Yuki is starting Kindergarten in a week. Let me say this again. YUKI IS STARTING KINDERGARTEN IN A WEEK.
OK. I'm fine now.
This is the path we took:
When she was born, there was no question about raising her bilingual. It made sense. I spoke and sang to her in Japanese, and got on the waiting list for a Japanese preschool when she was about 3 months old and enrolled her at 14 months. For a while we felt like our job was done, though in the back of our minds we knew that 4 years would fly by and we would have to figure out the next step. Then I started to wish really hard that we would find a way to send her to this public school just outside of our district that was known for language immersion and Japanese was one of the languages. This was also overall an excellent school.
So how do we get her in there?
For a while, we just speculated. Not sure why we didn't just go straight to asking the school but we based our hope on various bits of information we got from friends who are parents. There were some conflicting reports because rules have changed over the years but I had it in my head that surely, if one of the parents was Japanese, she had a shot. I visited their website and marveled at the list of Japanese faculty. I was imagining all sorts of ways we could bribe them. This is the perfect school. SHE MUST GO THERE.
It was about a year ago when we finally said "we have to seriously look into our options here" and got the accurate information. And what we found was that Seattle Schools will let you apply to up to 10 other schools that are outside of your zone in the winter and will tell you by Spring what school your child will be attending.
And it is a total lottery system.
Who could refuse this face? I'm asking you!
They accept applications during a certain period of time and after that they literally draw names out of the pile (assuming they have openings). Well, there goes my plan. And moving is not really an option for us at this point. We like our house. And our street. We can't afford to buy and sell. AND the middle and high school in our area are excellent (whine). But in the meantime, we found out that the elementary school in our zone has a great reputation (and lots of arts) and friends whose daughter attends that school raved about it. So we took note.
Then we heard about a new immersion school that was modeled exactly on the first immersion school we liked AND it's in the exact same district as the other one. Which seems super silly, but there it is. Hmmm, maybe she can go there instead, we thought. This new school may have more room. We also researched some private schools and some had some Japanese but not enough to justify the tuition.
What were we to do? Yuki's bilingualism was developing nicely. Though her primary language was English, she comprehends Japanese well and when we go there, she can totally communicate with cousins and friends who don't speak any English. How do we keep this up? I know first-hand that you forget language if you don't use it. It may come back to you fast, but you can lose it. I say "first-hand" because I have made enormous effort to keep my Japanese over the last 29 years, to a point that my family and friends marvel as to why I haven't forgotten it. And this is my native tongue.
Let me tell you the confusing process my brain goes through in this endeavor. Philip and I speak in English. Philip and Yuki speak in English. When I speak to Yuki, I speak in Japanese but when all three of us are together, I have to switch from English to Japanese rapidly and even if Yuki speaks back to me in English if I want to stick to what experts say about raising a child in a bilingual house hold. I have to say, I get lazy sometimes and just go with English. And this became more evident as Yuki's speech developed into full-on kid language. I was slacking. Mostly because I knew that at least at school, Yuki's teachers weren't slacking. I think part of me wanted to continue to slack because I felt I was guessing at what I was doing. Why not let the experts do it better and I can supplement?
In almost every major city in the US (and other countries for that matter), there is a school called Hoshu-ko, which stands for Supplemental School. There is one in Bellevue, which is not that far, but not exactly convenient. The thing about Hoshu-ko is that it's designed for Japanese ex-pat children so that when they return to Japan they are not behind. It is on Saturdays only but vigorous in academics and the amount of homework and parental involvement is beyond belief. I was once a nanny to kids in Boston who went to such a school (because that was the only choice there then) and felt bad because the kids hated it. I didn't want Yuki to hate Japanese. So this was not a choice for her. Or for me.
