Oct. 10

It's hard to believe that we've been home from Kaz for 5 months. Time sure flies. Perhaps I'll have a few minutes to sit and reflect on how far we've come, but not today.

Everyone is settling into school routine pretty well. We're finding that "English as a second language" is kind of an ad hoc effort. Jack and Julia's schools are taking radically different approaches, and we’re still forming opinions on which is working better.
Julia is almost completely mainstreamed--she has about a half hour of designated ESL every day and she also spends a little time helping the ESL teacher teach reading to second graders. It makes her feel good because she's helping, and it's a stealthy way of helping her fill in gaps in her English basics. She comes home with the same homework as the others in her class, and we do the best we can. The school is expecting the enrollment of a 2nd grade boy (adopted from Russia) in the next few months, so at that point she will be a really big help.
Jack spends 3+ hours in ESL every day, and his other classes rotate so that he misses different subjects every day. One of the lessons I learned my freshman year in college is that it's pretty hard to get a grasp on the subject matter when you miss a lot of class time. The same rule applies to 8th grade. We understand that English literacy is the key to everything else, so perhaps it's better that he concentrate on that at the expense of everything else, but we’re wondering if we’re maximizing the use of his school time. We heard a comment that "We don't really expect much work out of Jack this year". We appreciate the concern for his socialization and comfort, but also let them know that the Peterson family expected a great deal of work out of Jack this year. One of our family credos is that ‘God provides the talent, and we provide the effort’. We don't want to push too hard, but we also know that at 15, he's got a pretty narrow window of opportunity for education and assimilation. We're stressing that hard work early in this process will pay big dividends in the very near future. We got early reports from his teachers that he had almost no conversational English skills. We explained (conversationally) that he’ s a smart and charming young man who speaks English like an auctioneer at home and has perhaps figured out that “not understanding” can be the gold standard of hall passes. The shy, quiet kid at school is still going through some social adjustment, but they needed to at least entertain the slight possibility that he understands much of what they say and may be working them like a borrowed mule. We're really pleased that he's getting high marks for attitude and work habits, but we would like to see him challenged a bit more with content.

At home, “not understanding” just means we have a bunch more work to do until we do understand. He was teasing Julia (while she slogged through hours of Math and Social Studies) and flaunting his lack of homework one day, so Wendy conjured up a few hours of “Mom homework” to keep him occupied. He’s a quick learner, and hasn’t done that again.

Both kids are taking private English lessons from a tutor. She’s from the Ukraine, speaks 4 languages and specialized in teaching English to Russian speakers. Comparing her education style to the public school style is almost hilarious. She’s not only ‘old school’, but ‘old soviet school’, and won’t stand for any whining that the subject matter is too hard. I knew she was going to be great from the first lesson. She came in, introduced herself to the kids, made small talk with them for less than one minute, opened her book and said “While I am here we will be speaking English, not Russian”. She approaches English from a Russian language point of view, so she’s able to explain the similarities and differences, and that helps them a great deal.

Food issues are progressing. Tastes are changing rapidly enough to make it hard to remember who likes what. Jack hated potato chips when we first came home, now he thinks they’re the greatest. He asked for Sour cream and Onion chips for breakfast yesterday, and I said “Only after you eat a waffle”.

Russian food is always a hit, but we've found that it takes a ton of time and effort to prepare, even if you cheat and use wonton wraps for the Monte dough. If you have less than 2 hours preparation time, forget it. There are a couple of Russian markets in Denver that we drive to periodically to stock up on items we can't buy anywhere else. The folks who run them are wonderful and the kids always look forward to a trip to the "Russian store".

The amount of work required for integrating 2 Kazakh kids into a suburban family may be something that’s beyond comprehension until you’re in the middle of it. In some ways, this has been easier than expected, and in other ways, much harder. The important things like bonding, attitude and behavior have been pretty easy overall, and for that we're grateful. The cultural learning curve is such that Jack and Julia are like toddlers—they’re discovering a new world. Unlike toddlers, they have the cognitive abilities of young teens and are discovering everything all at once. They are taking in enormous amounts of information to figure out the language, family, country, school system, social structure and even the dishwasher. If someone drops you off on Mars without an instruction manual, you're going to have a few questions! We’re still at the point of near constant parental involvement, because there’s so much to explain and encouragement to provide. It’s very rewarding, but also pretty taxing. Date night for Mom and Dad is becoming a non-negotiable necessity. We’re so blessed to be surrounded by very perceptive friends who prop us up when we get frazzled.