Zinash will be starting school at our local public school this coming Tuesday. She attended a public school in Ethiopia but I've been home-schooling her since we brought her home in February. She's learned a ton over the past six months, her conversational English skills are pretty good, and she's adjusted well to life in America, so we think she is ready for regular school.
Zinash has been super nervous about going to a regular school, though, which is completely understandable. I think she's excited too and is hoping to make some friends her age, but her apprehension definitely overwhelms her excitement.
In an attempt to help her become more comfortable with the idea of going to a regular school, we've gone to visit her school several times over the past couple weeks and walked around looking in windows and discovering where things are.
Yesterday, the school posted the class lists, so we stopped by the school to see what her teacher's name was and which room she was in. She dragged her feet on the way into the school as if maybe she could avoid the whole thing if she walked slowly enough. Eventually, though, we made it to the bulletin board with the class lists and I found her name on the list for Mrs. Mitchell's class...along with 34 other children's names. That's right. 35 students are in her class. Yikes!
We also saw her room number so we walked down to the classroom to look in the windows. On our way, a man who works at the school asked us which class we were looking for and I told him. He said, "Oh, Mrs. Mitchell is a great teacher! You're going to like her!"
We found the room and were peeking in the windows, when a woman walked up to us and asked Zinash, "Are you going to be a student in this classroom?" We said yes and she introduced herself as Mrs. Mitchell! She was very warm and welcoming and even though she had been headed home, she invited us to come in the classroom to look around. She had all kinds of interesting things in her room, including a piano and a lot of antiques that she uses when she teaches California state history. I was able to share a little bit of background information about Zinash and she told us some of the things they do in her classroom.
She asked Zinash if she wanted to choose her seat which was very exciting to Zinash. She said, "I've been thinking about a girl I know who I think would be perfect for you to sit next to!"
I breathed an internal sigh of relief as I thought, "Someone is thinking about my girl."
As we walked away from the classroom, I asked Zinash, "Do you feel better now about going to school on Tuesday?"
She got a huge smile on her face and said, "Yes!"
I said, "Me too."
Thank You, God, for small miracles that ease a young girls' heart...and a mama's heart too.
Lil' Red
