was ready to leave, give it up, proclaim failure. In short, it was general mutiny, and I didn’t have the energy anymore to sustain enthusiasm for the venture.
We’re not going anywhere, of course, and things aren’t a dark as they seemed just a few days ago. G has pulled himself out of it. S has been arguing eloquently and extensively with teachers who think the earth is 6,000 years old (they concede the math might be off by one or two thousand years) and that all wars are religious wars. He reports on these every night, and I am so proud of his speaking up at school for gay rights and religious toleration and Palestinian freedom. Last night he put together, just out of a reaction against the school, a power point presentation about tolerance, starting with all the business about mosques in the United States. (Over here, there is an uptick in violent reactions against churches being built in some parts of Indonesia, unrelated to the United States, just another example of small-minded extremists spreading their joy and giggles). I worried at the beginning of the school year that S would feel like he had to hide a part of his character as a student in the school, not be himself, but of course S is irrepressible and he’s teaching his teachers more than they are teaching him, I think. We all seem to be healthy again. And in the midst of it all, we had a great outing to a rubber plantation, where we spent the night and met all sorts of crazy and interesting people who we’ll describe I’m sure in more detail in an upcoming blog. I think we’ll muddle through, though I am still worried about the shield S has put up around this experience – I have to remind myself that we have only been here slightly over a month, and that even if that shield never goes away while we’re here it will when we return. And most importantly, I have to remember not to micro-manage his experience or try to convince him to have a different one (Sue is laughing as she reads that part, I am sure…) This whole thing is still mind-blowing and exciting for me, provocative as a teacher (I’ll write about that soon) and challenging and disturbing and hard to process in so many ways. So I’ll embrace that, be grateful that the demon living in my intestinal tract has been cast out, and move on with my eyes open.
Oh – In case you read about the earthquake – I felt a distinct and somewhat alarming, but small, rumble on Monday night at about midnight. That was it, though the smaller volcano behind the bigger volcano next to us is increasingly active. Our maid assures me that that the larger volcano will protect us here. In any case, nothing happened even close to us to cause any concern.
These are all wonderful to read, Kirk. BTW, I have known 5 kids now who spent from half a year to a year in a foreign lands. All fought it tooth and nail. All "hated every minute" or something similar. All now as adults, have amazing things to say about it: "it was when I first became an American and learned what that meant," "I came home and was different from my friends and older," "it's what got me into college," "it gave me a focus for what I want to do with the rest of my life." And etc. I know you know this. Just wanting to support.
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