Episode 8: You’re Too Dumb To Be a Doctor

As the sun set on the final day of our first Chinese Holiday, I locked the dog in the kitchen, the final fireworks display commenced, and I received an email from Grace’s teacher. She had requested a “meeting.” No details, no nothing, she just wanted to meet with me ASAP.

Yikes! I feel like I was just called to the principal’s office.

Grace, as far as I could tell, was a nice kid who was eager to learn. Almost always happy, this child has dimples you could swim in, bright blue eyes as big as saucers and thick, curly blonde hair that bounces behind her with her every move. I had suspected she may be a little behind her peer group since she couldn’t read yet, but I wasn’t too concerned. Her kindergarten teacher hadn’t waved any red flags, so I figured she was going to be on par with her first grade class.

When I arrived at school the next morning I saw Grace walking through the hallway, lagging behind the rest of her class. Her posture was off. Her shoulders were hunched forward, she dragged her feet as she walked and her head hung down, and eyes fixed on her shuffling feet.

“Hey Bug, what’s up?” I said. I had to run a little bit to catch up with her.

“Oh, hey Mommy,” she said, looking up at me with a smile so weak her dimples didn’t even appear.

I grabbed her by the arm and crouched down next to her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? You seem a little sad.”

“A boy in my class called me stupid,” she said.

“What? Which one?”

“That one…the really tall kid with black hair,” she said, pointing up ahead at her class. There was one boy who was remarkably taller than the rest of the class. The school that Grace and Will attended had joint classrooms.

Kindergarten was separate, but grade 1 and 2 were together, 3 and 4 were together and 5 and 6 were together. I presumed he was a 2nd grader.

I grabbed her by the hand and we started walking to catch up to her class. “Well, why would he call you stupid?”

“I don’t know. We were just talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up and I said I wanted to be a doctor.”

“Of course. You’ve wanted to be a doctor since you were two years old.”

“Well, he told me I was too stupid to be a doctor.”

What a little prick.

Trying to contain my anger, frustration, and heart ache I continued down the hall with Grace’s hand in mine, lips pursed and face flushed. We weren’t far behind her class, which had turned into the music room.

I crouched down beside her, put my hands on her shoulders and gave the speech I imagine every parent, at one point or another has to give their child. “Gracie, you are not stupid. Not even a little bit stupid. And you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. If you wanna be the president, you can be the president. If you wanna be a doctor, you can be a doctor. If you wanna be a teacher, you can be a teacher. Whatever you want. Don’t let that boy tell you what you can and can’t be. Do you understand?”

“I can be the president?” she asked. A look that was a combination of confusion, bewilderment and excitement came across her face.

“You sure can.”

“Would that be of America or China?” she asked. She now had her hands on her hips and her head was tilted a little to the side. Her nose crinkled and eyes scrunched.

I dropped my head to try and hide my smile, but then I looked back up at her, regained eye contact and said, “The United States of America. Now, you go into your music class and keep your chin up, OK?”

“OK, Mommy,” she said, giving me a huge hug and a full-dimpled smile.

I watched Grace skip into her music class and join her peers in a circle on the floor; I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth and stomped my way upstairs to meet with her teacher. I climbed the stairs and rolled my eyes as I passed the large picture of Jesus: his arms open, mouth parted slightly — as if he was about to speak. He even had a little twinkle painted onto one of his eyes.

Gimme a break.

I entered the room, took in a deep breath and immediately forgot why I was mad. Grace’s teacher had looked up from her desk where she was sorting through a stack of papers and said with a polite smile, “I’ll be right with you, Jennifer.” I nodded and took in my surroundings: miniature chairs were pushed under miniature desks, every color of the rainbow was represented in the form of letters, numbers, nouns and verbs. Spelling and reading strategies — written on large sheets of lined paper — hovered above over flowing bookshelves in the corner of the room. The children’s aboriginal artwork they had created during their unit on Australia hung from the ceiling and blew in the breeze that I created as I walked through the room. Children in the classroom next door laughed along with their teacher as they clapped out the syllables of their spelling words.

“Jennifer,” I heard a voice say. It was Grace’s teacher; Ms. Jones. “Are we ready?”

Ms. Jones was an older lady — maybe mid-fifties. Her build was slight — almost fragile. She had a short blonde bob with hair tucked neatly behind her ears. Her blue-green eyes sparkled, even though they appeared tired under aging eye lids. Her tidy green knit shirt and khaki knee-length skirt fit her perfectly. She sat down on a miniature chair, crossed her legs, smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt and motioned for me to take the miniature seat across from her.

I obliged.

