Sports Day

Eldest Son coming in First

The school had their Sports Day last Friday and us parents had been invited to take part in it. One good thing about a small school is that we get to be involved in almost everything that has to do with our children and every occasion to socialise with one another is a good one.

Baby Boy and Girl were both part of the Green Team while Eldest Son wore Blue. Divided parents like myself it did, especially when I would have preferred my children to all wear Red like I did when I was at school myself. Though of course in my school as in theirs, the Red Team somehow always comes in last. Yellow Yellow Dirty Fellow won...

I missed out on the Babies' participation as I was away doing something else. Like spending 11,50 euros photocopying a music book that would have cost me 13 euros had I bought it. I feel thoroughly stupid about it, of course, but then I should have known that the guy didn't practise his English on me (though surely my Italian wasn't that bad) for nothing, he was happy to be able to fleece me for it. And he even did the photocopying badly - with absolutely no display of common sense.

As fate would have it, I received a letter from the school just after informing me that this same guy would be photographing my kids next Monday. Aarrgh.

So, I was saying that I didn't see my cute babies doing sporty things. I did manage to see Eldest Son win his class race though. Apparently he was the best in a few other events too. For once he was the best in something, pity they didn't give him a trophy for the pain.

This was a really nice and enjoyable occasion, quite unlike the competitive sporting events that gave me nightmares when I was a child. Between the qualifying races, the guns that set us off, the dozens of songs and chants we had to memorise to cheer our teams on...You guessed it right if you say that I turned up late for the kids' Sports Day because I was still a little traumatised by my own Sports Days. I was fat and lazy (am still fat and lazy) so I guess that didn't make me Sports Day material.

After Sports Day I joined a few mothers for lunch and was sad to know that one of them has decided to remove her child from the school next year. Never thought I would actually be pleading the case for the ISM, but I do feel that between classic celebrated rote learning in most Italian schools and a more fun approach to learning like in the IB Programme, I wouldn't put my kids through the former if I can help it. I still believe that rote learning has its place and use in education, but definitely not alot of it. Even in Singapore where life is tough for young learners, we are starting to move away from pure rote learning. My sister is forever attending courses sponsored by the Ministry of Education to learn new and fun ways of teaching and there is no doubt that a good mix of the old and new methods is bearing fruit.

Did your schools have Milo sponsoring cold chocolate drinks during Sports Day like it did in my time? That was one thing about Sports Day that I really look forward to. Needless to say I always hung around the Milo stand. Maybe Sports Day wasn't as bad as I remembered it to be.