Nice to Meet You!

This past weekend I sat, for the first time, on the other side of parent-teacher conferences – the teacher’s side. Unfortunately being the teacher didn’t have any perks for conferences here. We didn’t get any half days to prepare and no body made us food of any kind. Instead they asked us to be awake, ready and at the school by 7:30 on a Saturday for said conferences. Where is the love for us teachers?!

Conferences went quite swell. I handled my own solo – I didn’t need anyone’s help translating between the parents and myself. It was really fun to play the guessing game of which child belongs to which parent when they walked in the door. Some were entirely obvious because they had the same crazy eyes or slightly crooked smile or round face. Others I couldn’t pinpoint who their kid was until they said their name or signed the attendance sheet. The signing of the attendance sheet was a humbling moment for me: some of the parents were completely illiterate and couldn’t find their child’s name on the sheet to sign next to, or write their name down for a ‘signature.’ I offered to help one mother but she was determined to copy her name down legibly. Other than that offer, I did hand out little chocolates to all my visitors. I figured if we all had to be at school that early on a very cold Saturday, then we all deserved a little morsel of chocolatey love.

12 out of 13 of my students had someone show up for a conference. We didn’t have a schedule or anything, just a time frame. Conferences were from 7:30-10:30 and parents could show up whenever to meet the teacher. I think the biggest appeal of coming to the conference was to get their student’s grades. We cannot send home the final grades for the partial with the student, but rather the parent or guardian has to come to the meeting and sign for the actual grades. We were told not to let anyone who looks like a sister or brother sign for the grades, just a parent, other older relative, or guardian. I had a couple moms who looked like they couldn’t be any older than me and could very well pass as a sister. I also had a few students who don’t live with their parents so it was a relative that came; this was especially saddening to see because I wish their parents were still a part of their lives in order to see how well their student is doing and what a great kid their son or daughter is turning out to be.

I don’t have any crazy anecdotes to report. I did have a few interesting conversations… One parent, after telling him that I had a major problem with his daughter never turning in her homework, seemed rather shocked that her grade was being dragged down because of it. I politely told him that I had written on her weekly report multiple times that she needed to do her homework and turn it in if she wanted to improve her grade. I bet he’ll actually start reading those reports now. Another mom told me that she thinks I need to start using easier stories or should use just one story in my Reading class. Her reason? My Reading class is too hard and if they just had one story then they could memorize it and do better. I (also) politely told her that I am already using 1^st Grade comprehension level stories and the point in my class is not to memorize a story but to be able to read it and use different skills to retell or answer questions about the story; plus, the majority of my students are surviving Reading just fine. My favorite conferences were the ones that I got to brag about the student to their parent/guardian and tell them how proud they should be of their student. I so loved the smiles that crept across their faces when I rattled on about what a joy their student was in class, how well-behaved they were, how hard they studied, the great grades they were receiving, and how they were such a help to me and the other students. There is no greater pride.

Please be praying for Kara and Lenny this week. They leave Thursday morning to go back to the States for a wedding this weekend. Pray for their safety during their travels, and that they still think of us and miss us in the midst of their luxurious weekend plans! We will go 5 whole days without seeing them, and we have never gone more than 24 hours without seeing each other (and that was a rare occasion).