aaahhhh freedom

The kids started at the Oasis Educational Center on Tuesday and when I picked them up at 2 (an hour before the regular quitting time), Jackie said "Can we come everyday?" and Willo said "can you please pick us up later next time?" The teacher, Erica, said they were well-behaved, and are very bright, but Willo doesn't like to work. Which was good and bad news (well, not really news to me) since at least I know his lack of work ethic at home isn't because of my being his instructor. My original plan was to have them go 2-3 mornings/week but because they enjoy it so much, they still get their schoolwork done (I tell them each morning what their assignments are, and send them to school with them), they are making new friends, speaking a lot more Spanish, and it costs me $200/month whether they go one day or every day - I figured why not.

On Monday, when we went to check it out, a couple of girls who had moved here from DC 6 months ago were there (Olive & Anabel). Olive is in 3rd grade and Anabel in kindergarten. Unfortunately, Olive was just visiting for the day, as she has recently transfered from Oasis to a regular public school (because at the time she was the only girl). However, last night Jackie went to her house for a playdate and has since informed me that she does not want to go back to CT at all now, because she loves the warmth, the beach, her school and her BFF Olive. I told her that we are supposed to go home in 4 weeks or so, so we'll make the most of it all here (and that I have no more desire than she does to leave this place), and the good part is that Olive's family is returning to DC in 1.5 yrs and since we go there often to visit her grandparents, they will be able to continue their friendship. Olive's family moved here to get away to a peaceful, slow-paced environment. Her dad's work as an inventor allows him the flexibility to work from anywhere; in fact all of this employees are spread all over the world. His office is a trailer on the side of the house. He's invented a toaster oven that can bake delicious bread in 25 seconds. Seriously. And you should see their house - it's like out of a design magazine (they are renting it), but completely impractical for young children, which I'm sure is stressful as they have 3 girls and the youngest is an active 2-yr-old (I suppose that's redundant). They have bungie cords all over the spiral staircase that winds up through the middle of the house, connecting the 3-4 floors. Just so the kids don't plunge to the bottom. Anyway, a really lovely family and I'm looking forward to the playdate tomorrow afternoon. School lets out at noon tomorrow and the plan is to congregate on Red Beach. Anabel, the kindergartner, attends Oasis (she's in some of the field trip pictures above) and the kids all play great together.

Today they had a field trip to Sun Bay, the only beach here that has a bathroom, a snack stand & lifeguards. The staff spoke to the kids about the environment, and after lunch the kids and Erica went over to some rocks to try to trap fish. At that point I'd finished my work & errands (I took my pathetic bike to see if they could fix it so I have more than 1 gear) and met them out there, to take pictures (with my little waterproof point&shoot) and get to know the kids' classmates a bit. Jackie asked me this morning if I could dig out her goggles. When I asked her why (I didn't expect them to go swimming, as I figured it would be a big task for Erica to watch 3 kids in the surf), she told me that Olive had told her that they take field trips in Erica's pick up truck, and the kids pile in the back. So since Jackie expected it to get dusty, could she please have some goggles to minimize the discomfort? I did not know how to react to this. Part of me was hysterically laughing at the situation. After all, we come from a place (mainland US) where a diabetic child who goes on a field trip must have a nurse or a parent at all times, and there are all the Field Trip release forms etc. Part of me was feeling like a kid again and remembering how exciting it was to get in my uncle's pick up truck during all those summers in Sweden, and ride with my cousins to the lake for the day. And then the reluctantly responsible side of me grudgingly admitted this may not be too wise and how would I explain to Bill that I knew of this driving arrangement and still found it acceptable, and now we need to look for Willo because he bounced off the back of the truck when it hit a major pothole? So, anyway, it turns out that Erica had gotten a minivan for the occasion, and as it also turns out, Olive/Anabel's dad Nicholas the Inventor drove our kids to the site, and I drove them home afterwards.

The other big excitement is that today, the packages I had been waiting for for 3 weeks were finally located by the local post office when Saint Sandra (the Front Office Manager, who really is a saint, all that she's done for us) went down there and pointedly asked for them. When I went yesterday, they said they could not release anything to me even if it's in my name, because it's addressed to the W Hotel. Um, a little notice would have been nice? Nicholas the Inventor told me last night that if you're going to have anything shipped here, Fed Ex is the way to go. In fact, he introduced me to Nelson, the Fed Ex guy for Vieques, and gave me his cell phone number. Nelson assured me that if I let him know whenever something is coming, he'll look for it and personally drive it over even if it's after hours. And then he went into his van and found the box of mail that the other Major Saints in Our Life, our neighbors the Gittines, had shipped to us. Too bad it was full of bills.

The fact is, I've decided that homeschooling is for the birds. I really don't know how people do it. Perhaps their kids are less sociable than mine, or perhaps they (the homeschooling parents) are much more patient than me (OK, that's highly likely). But this month-long experiment has reinforced what I had suspected even before we began: that my children are extremely social, and they perform best in a group of kids. I do believe, from the research I've done all the observations I've made, that homeschooled kids receive a much better education in terms of academics. But the ideal situation (in my humble opinion, after all it's not like I have a MS in education or anything) I think, is to have kids learn in a small group. Peer pressure is not necessarily evil; when it comes to conforming to appropriate social standards, and to a bit of academic competition, it's a great thing. And there's the fun factor - doing anything with other kids is much more fun than in isolation or with your bratty little brother or an adult. If I could create the ideal situation, here or back in CT, it would be to get a barn or similar structure, and combine a group of 5-10 kids of various ages, evenly split in terms of gender, and teach them - with guest teachers on a regular basis (other parents or people from the community). That's pretty much what Oasis is. And I'd rent a big van for the frequent field trips, of course.