Tonight was the night of parent-teacher interviews. It went well. Thanks to all of you who know how stressed I get about this and prayed for me. It was impossible to get to all the different teachers of all my kids so I concentrated on 1. the worst problem; 2. the teacher shared by two of my kids with serious problems; 3. the principle.
The worst problem is math. It was the lowest mark so I waited in line to speak to that teacher first. She is a good teacher and so when I presented her with the information about my daughter’s learning difficulties, she immediately suggested some appropriate solutions.
The next visit was to the teacher of Christian Ethics for one kid and History for the other. Sort of killed two birds with one stone. History can be quite a challenge for a kid who doesn’t( and can’t easily) see the big picture. And the Christian Ethics problem was mostly about attitudes or lack of good ones. I still think that if whe was really on the ball and connecting to the kids that she could have made a spiritual learning moment out of some offhand critical snide comments on the part of some teenaged guys with care less attitudes.
The principle of our kids school is a gem. She is pretty highly respected by all the parents and students. She seems to care about them and knows many of them in special ways so that when I go in with my list of problems, she can identify which one of the kids is my child. She brought some special resources to my attention that should be very helpful for one of my kids.
At my worst parent-teacher interview, I made the teacher cry. This is not my usual style but she was being unreasonably, ridiculously harsh and was attacking my baby. What is a mother to do??? Tonight I would rate as one of the best parent-teacher interviews. No crying and I came away feeling like the teachers and I could work together to get my kids learning better.
LineaLanoie's Weblog 
No wonder you dread these interviews, Linea. I’ll not complain about ours ever again. Glad you survived OK.
I’m glad we have a God that cares a lot about relationships……even(especially) paraent/teacher ones………He is good……..
The principal IS a gem, let’s keep her. But what about the process for seeing teachers?
Lauralea and i sat in line for 50 minutes to see the french teacher for 8 minutes. By then we had to go to our bible study group!!
So, tonight we headed back for more of the same.
We walked past the french teachers room and there was a long lineup of parents there tonite too, complaining in french how this class had been the lowest on their child’s report card. Just like ours. Hmmmmm.
Yeah, I only managed to see two teachers and the principle. The system of waiting in line and then going on to wait in another line is ridiculous especially if you have more than one child. Carlton did the same thing when Rachelle went there so I don’t know. Surely their collective intelligence could come up with a better system. This one just makes you not want to go.
FWIW our kids school has an appointments system, with appointments set 10 mins apart. We still wait, but it’s usually only 10 to 15 mins, however because they ALWAYS run behind, everyone is late for the next appointment.
As for the French teacher, languages seem harder to teach well than more conventional subjects. Our children’s performance in this area has been strictly delineated by the teachers they’ve had. Where they shared a German teacher last year, we arranged for Ben to get some tuition from a friend (since he was doing so badly) after saying that he would do German at evening classes if he failed this years exams. Sarah actually dropped German this year in favour of French because she slipped back so much. Neither child is especially bad at languages. We ended up making a formal complaint (along with a number of other parents).
I suspect the best language teachers are native speakers with a sense of humour.
Bingo, exactly Toni.
Some of our kids had french from people for whom it was a first language. They are doing great.
Other of our kids had french from someone who could speak a bit of french so they were asked to fill a french slot every two days. Our struggling kids had those teachers
none of your kids had native speakers for french. The closest was a native German speaker I had. She was awesome. but that was the only foreigner we had. your other daughter had her for a year too.
Wow, Linea! I have had a teacher make me cry, but never the other way around. Wish I had known you then – could have used your muscle! Those days are just a fond memory for me, except Grade 12, when even my daughter in the Advanced program got tired of school and stopped trying for awhile. The dreaded words – “not working up to their potential!”
Who would have known that so many people would comment about these horrid parent teacher interviews.
J’aime le français maintenant, mais à l’école secondaire j’ai presque échoué à cela. Mr Favraux loved his language and we hated it. It is just not very cool in our country to speak a second language well. The teacher has to have not only a sense of humor but be a gifted teacher. That’s a hard act to play.
The time that I made the teacher cry – well it was over an incident where she had done some really stupid things. It started off whith her accusing my daughter of stealing someone else’s shoes and the teacher taking and hiding my child’s shoes in return. Then she accused my dausghter of forging my signature on a homework assignment. It was pretty silly behaviour for a teacher and she got a bit upset when I told her so. I do tend to get fairly defensive on behalf of my kids when they are falsely accused – We didn’t leave the session on that bad a note but I think Leo is afraid to go with me to interviews now!