12.02.05

Parent-Teacher Conferences Part II

Posted in Uncategorized at 2:46 am

Last night we had Parent-Teacher Conferences at Lance & Chloe’s school. We showed up at 6:00 PM, only knowing that our last name fell in between 6:00 and 7:00. There was a crowd of parents around each of the kids’ classrooms, and every few minutes the door would open and everyone would try and figure out who was supposed to go in next. There was a list posted on the door, but I quickly learned that the list meant nothing to anyone.

The meeting went great. All of both the kids’ teachers showered us with compliments. They used words like incredibili (incredible), superbi (superb), and my favorite in gamba (an expression which literally means “in the leg” but means something like great, prepared, polite, etc.).

Those of you who know me well know that my biggest concern in moving here was the effect on the kids. But so many of my fears have been relieved. My kids are doing so well in school, they’re learning to speak the language all on their own. Chloe’s teacher even said she had a great accent and that she can’t hear any “American” in her when she speaks! They not only speak, but they speak correctly!

While waiting in line to speak to the kids’ religion teacher, I was chatting with Eduardo & Virginia’s mom and dad. They were very nice, and have kids in each of our kids’ classes. We stood there forever (he joked with me that our kids hanno fatto molti peccati - they must have sinned a lot) and just … talked. Not a small feat. And Heidi and I both noticed that they initiated conversation with us! It sounds silly, but we’ve found that sometimes people here get irritated when talking to foreigners.

We give all the credit to God for helping our kids along in this crazy school process. Please keep them all in your prayers - we would love to keep having Parent-Teacher Conferences like this.

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