(Another of Mom Sawyer’s notes about adopting David DaeKyo. I am making little to no edits, so that we get her words.)
After about a week [of arriving in Oregon], David pulled me to the window and pointed to the school. We did a lot of pointing in those first weeks.
He had seen the children in the neighborhood coming and going.
I had already signed him up for the 1st grade. I knew he would be unhappy about being in the 1st grade when he was in the 3rd grade in Korea, but he had to learn English before advancing.
The next Monday, I took him to school and sat next to him in class. I showed him the page number being used. Since he was embarrassed to have me in class with him, the teacher assigned a boy to sit next to him.
During story time David became wiggly, since he didn't understand the story. I decided half day would be enough to start with.
In a few weeks, he was advanced to 3rd grade for math. He was very good at that. The teacher drew illustrations on the board for the story problems.
One day, during the lunch hour, David was on the monkey bars. The bell rang and David was still on the monkey bars. The playground teacher said, “You come down from there!” David [repeated] “You come down from there!”
The teacher thought he was sassing her, so she pulled him into the principal’s office. He understood that David mimicked everyone in order to learn English. That teacher hadn’t been informed. The principal called to tell me what had happened.
A few weeks later, the principal called again. This time David had stuck his hand down a squirrel hole on the playground. The squirrel bit David’s finger and it was bleeding badly. The nurse had cleaned him up and put a bandage on, but she felt I should take him to the clinic to be checked for rabies.
I went to the school and picked him up and drove to the clinic. A blood test was taken. There was no sign of rabies.
On the way home, we stopped at the Korean interpreter’s home so she could tell David not to put his hand into any more holes on the playground or anywhere else!
