Stocking: My yearly dread of Parent-Teacher conferences - East Idaho News
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Stocking: My yearly dread of Parent-Teacher conferences

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Report 1

When our children are born, we unknowingly accept an undisclosed number of obligations. I expected the obligations of diaper changes and night-time feedings when my first child was born. I did not expect that I would be obligated to watch Blue’s Clues for hours on end. I certainly hadn’t thought past toddler-hood to the obligations of elementary school (school parties way too many times a year) and middle school (painful 7th grade band concerts). And even though I am a teacher myself, I never thought far enough down the road to my parental obligation to attend my own children’s parent-teacher conferences.

I gave birth to these little people, and now I am expected to meet with a number of subject-matter experts with specialized training in teaching and discuss my children. In our current school district, parent-teacher conferences take place over two days, and go from kindergarten through high school. For two years, I had children in four different schools and that made parent-teacher conferences lengthy and arduous. I celebrated the year I only had to go to three schools to meet with 95 teachers. (Okay, not really 95 teachers, but I could have met with 95 teachers if you count the time I spent waiting to talk to teachers.) (And there probably aren’t even 95 teachers in our school district.)

My oldest son was scary smart and did well in all his classes. However, year after year after, I heard about his lack of citizenship. He did not play well with others. (I have a theory, but that’s a column for another day.) My second child, also a son, was the nicest boy in class, so helpful, played well with others. However, he consistently neglected his school work and did not enjoy reading. My third child, my only daughter, is pretty much perfect – an excellent combination of her two older brothers. Her teachers tell me she is smart and plays well with others. My youngest, the baby, is still an anomaly: he does well academically sometimes and he’s nice sometimes, but usually never both at the same time.

Report 2

This last week we had parent-teacher conferences. In fulfilling this obligation once again, I waited in many lines, collected many individual progress reports (one for each teacher), and filled out more surveys (the results of which lead to nothing I know of). My near-perfect daughter has one flaw, as her social studies teacher managed to point out: she mis-labeled North Korea, putting it in China. My youngest son needs to work on sharing and being more independent in his schoolwork (and I signed up for treats for the Valentine’s Day party because half the parents had already passed through and nobody had signed up yet).

The conferences I dread every year, though, are with my second child’s teachers. Normally, there are many zeros on those progress reports and I come away discouraged and my son promises to try harder. However, this year, for the first time in his life, he appears to have things figured out academically (it helps that he’s repeating geometry). His progress report has more As than other letter grades. However, there is the issue of the one F. In choir. Somebody please, tell me how one earns an F in choir? His teacher tried to explain it: It’s called a missing writing assignment on the music of the Catholic Mass. I would have liked straight As. My son? He doesn’t care about his grades that much. Interestingly enough, however, he can now tell you all you ever wanted to know about the music of Catholic Mass.

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