C'mon, kids!

Today was test day # 2 for me at Scooter's school's passport club. It's an extra curricular activity that the kids can choose to do on their own or not. Each month, they're given a list of about 20-25 countries and a map to study. At (or near) the end of the month, community volunteers take over the school cafeteria to test the kids to see if they know where on the map each of those countries is, plus the capitals of 5 of the countries. I didn't help out in September, but I did October and today was November. Clearly, the countries are starting to become more obscure. Moldova? (easter Europe). Comoros? (goup of islands near Madagascar).

Each of the countries is grouped into a level. Level 1 is 5 countries, 2: another 5, 3: 5 more, 4: 7-10, level 5 is the capitals of the level 1 countries. Theoretically, the levels get harder as you go. Realistically, the kids have trouble at every level. Today's difficult country was Algeria. I get it. African countries are the hardest for me to identify, too. But Algeria? Come on, kids! It's the first one on the list to study!

I don't think I'm alone in saying that as the year goes on, the kids are either studying their maps less or the countries are all just running together in their minds. There was one class (same one from last month) who must take a little time in class to study. They had almost every student get all 5 levels correct. I hope Scooter gets that teacher in the coming years. The divide between kids who studied and kids who didn't was even more stark than last month. Last month, kids could kind of fudge their way through "show me where the United States is..." This month, finding Canada was a little tougher.

But then, I was introduced to a girl in 4th or 5th grade. She was brought to me by her teacher with instructions to please speak slowly and pronounce my words clearly. This girl is new to the United States, and this was her first week at this school. OK. The teacher ran off to get her a "passport," so the girl sat and watched while I tested another girl. Girl 2 got all of them right, but I didn't speak particularly slowly or clearly for her. The teacher came back with Girl 1's passport, and we got started. I was apprehensive. Some kids will sit there FOREVER thinking and guessing. I've learned to be patient and just let them think about it. Sometimes, they surprise you and come up with the right answers if they're not rushed. It's hard for me and my go-go-go impatience, but maybe this is another thing that I can get out of volunteering. Anyway, to my surprise and delight, this girl, who was less than 5 days into school in America got all of them correct in very short order. Seriously. Either she can understand WAAAY more than she can speak, or that teacher was really selling her short. Either way, she came from Nepal. So props to her previous school for teaching her the locations of Algeria, Canada, Panama, Mongolia, Turkey, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Moldova, Niger, and the slew of other countries (and capitals of some) that were tested.

I wonder if, when kids from the US start at new schools around the world, their parent volunteers are as impressed with them as I was with her.