The Two Year School Itch -- Here We Go ... Again?

William, 3rd from left, on his 16th birthday with friends.

In my Panama life, change happens in twos. School that is. Just as I think we are  gliding on a smooth ramp heading toward the end of high school, two years off, Bam! Change. Every two years, without fail.

We bumpity-bumped our way through the fifth grade and then sailed through sixth, both at Instituto Guadalupano. When seventh grade rolled in, William wanted a change, so, after the first trimester, he announced he wanted to give full-time homeschooling a try.  I had strong suspicions that this would not be the best plan for him, but I agreed to give it a good "go."

Yippiee! ... not!  While I love to teach and love the challenge of putting classes together, this came, frankly,  at a rotten time. We had just -- and I mean just -- opened up our restaurant and were working at a frantic pace to build it up. Still, I figured I could school my son form 8am till noon, and then work the restaurant.

I spent copious hours carefully piecing together a plan for finishing up seventh grade. I purchased courses in Monarch, a division of Alpha Omega/Switched On Schoolhouse, out of Canada, because this was their program that was live-streamed and offered interactive testing and immediate results. Perfect for the active, kinesthetic learner! William could study geography and history and science, and even some English in this way, online.  There were also supplements I either purchased or designed with hands-on activities and reading.  I had Saxon Math, and Khan Academy for math back up and also for some art history. Plus, I had outlined detailed scheduled, beautifully color-coded, to keep us on a good track.

All this look perfect, as they say, on paper. But not so much when the real live kid came into the scene. It just went to hell in a hand basket, and in a heartbeat.  William is  highly social and it was obvious he missed the camaraderie of the classroom experience. I figured that one out  the day I came home and, entering our gate, dressed in white, I was completely startled right out of my high heels by an unexpected downpour of water from above. On my head. And my white clothing.

I looked up and there, on the roof, grinning down at me with a mixture of fear and glee, was my own little Tom Sawyer ... and an empty bucket where the water had been.
I got it.
He was bored.

So the next morning, early, I packed him up in a mini fury ( he was in blue jeans, not a uniform, which is standard here) and dropped him off at the closest school, a sweet evangelical school just blocks from both the house and the restaurant.

We are not evangelicals, but I figured that this was the least of my worries.  My son grumbled as he entered, announcing he would of course "hate"  it and would not stay, to which I responded with "I'll see you at 2 pm. And behave! You represent your family! Oh, and just don't come out Homophobic!"

When I pulled up at the end of the school day, I was met with a grinning preteen. "Mom, I love the kids here and I know most of them anyway ... and... I need to get my uniform!"

And there he remained for a full two years at Colegio El Buen Pastor school (a.k.a The God Squad School) right through the eighth grade. He also learned a bit of saxophone from an outstanding musical teacher we supported. Plus.. there was no bullying, well, at least not from the kids! After all, they have to behave like Jesus. And for the most part, they really did. So it was both a good choice and also... a blessing.

On the one morning  a week, when prayers that involved "laying on of hands" took place, I just kept my son home, with no fight from the excellent director. I never had to explain why.

After eighth grade, and as the high school years approached, it became clear that my son, now fully bilingual (in a rural Panama farming town way), was going to need to beef up his English. By this year, the fairly newish international school, Academia Internacional Boquete (AIB) had added upper grades and I reasoned they'd had some time to iron out the wrinkles of newness, so we enrolled him for the ninth grade.

Just recently, in December, 2014, he graduated in good standing from the tenth grade. I was absolutely delighted by the English teacher he had this year and hoped she would be staying on. And I hoped also that my son would feel completely settled at school.

Too much hoping going on! Alas, the two year curse is upon us, once again! For reasons that have little to do with the school, my son recently expressed serious interest in returning to the USA to finish out his remaining two years of high school.

He is hoping for more organized sports of his choice and I suspect missing family connections, old friends, and feeling a need for more than what a rural town has to offer a young man heading toward adulthood.  Part of this was expected: teens and small towns don't always mix well. And of course the desire for change is partly due to personality and his particular interests. Finally, it does factor in that in seven years in Panama, my son has collectively spent only about seven weeks in the USA. He is simply ready for a change.

