This week I had parent teacher conferences for both the younger kids (1st, 4th, 7th) and the next night, the older kids (9th and 10th), and I noticed something.
Some parents just don't like to go to conferences. They just don't have the patience to wait on lines, and sit with the person or people who spend the majority of the day/week year with their kids, for even 3 minutes.
Now I understand that if a kid is a behavior problem or has issues of any kind you may not want to go and be inundated with abuse (especially at the departmental level), but I'm talking about other parents.
Parents of good kids, good students, who will skip teachers or set a stop time to leave no matter how many teachers they miss. Come on, it's a few nights a year, they're your kids, and generally it means a lot to them to have their "worlds collide,"as teacher and parent sit down to talk.
There was one mother on line in high school who announced that she told her kid, "pick one teacher, and that's all I'll go see." The mother was annoyed that the teacher her daughter picked was the one with the longest line. But, she was only seeing one teacher. Though this woman was reallly complaining. I know the kid, she's a good student, no issues. Granted, the mother may have a large family and be busy, but, and I know I don't know all the facts, just spend a little time with this.
Maybe I'm deluding myself. Maybe it makes no difference to the teachers, principals or kids. Well, then I got a night out seeing lots of other parents I know, and free soda to boot.
10 comments:
with the way i acted in school, having my two worlds collide wasn't just a pleasant meeting, but a full head-on impact.
i would have been thrilled if my mother had just gone to one teacher.
I must tell you that while I don't condone the arguably extreme case that you've delineated, I can understand why parents hate to go to these things.
Let me give you a few situations from my own experiences.
a) at least one teacher is always over half an hour late. That speaks well. The line for her builds up down the block.
b) at least one teacher goes on and on about nothing and everything at the same time and the line for her backs up around the corner.
c) Many schools have very inefficient systems in place to ensure that the parents do not wait unnecessarily and are ABLE to see all the teachers (Give me a break! Stop whining that I don't care about my child just because I'm annoyed that you don't care about me! I'm sick and tired of this tactic that some educators employ to make themselves look good by trying to paint all parents in this negative light)
Most parents care very much about their children and want to partner in their children's education and want to give the teacher's moral and physical support.
Most parents DO NOT care for principals who make little effort to run their organizations efficiently.
THAT'S why parents don't like to go to conferences!
Just because a school is inefficient or a teacher is late, that doesn't absolve a parent from going to conferences and waiting for the teachers.
It's very inefficient that Walmart/Target/Modells/Marshalls don't have enough cashiers, but that doesn't stop MOST people from going there. Sure, grouse about it if you must, but don't say "well, I'll stay X long, and whoever I see, I see."
On Monday night we missed one teacher, because we came at the time allotted to us based on the alphabet, and couldn't see everyone because of that. We now know. When that many teachers need to be seen, show up earlier. I did the next night. I was officially allotted an hour and a half. It took two and a half, and I came early enough to see everyone.
You're mistaken FBB.
Educators need to have the same amount of respect FOR the parents that they expect FROM the parents.
This "we can behave any way we want and you have to smile and take it or you're a bad parent" attitude is getting very old very fast.
This year my experiences weren't so bad but last year I waited THREE HOURS and finally left my phone number for the remaining two teachers I hadn't seen and asked them to call me at home.
I care.
I just have a life too.
WHAT ABOUT RUDE PEOPLE!?!!??!
WHO CUT PEOPLE OFF!!!
AND THEN GET YELLED AT?!?!?
Maybe people shouldn't stand in two lines, especially since they only need the teacher at the end of one of the lines, and maybe if they weren't on the phone, they'd know which line to stand in!
MAYBE I like TO STAND IN TWO LINES!!!!!
HOW ELSE WOULD I HAVE SOMEONE TO YELL AT!!!!
YOU THINK I ONLY YELL IN CYBERSPACE!?!?!?!
Conferences also mean candy. And nice little notes. And the encouraging fact that your parents have dealt with teachers you don't like, and they now know your frustrating pain in your class with this teacher.
Also, you are able to communicate to your parents about "you know how Mrs. H. _____?" and so on.
Therefore, it shocks me to think that some parent don't care to go to conferances, even with a busy schedule.
Thank you, and when I become rich and famous, I will use my affluence to address this problem, and you will be able to boast, "I gave SLiM his idea."
This is really funny for me because in our kids school they have appointments made for every parent and teacher. Granted we have a smaller student body and this will assure that everyone gets to speak with their child's teacher. I suppose with the schools so large where you live this might be harder to accommodate all parents or that they would have to make it on two nights (which could get hard for the teachers) but really some respect for other people's time could truly go a long way. in The girls school a bell ring at each time allotment and in all the schools the principles are there to make sure everything runs on time.
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