Let Me Go to School

Sword started her first day of sixth grade yesterday. She has three teachers, each in charge of a major subject area, science, language arts, and math, and these will be her teachers for the next three years. Each year, one of the teachers will be her home room teacher and will be in charge of her overall performance. But regardless of who is currently the home room teacher, those same three educators will get to know her really well, and they will watch over her progress in their particular area of expertise for three whole years.

Sword has been attending the same school since pre-school. It runs all the way through eighth grade. She has known most of the teachers at  the school since she was three years old, and most of the students in her class have been with her since kindergarten, if not earlier. I myself never had this level of continuity, because we traveled back and forth between Israel and the United States for much of my childhood, and we tended to move a lot within the U.S. By the time we settled down in Grand Prairie, Texas, I was about ready to be home schooled. I didn't like school much.

Sword is happy to go back to school, and excited to have finally reached the elite "middle school" area, with its lockers and special teachers, and the greater privileges enjoyed by the older children, who are all at the far end of the building, and rank higher in status and schooling.

Meanwhile, Bow and I are stuck at home doing the same old things. Counting strawberries for breakfast; looking at videos of other chimpanzees for entertainment. After he had asked for all the food that there was this morning, Bow took my hand and started to spell:

תני לי

"Give you what?" I asked. There was nothing left to give. He had eaten it all.

תני לי פעם ללכת לבית הספר

That means "let me go to school once". (In Hebrew, "give me" and "let me" are the same phrase.) "Bow, they won't accept you at school."

He spelled:

כן תני לי בכל זאת

That means: "Yes. Let me, anyway." 

I wish I could let him. But how?