Christian climbs a tree!

Christian’s school organises an “Amazing Race” every year just before the mid-year holidays. Last year, it was held at the zoo and we had lots of fun running around with him, taking pictures and I was also pleased to see that they had follow-on activities in school after the June holidays comprising of animal figurines and a big plastic safari map.

This year, the race was held at the Botanic gardens and P went with him.

The children had a ‘pre-race briefing’ two days before the actual event and his teacher watsapped the parents of the children having fun after the briefing.

Seeing Christian climb a tree with such pride truly brightened my work day. It made me feel “my son has grown up! Oh look at him! is that truly him?” It also affirmed my decision to pick this school for him. It is so important to have teachers who truly care, and who share the same philosophy as you. When goals and thinking are aligned, many less battles need to be fought and things are done without you even having to request it.

Christian’s prize for climbing the highest was a BIG leaf that had just fallen to the ground (big enough to cover his and his sister’s head in case of rain). We tried to persuade him to give the smaller leaf to HW, the autistic child in his class who didn’t go. It was rather difficult for Christian to let go of his ‘prize’ though and we didn’t push him.

On the actual day of the race, Christian and P were the first (from the back). Blur Christian had no idea who came in first or last until P told him, and even then, we took pains to emphasize that what was most important was the learning process. They were slower than the rest because P deliberately let Christian read the map, lead him, according to the instructions. They took time to interact with the man sweeping the leaves, make silly actions and laugh at little things, instead of the winning pair whose mum lost the point of the exercise, grabbed the map and pulled the little girl around. Christian was telling me about the race before he slept, obviously a little disturbed that he didn’t win, but I said as convincingly as I could that it is alright, what’s most important is that he learnt something, he had fun. It’s over so there is no need to think too much about it. It’s a difficult lesson to learn, but hopefully starting young will help.

Grateful to his school for bringing the children close to nature, and taking the effort to bring lessons out of the classroom into the beautiful outdoors.