Then in the winter, her preschool held an informational seminar where a bunch of educators from variety of different school or learning facilities came and talked about their Japanese programs. I jumped at it. There was a woman who held small group sessions, but the location was no good for me and she only offered it after school, which meant I had to fight traffic. After 4 years of commuting to a preschool 30 minutes out of my way, I felt the whine come on. There was another woman from a school from across the lake that offers Japanese immersion, but the school is super religious. That was a double whammy. Then, these two lovely ladies got up. They introduced themselves as the teachers from the school I wanted to get Yuki into and, lo and behold, that school offers a once-a-week after-school Japanese class called Hiyoko Juku for Japanese kids who live in the US, as opposed to ones who are going back to Japan. They spoke of their own children going to Hoshu-ko and not lasting there, and they started an easy-paced class that is appropriate for every level, divided into small groups. It goes from Kindergarten to 5th grade and individual attention is very high. They will send home one sheet of homework, which will be easy to accomplish. Music to my ears. This was the right thing to do.
That face even comes with its own yukata.
At the minute I heard their deal, my stomach unknotted. I now had a plan. It was clear that I had go get my butt in gear to make more efforts at home but I felt it was time I did that anyway. So we put the applications to the two immersion schools just in case, but had it in our heads to send her to the small nearby elementary school and send her to Hiyoko Juku on Thursdays after school.
We got wait listed for the two immersion schools. 17th place for one, 34th place for the other. Decision made.
When it came down to it, we had to ask ourselves, how fluent do we want her to be? And the answer to that was that we wanted her to be fluent enough to get by when we went there and she can converse with her cousins and friends. It would be good for her to have the basic reading skill but we certainly are not grooming her to become a Japanese scholar. I was talking to Yuki's classmate's mom and she also confessed that she was totally gung-ho about raising her half-Japanese boys truly bilingual. But she realized "how so very difficult that is after 8 years of being at it. You can maybe do that if your kids don't do anything else, but they have other interests like sports and music." So she is doing something similar to our plan.
I also had an opportunity to speak with the mother of the kids (now adults) that I nannied and she said they both showed interest in studying Japanese in college and spent a semester studying there on their own. "It's important to plant the seed." She said. "I promise it will bloom--so don't give up."
So this is the seed we're planting. Along with dance and music and drama and swimming and whatever else Yuki wants to try. Many seeds. And hope that one or two of those will take.
Whatever it is, let's do it!
OK. I'm fine now.
This is the path we took:
When she was born, there was no question about raising her bilingual. It made sense. I spoke and sang to her in Japanese, and got on the waiting list for a Japanese preschool when she was about 3 months old and enrolled her at 14 months. For a while we felt like our job was done, though in the back of our minds we knew that 4 years would fly by and we would have to figure out the next step. Then I started to wish really hard that we would find a way to send her to this public school just outside of our district that was known for language immersion and Japanese was one of the languages. This was also overall an excellent school.
So how do we get her in there?
For a while, we just speculated. Not sure why we didn't just go straight to asking the school but we based our hope on various bits of information we got from friends who are parents. There were some conflicting reports because rules have changed over the years but I had it in my head that surely, if one of the parents was Japanese, she had a shot. I visited their website and marveled at the list of Japanese faculty. I was imagining all sorts of ways we could bribe them. This is the perfect school. SHE MUST GO THERE.
It was about a year ago when we finally said "we have to seriously look into our options here" and got the accurate information. And what we found was that Seattle Schools will let you apply to up to 10 other schools that are outside of your zone in the winter and will tell you by Spring what school your child will be attending.
And it is a total lottery system.
Who could refuse this face? I'm asking you!
They accept applications during a certain period of time and after that they literally draw names out of the pile (assuming they have openings). Well, there goes my plan. And moving is not really an option for us at this point. We like our house. And our street. We can't afford to buy and sell. AND the middle and high school in our area are excellent (whine). But in the meantime, we found out that the elementary school in our zone has a great reputation (and lots of arts) and friends whose daughter attends that school raved about it. So we took note.
Then we heard about a new immersion school that was modeled exactly on the first immersion school we liked AND it's in the exact same district as the other one. Which seems super silly, but there it is. Hmmm, maybe she can go there instead, we thought. This new school may have more room. We also researched some private schools and some had some Japanese but not enough to justify the tuition.
What were we to do? Yuki's bilingualism was developing nicely. Though her primary language was English, she comprehends Japanese well and when we go there, she can totally communicate with cousins and friends who don't speak any English. How do we keep this up? I know first-hand that you forget language if you don't use it. It may come back to you fast, but you can lose it. I say "first-hand" because I have made enormous effort to keep my Japanese over the last 29 years, to a point that my family and friends marvel as to why I haven't forgotten it. And this is my native tongue.
