Personal experience: how we chose a school for a Russian-speaking child in San Francisco

After moving to the USA, we settled in San Francisco. Despite the use of English outside the home, Russian has always been spoken in our family in everyday life - we are trying not to lose touch with our native culture. Therefore, when we had children, the decision to send them to a Russian kindergarten or preschool, where there are Russian language lessons, came somehow by itself.

Photo by the author

However, in practice, it turned out to be not so easy to bring it to life. While exploring options for such institutions for children, we faced several problems. Some schools were focused only on learning the language, which made it impossible for the child to develop in other important fields. Some institutions prepared children in several subjects, but did not offer cultural events at all, but we wanted the child to be imbued with our native culture, to try a part of our childhood.

After a long and difficult search, we were still lucky: in Shalom school in San Francisco we found everything we wanted. This school offers not only Russian language lessons, but also Hebrew lessons. And - most importantly - an atmosphere that immediately tells the child: you are at home, in the family.

With parental care, the school also approached the protection of students from the coronavirus. The administration of the institution strictly follows all the instructions of the medical authorities on social distancing and personal protective equipment for both children and staff. At the same time, the school managed to preserve the family atmosphere that was created there earlier.

School teachers strive to create a warm, trusting and comfortable atmosphere, and with the help of stories and fairy tales accessible and understandable to children, they introduce them not only to the Russian language, but also to culture. Every day children read poems, sing songs, learn to respectfully communicate with each other. The curriculum includes: science, mathematics, languages ​​(Russian, English, Hebrew), as well as creative arts lessons aimed at kids' self-expression through drawing with paints, playing musical instruments, listening to classical music, sculpting and making crafts with their own hands.

Photo by the author

В Shalom school children form their speech by listening and repeating sounds, learn to express thoughts in sentences, retell stories, and constantly expand their vocabulary. There is one teacher for 6-8 children in the school, which allows him to pay enough attention to each child. In addition, individual work is carried out with children every day.

One of the key aspects of healthy communication is the ability to manage your emotions, identify the emotions of those around you, and respond appropriately to them. That’s why Emotional Intelligence learning is taught at school: children are taught to cooperate, respect the feelings of others, take care of other people’s things and respect personal space, build friendly relationships with each other and respectful relationships with teachers.

Previously, excursions to fire departments, police stations, grocery stores, museums, parks, nursing homes, playgrounds and gardens were regularly organized for students, where you can see and learn a lot. Now, due to the pandemic, these opportunities are limited, but will be resumed as soon as the epidemiological situation allows.

Additionally, Shalom school has a tradition of holding festive matinees. As bright and perky as we remember them from our childhood. Since matinees are part of the culture in which we ourselves grew up, we really wanted to keep this tradition in our family. Shalom School manages to make these events a real fairy tale for children and friendly get-togethers for parents. Now such holidays have also had to be greatly changed, adapting to epidemiological challenges. However, I am sure that with the normalization of the situation, these wonderful events, which we greatly miss with the whole family, will return to us.

Infographics: Shalom School

From the first day, our child is happy to go to Shalom school, learns languages, learns the native culture, and perceives the rare need to skip classes as punishment, not encouragement (and this is the best assessment of the work of teachers).

We, as parents, have a wonderful opportunity to communicate with the moms and dads of his classmates at various events and make new friends among Russian-speaking immigrants.

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