Howdy,
Yesterday, Thursday, May 25, 2017, Jasper wrapped his first official school year, finishing his last day of kindergarten …
He really did have a great year. As a parent, it’s crazy to see his growth.
Physically: at the end of a school’s year, kids that go in as kindergartners, seventh graders, freshmen, seniors, or whatever level in-between are different than the children that begin in the fall—taller, faces more mature, generally changed from the young ones starting the new season.
Mentally: Jasper willingly took on the challenge of undergoing his education in a foreign language—dual immersion Spanish-English, with 90% instruction in kindergarten year being en Español—and his progress in a second language is beginning to show itself to be quite astounding. We are both very pleased and generally amazed.
Twice in the last week we’ve had Spanish-speaking mothers of children about Jasper’s age relay to us that his Spanish is very good—his ability to carry a conversation with them as an adult and with their children, his accent sounding natural, and his vocabulary being good or at least level appropriate. Like I said, it’s amazing to use, and we are pleased for him. The latest person to tell us this was yesterday when a mom of one of Jasper’s classmate told us she was impressed. (Translation: that little white boy in class is getting it!) She said she’d noticed how he was working well within the language when helping in the class and in speaking with him.
These things are so cool for us to hear, because we don’t often get to witness the use of language so strongly or in such immersed interaction; though we are seeing him read to himself more and more in Spanish, which is just great to see coming from him. He loves it.
The other incident, on Saturday, was even more organic. When we were in San Mateo at Coyote Point Park, I asked a lady—a mother of young boys whom Jasper and Titus were playing with on the playground—if she spoke Spanish … I had a plan and fairly boldly acted on it, thinking it was worth a shot: curious.
“Hello,” I said. “They’re having fun.”
“Yes,” she said.
I’d spent a good part of the day at the park, so I guess either I was feeling comfortable in the place or figured all the other moms already thought I was a weirdo anyway. “Do you speak Spanish?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Thanks. I ask because our son is finishing his first year of school in a Spanish immersion program and I was wondering if you could talk to him, ask him a few questions, in Spanish and see how he’s doing.”
She was very sweet and kind. And totally surprised me. “Oh, we were talking in Spanish earlier. He’s very good. His Spanish is very good. He was talking to me and my boys. He sounds natural, like a native speaker; his accent is very good—he doesn’t have an accent. I was surprised.”
That was two of us.
I asked Jasper to speak with them. He smiled and shrugged shyly. The lady said, “He seems more shy to speak Spanish in front of you, because we were talking a lot on the other side of the playground earlier. His vocabulary is very good, and he was talking with my boys. He was helping them.” Then Jasper ripped of a sentence en Español with one of the boys, which blitzed into a back-and-forth heart-language (for the others) exchange and a running off to play, as a pack of kids hitting the playground and the Coyote Point Magical Mountain Playground’s long, tube slide hard—Titus tagging along not sure what’s being said but up for the adventure. (You should see Titus Shalom barrel down the slide. Watching from the bottom—while timing the sprinting-sliding circuit, over and over—Jasper slid down and slipped out smiling like a smooth streak; whereas, Titus, Titus, did some sort of half-turn roll and slam at the end, making the last bend a corner to be crashed through. Line-BACKER.)
Spiritually: “He was helping them.” That’s Jasper. He loves to help. You should see the boys, Jasper and Titus, filling their bottles—the ones they each snagged off the table at church and are keeping an eye on with a great sense of personal interest—with change as a donation to the Turlock Pregnancy Center’s Baby Bottle fundraising campaign. It’s not “spare” change for them. They’re plunking in their newly-minted completed chores commission earnings. It’s all they’ve got left to give after emptying their piggy banks into the bottles.
“Babies,” Jasper said, “are more important than money.”
Jasper, you’ll be a man, my Son.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 122,128 / On Pace: 122,100 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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