Recently Jay went back to school, on the 2nd of January, to start grade 3. For those not in the know, the school year starts in January here in Singapore. Which means that the long summer holidays, although it’s always summer here, are in November and December.
As a side note, Singapore has two seasons, hot and dry, and hot and wet. I haven’t seen a winter in 18 years now. The closest I came was summer in Canada, where even their August weather is colder than anything I’ve experienced in a long time. And yes, I did get some odd looks for wearing jumpers while I was there.
Anyway, back to Jay’s first days of grade 3. We had expected to have some resistance from him. Especially since he has to get up at 6am to catch the school bus. And he’d spent the last couple of months going to sleep late and not getting up until 8 or 9 every day.
Surprisingly, while he was (and still is) very sleepy when he gets up, we haven’t had any real problems with getting him up and meeting the bus on time.
Unfortunately, the first Thursday back, he came home with a cough and fever. This is one of my major gripes here, parents will send their kids to school (and go to work themselves) when they are sick. What this results in is a constant flow of illness through the classes and, to a lesser extent, the workplace. Now, is it just me, or is this counterproductive? Wouldn’t more work be accomplished overall if those who were sick and contagious stayed home for an extra day or two?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I think it’s a question that should be asked and thought about.
The end result though, is that Jay got sick from his classmates the first week back. He took Friday off and went to the doctor, took his medicine and by Monday was back at school. Not too bad, right? Well, now here we are, Monday morning, starting his third week back and he’s got another cough. So, he did make it through the second week unscathed, but he’s sick again and we’re sending him to school because that’s the way it’s done here.
This is the problem, every month that’s he’s been in school here, here’s come home at least once with a cough or runny nose. And sometimes with a fever. The only times we let him stay at home, are when he has a fever. And this seems to be how it’s done here. So we go with the flow and continue the cycle of kids infecting other kids, and hoping that one day it will be broken. Just not by us, cause Jay can’t miss any more school than he already does.
Other than that though, Jay’s first couple of weeks of grade 3 have gone well. He’s started swimming lessons, even though he’s been swimming for years. He’s excited to start science class. And his other classes are continuing, with math still his favourite subject.