Tonight and tomorrow night I have parent teacher conferences. They are the bane of my existence as a teacher. For those of you who have children or who might have children someday I have several words of advice for how to handle parent teacher conferences at the high school level:
1. If your child has an A and you do not have questions/concerns to discuss, please stay home. There is absolutely no reason for you to come wait in line for half an hour, to talk to me for only 2 seconds when the conversation will follow this pattern:
ME: Nice to see you again. Little Suzie still has an A. 100% it looks like! Do you have any questions or concerns?
PARENT: Nope.
ME: Great!
...Awkward silence until the parent decides that they have demonstrated that they are sufficiently 'involved' in their child's life and can reasonably leave...
2. Leave your child at home. It is a whole lot easier to tell you that your child makes me want to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun if he is not sitting there staring at me.
3. I can only be cheerful and smiley for so long. If you come to me 5 minutes before the end of three and a half hour stretch of parent teacher conferences, which come after an 8 hour day of teaching, and expect to have a long, detailed conversation about how I am not meeting your student's many and diverse needs, please do not be offended if I beat you with sticks.
4. Related to Number 2: I really would rather you didn't yell at your child in front of me. It makes me uncomfortable and I have unpleasant thoughts about what you do to your children when no one, much less a gym full of teachers and parents, are around to monitor your behavior.
5. Please do not complain about your child's other parent to me. I don't need to know that her mother/father is wholly inadequate as a parent and won't help her with her homework while you are slaving away at your job. I really, really don't want to know.
So, there you have it. Parent teacher conference etiquette for the 21st century. I just wish there was a way to communicate these rules to the parents I will actually see tonight.
6 comments:
That must totallly stink!!! Now, onto a completely different subject. I was blog browsing, as I like to call it, went through a friends blog, to a friends blog, to a friends blog...Anyways low and behold I found a picture of none other than Michele R. our old roomie. Just thought I'd let you know...I don't know about you, but I am bad at keeping track of people.
Do people seriously complain about their spouses to you? And yell at their children in front of you? Yikes! The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm not sure I could handle teaching...I'm just not that good.
I am not a teacher for this very reason. There are no parent-doula conferences. They hire me, they pop a kid out, and I am done. :)
you are a clever writer, you always have me laughing!!
Krystal-Whose blog had Michele? I wish she would hurry up and finish law school so she can move back here!Although, the boyfriend may be in the way of that plan. :-) I definitely could do better about keeing in touch! Thank heavens for the blogs! :-)
Kara-indeed they do. It is a sort of strange teacher phenomenon. I somehow morph into the community shrink several times a year.
Morgan-There is no blood involved in my job. Or screaming. Usually. I am thrilled there are people who do the icky jobs. I just don't want to be one. :-)
Anna-you're nice. :-)
http://trishacheney.blogspot.com/
A little ways down is the picture of Michele. I can't believe what a small world we all live in. Boy am I glad to be done with school...:)
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