So, like a good dance partner, I am ready to spin either way.  Neither my son's dad nor I wish to live in the USA for now, having fully adapted ourselves to the gentle pace of Boquete life. But we will work it out.

Years ago, the news of another big change would have sent me into a crazed, mommy tail spin. Today, I take it with a grain of salt, knowing that nothing stays the same, accepting there is only so much I can control.  And I trust that if  I wait and pray and have enough faith that eventually all things come right, there will be a practical solution.

So, what's next? Who knows? More adventure...

About Schooling In Boquete

Toward the top of this blog, and in the right-hand column, you will find a section called PAGES.
In the same PAGES sections, you will also find a Directory of private schools in this immediate area.

Directory, Boquete Schools

A the top right of this blog is a PAGE with a Director of Boquete's Private Schools, complete with contact information and pricing.

School Dazed: Educating Expat Kids in Panama

 Mahlin, Pyper & William Tricked Out for a School Performance, 2008

People often write to ask me about schooling choices, and I'm sorry to say I don't have the quick & easy answer to that one. Despite the gated communities that pepper our hillsides, Boquete is essentially a farming town with out-dated a school systems a la rote-style learning, copious copying, mandated military style hair for boys, uniforms for all -- a real throw-back to schools of an earlier era.  But it's not all that bad, if you decide you want to stick it out.

Deciding how to handle your child's schooling depends much on your her or his  learning style, adaptability and personality, as well as on your own goals for your child's education. Our school saga wasn't quick and it was hardly easy --I wouldn't want to do it again for all the licorice in Holland.  But now that I can look back with relief, I can say it's ended up pretty well. So far.

When we came to Panama William was half way through the third grade.  Frantic about what I was going to do when we arrived, I  purchased and packed up an accredited Distance Learning program.  It was a pretty great curriculum (Laurel Springs); easy to understand and to implement, in theory.  The realities of teaching it to a resistant kid with a strong kinesthetic learning style who was also smack in the throes of adjusting to a new culture and language, not to mention a completely new family structure... well.... not so much a picnic! Dad did the lion's share of school, often finding himself smack into the middle of  that personal hell and chaos:  The Home School Battle Field.

But the challenges (and I use "challenges" euphemistically) sprang largely from issues around a total realignment of our family structure. Plus, there was that other thing going on.. the fact that we had just changed countries. So the problems had little to do with the program itself.  Not everyone who transitions from traditional school to home school faces challenges.  Maybe you come from hat one "functional family" we all keep hearing about; that elusive, perfect family the rest of us messy parents continually measure ourselves against, coming up short.  If that's the case, you won't have any problems.  I say "Go for it!" 

Eventually, however, we worked it out and William successfully completed the third grade with dad while at the same time attending  local school -- as an auditor --  from 10:00 - 1:00 p.m.  At that time he did not speak more than a few words of Spanish but he began to pick it up.

The school system here can be a bear, especially for us the overly involved, controlling, sometimes impatient north  American mommy. (Do you know anyone like that?) Communication is definitely challenges, even if you speak Spanish,  and the schools don't exactly bend over backwards to make adjustments.

The sixth grade classroom at Instituto Guadalupano

In school, William had to withstand a certain amount of teasing and isolation and, as a mother, that is very hard to take.  I'm crazy about my kid and I'm not really joking when I tell you that, at eleven (now), he's lucky I let him  feed himself!  I've seen many parents pull their children out of the local schools here after only a few months, and there were times when I was close, very close to doing the same. 

Still, I would check in with him on this issue, this minimal bullying he was going through, weekly, and he said he wanted to persevere. (The day he told me, rather poignantly, that he had had enough, I immediately switched schools and he became much happier.)  So, persevere we did and, through the process, we watched William develop decent coping strategies and also measurably mature.

Eventually I realized that clinging to the great  relief provided by regular weekend gatherings of expat families  was actually hindering the assimilation process.  Our kid's feet just weren't fully or firmly planted in either world;  he didn't really belong anywhere.  That is why, after our first ten months and during the Panama school break, we pulled him away from the expats and watched him take off like a rocket!.