“Well, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to throw it out there,” she said in a thick Australian accent.

“Grace is very far behind her peer group in all academic areas — particularly maths, reading and writing.”

“Oh. Um…OK,” I said. I put my left elbow on the table and rested the bridge of my nose between my thumb and my pointer finger. This is what I do when I’m trying to think, but can’t.

Then she asked, “Was she in full-day or half-day kindergarten last year?”

“Half-day,” I said, looking up from my thinking pose, now resting my cheek on my fist.

“In the states?” She tapped her pencil by the eraser on a closed notebook she had in front of her.

“Uh, yeah.” I nodded.

“Well, that makes perfect sense. She’s behind because she simply hasn’t been exposed to the proper strategies. All of the 1st graders in this class were in full-day kindergarten here at Concordia.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. Wow. I didn’t realize one could be soo far behind at the beginning of 1st grade,” I said. I moved my hands into my lap. I cracked my knuckles a couple times then rested them in prayer on my lap, becoming more and more aware that I’d been fidgeting like a nervous wreck.

“Oh yes, this is a different environment than that of the educational system in the states.”

“Have you taught in the states?” I asked.

“Oh no, but I’ve been teaching internationally for over ten years.”

“I see…so…”

She opened the notebook that she had in front of her and showed me a handwritten list of items Grace needed to work on. As she spoke about each one, she put a little tick by it with her finely sharpened pencil. “So, we’ve got a lot of work to do. In maths…in maths I already have parents asking when we’re going to start our multiplication tables.”

My mouth must have visibly dropped open because she quickly added, “…but we’re not. She won’t get that until third grade. However, that doesn’t mean her peers aren’t getting drilled at home. In maths, most of her class already have their addition and subtraction facts — up to 20 — memorized.”

Fully aware that Grace didn’t have any math facts memorized I asked, “And, what are they supposed to have memorized at the beginning of 1st grade?” I started cracking my knuckles again.

“Um, well, none. They’re just supposed to understand the concept of adding and subtracting, which Grace does have. She definitely understands the concepts.”

“Oh-kay, so she’s not behind for a 1st grader, per se, she’s behind in her class because she’s mixed in with 2nd graders and 1st graders who are ahead of the average.”

“That’s right. But, I have to move at the pace of the class, so Grace is going to have to do a lot of extra work at home. In reading, for example, most of my 1st graders are already reading chapter books, like Junie B. Jones.”

“Again, is that normal? I mean, I’m not an educator, but I am very involved and I do a lot of research. In fact, I read just last week that children learn how to read in grades one and two and then read to learn starting in grade three.”

“While that is true in a traditional educational setting… it’s just… not to worry, it’s just a little more advanced in an international setting.”

I nodded and smiled but really, I felt sick.

And so it went like that for a little while longer. By the end of our meeting I was armed with all kinds of learning tools to help my little first grader catch up to her classmates. I was so overwhelmed with information about reading strategies, sight words and math facts that I totally forgot to mention that one of her classmates called her “stupid.”

I left the room, head down and shuffling my feet, much like the way I saw Grace walking earlier.

I think she just called my kid stupid.

As luck would have it, I ran into Kristin McBride when I was leaving the school.

“Hey there. Where’re you going with that stack of papers?” she asked, looking at me in her special condescending way.

“Ugh. Home, I guess. I just had a meeting with Grace’s teacher. She’s apparently really far behind her classmates.”

“Already? Wow. Looks like she’s got her work cut out for her.”

I looked down at the stack of papers in my arms. “Yeah. I think I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

She laughed and added, “No kidding. It’s a good thing my daughter isn’t behind. She and I would kill each other if I had to teach her at home.”

“Yeah, well. We’ve got a lot of work to do. The 1st graders are already reading Junie B. books and Grace can’t memorize sight words.”

“Well, don’t forget, the gene pool is deeper here than it is at the average school in the states. Although, of course my daughter was reading Junie B. at the beginning of 1st grade, but not all of her classmates were.”

Of course she was.

“Well, I’ve gotta get going. Looks like it’s gonna rain and I’m on my bike,” I said.

“Alright, see you around….”

As I rode Sally home, in the rain, I couldn’t help but wonder if Grace wasn’t as smart as I thought she was. I certainly wouldn’t be the first parent in history who thought their child was a genius, only to find out later, that she wasn’t. It was confusing, though, because she knew all of her shapes and colors by 18 months. She knew the alphabet by sight and sound by two and a half. I couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t really advanced beyond that in three years.

Tears now filled my eyes and I wondered, are these tears for my daughter or are they for me?

***

For more tales from the errant expat in China: The Price of Tea