Dear Ms. Whitfield,

Something has been weighing on me for a couple of weeks now, and I would rather raise it early than let it slide. This term my son Kofi joined the school choir. It has quickly become the one activity he flatly refuses to talk about. Ask him how practice went and he only shrugs and stares down at his plate. Our family landed in Canada just last spring, after moving over from Ghana. His English has taken off far faster than we dared hope. Still, singing in front of others is brand new to him. Everyone loves to remind us that children are like sponges. That has held true everywhere else, yet I can tell he is trailing the rest of the group and starting to lose heart.