I’m standing in the middle of a school playground on a scorching hot day. There’s no shade anywhere. All around me, children of various sizes are hurling their awkward young bodies around – up and down the slide, all across the monkey bars, over and around a series of stumps that form a perimeter separating…
When school gets out, X invariably greets his parents by showing off his newest work of art. We receive these projects half-heartedly because we know that most of them are not commissioned works, but rather the side projects of a creative child who hasn’t yet learned to work with the group. But the teachers reassure…
X’s first two weeks of maternelle, or French kindergarten, were as good as could be expected. In the mornings, he would trot into the room cheerfully enough and start fiddling with some toy or project, and he’d be happy in the afternoons, chattering and eager to show us whatever he’d drawn that day. He even…
