The Price of Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic

Fresh off the heels of a Friday morning school controversy (there was a miscommunication about whether The Girl's class was participating in the school-wide Pajama Day, resulting in most of the class wearing uniforms and some other little ones sporting Thomas the Train jammies), I find myself mindful yet again of the choice we have made concerning our daughter's education.

Since making the choice to enroll her in an immersion school in Canada, we have become huge advocates of second-language immersion. In fact, our decision to move here hinged entirely on the availability of continuing instruction in a second language; when it looked like the two public immersion schools would not have space for us, we had to face the realization that, although The Husband's job opportunity was amazing, we might have to say "no" because we could not continue our children's education in our chosen fashion. So the discovery of this school, with one space left in the first grade, seemed like an absolute God-send, particularly given that discovery only two days before we had to decide whether or not we would accept the job offer.

For the most part, we love the school. It has an international feel that we suspect would be lacking in public and/or English schools. The language that the teachers (imported directly from the mother country) speak is beautiful - The Girl's "rrrr's" already roll far better than her parents'. The standards are high - she visited a Picasso exhibit in her first week, has spent a few weeks learning about "les microbes," and is learning how to write in cursive. There is a healthy balance between physical education and mental education, her teacher is wonderfully dedicated, and the class size is small.

(Given the horror stories we keep hearing about the public school system down here, we feel as though we have dodged the "No Child Left Behind" bullet that faces so many other parents who have different and fewer options than we.)

The one thing that gives us pause is the cost. The tuition is high, particularly when we consider that we would like to enroll The Boy whenever I do go back to work. I would never have dreamed that I would be paying more for one child's annual (pre-Kindergarten!) tuition than I did for my own annual university tuition. And while we are fortunate enough to have finances that allow this school to even be an option for us, it is not an option that makes only a slight impact on our bank account. Our children may be our future, but does that future merit funds that could (should?) be put towards retirement?

A secondary - but noticeable - effect of the tuition costs is that many other students in this school come from, shall we say, privileged families. I am glad that my l'il Jetta has a high sense of her own self worth; otherwise, she might feel insecure each day as she parks beside Audis, Mercedes, Volvos and Hummers. My own background of simplicity and frugality is (usually) enough to arm me with the knowledge that most things of real value cannot be purchased.

But will that knowledge filter down to my children if they are surrounded by others who brag about new toys, chatter excitedly about their latest costly activity or sneer at my daughter that $1 from the tooth fairy isn't worth very much? (Huh - my blood *still* boils just thinking about that incident and it happened over two weeks ago.) Not that it would be better if we could get into the public school, something that we are trying to do, but could take years. It would probably be worse, actually, given the school's location in a pretty posh district and its lack of uniforms which possess such a tremendous leveling capability.

There will *always* be others who have more, I know that. My children, like children everywhere, need to learn about the futility of keeping up with the Joneses and about valuing qualities like kindness and graciousness in their friends, regardless of their friends' socioeconomic level. And there are certainly lots of families who have to sacrifice financially to have their kids in this school and have incomes/abilities similar to ours, so it's not like all of them come bearing lunchboxes containing a silver spoon.

Sigh. It was *so* much easier in Canada, where immersion schools were a dime a dozen and cost nothing. What our local school lacked in academic rigour it made up for in warmth, informality and liberal-granola-like-mindedness.

But so far we are glad that we found this school and look forward to watching our child/ren's continued academic successes. Even if the last month has been spent on Christopher Columbus and we have been the at-home-audiences for re-enactments (bilingual, mind you) about the "Indians." Nothing like a front-row seat for the early days of imperialism!