Parlez-vous Français?

Eric and I have been talking about sending Jack to French immersion school for a few months.   We looked at some websites, and had one school in mind to look in to, but hadn’t really thought long-term.

Enrollment for preschools are in January, so Eric and I began talking seriously about schools and looking into the public immersion programs that we have heard of.  We wanted to give Jack a head-start for these elementary schools by putting him in an immersion preschool.

Last Saturday we ended up at a French school not far from where we live and fell in love with it.  We started to seriously consider it for Jack for his full elementary education.

Eric and I didn’t feel like we could give Jack a special education without giving that same thing to Owen.  So, we asked about the program for him next year and found that you can only enter the school in Kindergarten or younger (unless you already speak French.)

The short version of the story is that we have 95% decided to send Owen to this school starting next week.    Owen has been surprisingly open to the change which has shocked Eric and I as transition is something that it usually so hard for him.  He walked into several classrooms on our tour and Owen was completely uninterested.  Then, we went into another one, and he looked around and said, “I want to be in this class next year!”  The funny thing is that there was not really much of a difference with the classroom he chose, but it ended up being the classroom that he will be going into.

The biggest drawback for all of us is that Owen will be leaving the public school in our neighborhood – which we are very happy with.  I certainly never ever considered sending my kids to a private school before.  Owen loves his class and his teacher and Eric and I definitely feel there is a loss at giving that up!

Owen has his “interview” tomorrow where the two of us visit the school and spend some time in his classroom.  I am very curious to see how Owen will respond to a teacher who only speaks to him in French.  I tried to prepare him a little today for that experience telling him that his teacher would understand him when he spoke to her in English, but she would only respond to him in French.  Owen got quiet for awhile (and I got nervous) then he said something to the effect of, “The more we talk about going to this school, the the more excited I get.  I don’t feel so nervous like I did!”  I guess he is also  surprised  with his own response to the change…

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PS. I know that most of our family is reading about this for the first time right now.  Please don’t be offended – it has been surprising to us too!  Certainly not something we were planning  just a few days ago.