Let me tell you the confusing process my brain goes through in this endeavor. Philip and I speak in English. Philip and Yuki speak in English. When I speak to Yuki, I speak in Japanese but when all three of us are together, I have to switch from English to Japanese rapidly and even if Yuki speaks back to me in English if I want to stick to what experts say about raising a child in a bilingual house hold. I have to say, I get lazy sometimes and just go with English. And this became more evident as Yuki's speech developed into full-on kid language. I was slacking. Mostly because I knew that at least at school, Yuki's teachers weren't slacking. I think part of me wanted to continue to slack because I felt I was guessing at what I was doing. Why not let the experts do it better and I can supplement?
In almost every major city in the US (and other countries for that matter), there is a school called Hoshu-ko, which stands for Supplemental School. There is one in Bellevue, which is not that far, but not exactly convenient. The thing about Hoshu-ko is that it's designed for Japanese ex-pat children so that when they return to Japan they are not behind. It is on Saturdays only but vigorous in academics and the amount of homework and parental involvement is beyond belief. I was once a nanny to kids in Boston who went to such a school (because that was the only choice there then) and felt bad because the kids hated it. I didn't want Yuki to hate Japanese. So this was not a choice for her. Or for me.
Then in the winter, her preschool held an informational seminar where a bunch of educators from variety of different school or learning facilities came and talked about their Japanese programs. I jumped at it. There was a woman who held small group sessions, but the location was no good for me and she only offered it after school, which meant I had to fight traffic. After 4 years of commuting to a preschool 30 minutes out of my way, I felt the whine come on. There was another woman from a school from across the lake that offers Japanese immersion, but the school is super religious. That was a double whammy. Then, these two lovely ladies got up. They introduced themselves as the teachers from the school I wanted to get Yuki into and, lo and behold, that school offers a once-a-week after-school Japanese class called Hiyoko Juku for Japanese kids who live in the US, as opposed to ones who are going back to Japan. They spoke of their own children going to Hoshu-ko and not lasting there, and they started an easy-paced class that is appropriate for every level, divided into small groups. It goes from Kindergarten to 5th grade and individual attention is very high. They will send home one sheet of homework, which will be easy to accomplish. Music to my ears. This was the right thing to do.
That face even comes with its own yukata.
At the minute I heard their deal, my stomach unknotted. I now had a plan. It was clear that I had go get my butt in gear to make more efforts at home but I felt it was time I did that anyway. So we put the applications to the two immersion schools just in case, but had it in our heads to send her to the small nearby elementary school and send her to Hiyoko Juku on Thursdays after school.
We got wait listed for the two immersion schools. 17th place for one, 34th place for the other. Decision made.
When it came down to it, we had to ask ourselves, how fluent do we want her to be? And the answer to that was that we wanted her to be fluent enough to get by when we went there and she can converse with her cousins and friends. It would be good for her to have the basic reading skill but we certainly are not grooming her to become a Japanese scholar. I was talking to Yuki's classmate's mom and she also confessed that she was totally gung-ho about raising her half-Japanese boys truly bilingual. But she realized "how so very difficult that is after 8 years of being at it. You can maybe do that if your kids don't do anything else, but they have other interests like sports and music." So she is doing something similar to our plan.
I also had an opportunity to speak with the mother of the kids (now adults) that I nannied and she said they both showed interest in studying Japanese in college and spent a semester studying there on their own. "It's important to plant the seed." She said. "I promise it will bloom--so don't give up."
So this is the seed we're planting. Along with dance and music and drama and swimming and whatever else Yuki wants to try. Many seeds. And hope that one or two of those will take.
Whatever it is, let's do it!
Comments
Even if she gets rusty at it, even if she needs to take a few refresher courses as a grown-up, she has an amazing platform on which to grow. I didn't really spend any time in Italy until I was 20. Imagine the look on people's faces when I tried to explain my Roman accent. :) Your little one will be just fine.
Xxoo
Gibs