The Education Journey (Part 3) - Finding Other Parents & Registering for School

One thing that remained a mystery to me was access to other foreigners who had sent their children to Shidong Elementary.  I kept hearing people say, “I know someone who did that, but they moved away.” Or “I know they have lots of foreign students, there must be someone for you to talk to.”  I desperately wanted to talk to other parents and find out if I would be able to communicate with the teachers, how to make sure G got into the language assistance program, and what our biggest challenges would be.  Other parents are such a great resource!

Where are the other "foreign" parents?

So I did what I always do: I asked every single person I met if they knew anybody who could help me.  Finally at the end of week two I got a hit.  A lovely lady at the side of the pool who overheard my conversation with a friend sent a text to her friend who sent a text to another friend and voila!  I had the name and number of a mom whose children went to Shidong.  We set up a coffee date, and to my delight, she brought another mom with kids at Shidong and a tutor who was familiar with Shidong Elementary.

The conversation was so full of information and tips on how to negotiate the local school that I had to take notes!  A few of their tips:  

1. Genevieve would average 2 hours of homework per night if she was focused (uh oh).  

2. Chinese and other homework would be hard enough to keep up with, they had all given up on supplementing English and resigned themselves to their kids being in ESL when leaving Shidong.  

3. Social studies would be her hardest subject because it has a lots of vocabulary you tend to learn at home and because it deals mostly with the culture and history of Taiwan.  

4. There is one English speaker in the office, I need to find her and make her my friend.

These women assured me that Genevieve would do fine, but to make sure I got her registered ASAP and request she be in the language assistance class (like ESL, only for Mandarin).  I was off on my next mission for registration at the school!

Being an alien

When you arrive in Taiwan, everything you want to sign up for or register for requires your Alien Resident Card (ARC), which you can’t apply for until you establish residency, which means you need an address in country.  For the first week in Taiwan my children found the idea of the ALIEN resident card hilarious and told everybody we met that we were from America and we were aliens.  :)  I imagine many people privately thought, “truer words were never spoken!”  

Registering for school

Finally the magical ARC arrives and we make an appointment with the school to register Genevieve.  We meet with Carol (her English name), she is the designated English speaker in the administrative office. While she is very kind and helpful, I learn quickly that her English is limited and therefore my conversations were going to be simple and straightforward.  She handed me forms to fill out, four sheets of paper, all in Chinese characters of course.  She highlighted and translated the boxes I needed to fill in.  Right away I realized that long English words and names do not fit into the answer boxes.  For Taiwanese folk, most of their answers consist of a few characters, which are much more vertical in orientation than English, which is almost entirely horizontal. I spent a lot of time writing my answers in very tiny script to fit it all in!

I was a little disturbed that I only had to fill out 10 boxes on a four-page form with probably 100 questions.  Didn’t they need the answers to the rest of those mystery questions? Carol assured me they did not.  As usual, I just have to go along with whatever they say because I have no ability to read the rest of the form!

Not just paperwork

Carol tells me that Genevieve needs to do an assessment with one of the teachers so they can determine if she needs the language assistance class, and to decide what grade she will be placed in.  She tells me she will likely be in second or third grade, depending on her language abilities.  If her language skills aren’t adequate, she will need to spend the year learning the language, not necessarily accumulating knowledge, and it would be better for her to be in second grade. 

What she says makes sense, but I’m slightly shaken…it will be a blow to G’s self-esteem if they stick her in second grade when she’s just completed second grade in the U.S.  Genevieve hears the entire conversation of course and understands very well what’s happening, as evidenced by her sad face.  Carol tells me she’ll call by the end of the week with a time for the assessment.  

A week goes by and I don’t hear from Carol.  I am very afraid that they’ve forgotten about us or already made a decision without the assessment.  On Monday morning I finally call Carol and she tells me they are incredibly busy, because school is starting on Friday.  In my head I’m screaming, “YES, I know!  That’s why my kid needs to be tested and placed in a class!”  But on the phone I politely say, “Yes, can we please set up the assessment for Lingling?”  She says that she can maybe fit us in the next day at 10:30, I say “we’ll be there!”  I’m flummoxed by the “maybe fit us in” comment since she said she would schedule it a week ago, but I figure we’ll go to the office and sit there until somebody does the assessment!

Language assessment

G is very nervous about the assessment.  She keeps asking me what she’ll have to do.  I have no idea, but tell her my best guess is a teacher will talk to her and ask her all sorts of questions to figure out how well she speaks Chinese.  I stress to her the importance that she not be shy or hesitant, this is her only opportunity to show what she knows (and therefore not end up in second grade).  It’s a delicate balancing act to reassure her that’s she’ll be fine and yet emphasize that she needs to take the assessment seriously.  We arrive at school and, thank goodness, they are prepared for us. 

There is another student being assessed, and a teacher assigned to each of them.  The language assistance teachers speak beautiful English and are very good at putting the kids at ease.  Rebecca, Genevieve’s teacher, hands me a packet of forms to fill out.  It looks eerily similar to the ones I filled out the week before, but I just take it and wonder who can help me fill it out.

As luck would have it, the other student’s mom, Samantha, is Taiwanese but speaks English as she’s married to a British man.  She volunteers to read the forms to me and help me fill them out while the kids are doing the assessment.  I swear the first two forms are exactly the same as what I filled out before.  Then there is a page for why I think my student needs language assistance.  “Um, English is her first language and her parents don’t speak Chinese?” But I decided the longer explanation of "pre-school in Shanghai, Chinese immersion school in Portland, living in Taiwan and wanting to continue speaking Chinese" was probably in order.  Samantha graciously translated everything I said.  Or at least I assume she did because again, I am trusting she wrote what I said….

The results

The assessment, which I thought would be about 30 minutes long, lasted 1.5 hours.   The kids spoke to the teachers, wrote characters, read books, and worked in workbooks.  By the end, Genevieve was exhausted and struggling to stay engaged.  Rebecca told me that she spoke very well and she thought would likely be placed in 3^rd grade.  Huge relief! 

Then she went off to the office and was able to get Genevieve’s teacher’s name and the room number for us.  Hallelujah, now we knew where to go on Friday morning.  But wait, how did they have that assignment so fast when we had just completed the assessment?  Apparently they had already assigned her to a third grade classroom?  Who knows, I was just grateful to know she was registered, the assessment was done, and we would know where to go on Friday morning at 7:50am.