Spanish class

In case you were wondering, and why wouldn't you be? Jonathan loves his Spanish class. They do all sorts of fun stuff in there. Snacks and food, drama, exercise, art. They move from room to room playing games, thinking they are just having tons of fun, when secretly they learning all sorts of Spanish. The teachers are brilliant.

And then, when those kids thought they would just slip away home to normal life after school was over, the teachers presented each child with their very own CD full of Spanish language tunes. And now even I am singing in Spanish, all day every day.

This means, dear Reader, that I can now converse with you in Spanish. I can say useful things like, "I am a pizza" with "lots of cheese" and "no bologna". In case you ask, I can tell you that "this is the dance of the colors." Also, "we are all like the flowers in the garden of life." Or, just to shake things up a bit, I also learned how to say "everyone eats the flowers in the garden of life", in case that becomes important.

As the primary taxi driver between home and Spanish, I am more involved in Spanish than ever before. And not just music.

Yesterday, Jonathan's teacher asked if I would participate in a parent survey to help the school attract more students. I agreed. I assumed she would ask me questions like, "why did you decide on our school?" "Why is a second language important?" That sort of thing. And they kind of did ask the second one. But rather than find out why we chose Spanish summer school, given all our options, the questions on the survey ended up being a sort of psychological profile of me. The parent.

Seriously. They asked me to describe myself in a few sentences. They asked me to tell them whether the world is a safe place or a scary place. Whether good things or bad things typically happen to me. How people who don't know me treat me. What things are important to me.

I thought it was a little weird. Oh my psychologist friends out there, why do you think the Spanish school wants to know these things about the parents who select their school? Perhaps they are envisioning some clever advertising campaign. Since most of the parents who enroll are optimists rather than pessimists, they can increase exposure to their target audience by posting their signs on the sunny side of the street.

No really. I ask because I don't know. Please someone explain to me what might have been the point of the survey.

Meanwhile, please do not step on the flowers in the garden of life. "No pise las flores en el jardin de la vida."