Spanish began to come steadily,  fueled by William's socially driven engine and need to be verbal and make friends (a Ballard through and through).  The next school year we continued with the Distance Learning and the part-time auditing until we were able to get matriculate him.  I won't pretend this was easy; it was a process so prolonged and frustrating there were times I wanted to tear out my fingernails, one by one.  However I proceeded with uncharacteristic patience and smiles -- lots of "Gracias" for nothing... while inside my brain was screeching '"FerGodSake hurry this up it doesn't make any sense I will be past menopause by the time we get this done!".  But, testament to the idea that "this too shall pass,"   William was indeed matriculated.  Today, our lives are easier and, I thin,k much  richer for the experience.

Social  life buzzes with an endless stream of friends, because they come from, well, from  here. William is close to his classmates because they move on up to the next grades together, as a group.  Play time is mostly free play, soccer, running around the neighborhood and the like. Very little time is spent on Game Boys, computers, and such (its definitely more like the 1960s childhood of my day). 

At this year's annual school show, July, 2010

Sometimes I worry that we aren't pushing enough.   I struggle, on a daily basis, with questions about whether my kid is getting enough.  It's a never-ending  internal tug-of-war. Our son is not going to be studying Mandarin or taking advanced placement classes so he can chalk up a his first years of college while at the same time, attending  high school.  But the anxiety we parents often impose on our children is one of the very reasons we moved away in the first place!  The truth is, though, that William is getting the basics in school.  (Most surprising is that ten of his classes are given in English, materials included!)  And of course we fill in at home  by continuing to read with and to William in English.

I try to remember that "children grow where you plant them."  I also see that, because of our move to Boquete, Larry and I are  very present in all aspects of son's life.

Each little person is different and no one understands the child's needs better than a loving parent. The choices parents make regarding an expat education will be very much directed by the type of child they have.  Our choice to stay with a local school was in no small part driven by  the active and social nature of our son.  I know many families who are finding great success via home school (some accredited, some not, some piece-meal) and home school co-ops.  Remember that of the roads you take will lead to a dead end, so, if  it's not working out, try another route.

For a Directory of Schools in Boquete and Details on deciding about schooling,
you can refer to the "pages" on the right column of this blog.

Skipping Schools

The trip to the states was whirlwind and utterly exhausting. William accurately dubbed this visit the Work-cation. (Not even time enough to stock up on Tums & Tampons! Thank to my sister Madeleine and her care packages!).

However, we did spend some terrific evenings with some excellent and generous friends. Plus, we squeezed in a few precious days with our pre-med son, Dylan, who worked like a Roman slave helping Larry stuff our stuff into storage!

With the house rented to friends, back we headed to Panama, utterly spent. Back to Boquete, where William had the chutzpah to turn ten.

The end of his first decade was marked with a painful lesson in life, to wit: How to handle childhood torment. More specifically, Catholic School Torment! If there are degrees of suffering endured by a boy, being teased and excluded by schoolmates (who can't understand your clever retorts in your mother tongue) must fall lofty on a child's scale of psychological pain.

Let me say that William braved the storm for nearly six months, determined to fit in. However, his challenge was compounded by the attempted erosion of what I've always described as William's (heretofore) excessive self esteem. A campaign to reduce his pride was apparently being waged by his teachers, no less!. (No, they didn't rap him on his knuckles. They simply told him, repeatedly, that he'd never make it to fifth grade!)

Those of you who know me may imagine the rest. OH yeah ... Mama bear to the rescue! It turns out I'm an adept verbal warrior in more than one language. However, I promise... I did exercise great restraint. After all, we're the foreigners, this is a small town, plus ... I'm pretty sure I'd go straight to hell, without the comfort of a handbasket, if I'd slapped a Catholic teacher!

So, we're catching a rhythm. Home School has resumed with Professor Larry. A new and happier local school was found for half-days. Forward and upward we go, leaving only one or two slightly bruised teacher egos in our wake, their knuckles intact.