Parent teacher conferences
The parent who earlier claimed that "reading is not homework" is now so incensed by my teaching style that she went to the principal threatening to pull her child out of the school. Apparently I'm not teaching her daughter anything.
The prospect of this conference cast a pall over the whole day as well as the days leading up to it. It takes a superhuman amount of psychic energy to work 9- and 10-hour days with insufficient resources for $600 fucking dollars a week...only to have someone complain to your boss that you're not doing your job. Anyway to make a long story short by the end of the conference I think I had her convinced that I had *some* inkling of how to teach fifth grade, that my homework policy was sound, and that I was neither a two-headed monster nor a blue-eyed devil. The highlight of the meeting for me was when she COMPLAINED THAT HER DAUGHTER WAS READING TOO MUCH. "There's just no reason that she should have had time to read seven novels already this year."
Um, well, actually, she's read thirteen novels so far this year, ranging from classics such as The Secret Garden to the ever-popular Lemony Snicket series, and I'm pretty fucking proud of that...but hey, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The rest of the parent conferences restored my energy. Everyone was thrilled with the class's progress and happy that their children were happy. I had to break a lot of bad news about children's skill levels to a lot of parents, but they were all receptive and even grateful for my honest, informed opinion. In the process I made a lot of promises that I now need to keep, and it re-focused me on what really matters: that Arneshia, Tyrone, and Ernest get up to grade-level in reading; that Rakia and Anthony learn to keep up with their papers and finish long-term projects; that the children experience significant academic success and inprovement all day, every day...
posted by ms. sweetland @ 9:07 PM
4 Comments:
Just like I believe that every customer should have to work a customer service job at least once in their life, I feel like every parent should have to try to teach a day of school in their life. It would be horrible for education, in general, but it might make some of them nicer. Parents can be so annoying! Sorry to hear about this one.
-L
There are two --and only two -- possible rationalities I can see for this parent complaining about her daughter "reading too much":
1. Her daughter is overwhelmed with homework and does not have time to read for fun or do other constructive things because the teacher assigned too much to do (and thus both daughter and mom are unhappy)... or
2. Her daughter has gotten so addicted to reading that she neglects eating, exercising and occasionally hygiene as she gets so sucked into her books. And we turned out okay, so I think this second one's a moot point.
Although I doubt you are assigning "too much reading" per day/week, perhaps this is what she meant?
My assignment is 30 minutes of independent reading Monday through Thursday and I limit the homework in other subjects so that they have no more than an hour's worth of homework.
I think the actual rationale behind the complaint is that she somehow got the (entirely false) impression that I just have the kids read their own books all day and don't teach anything else. To her mind, there's no other way her daughter could have gotten through those books.
The truth is that I schedule silent reading for 20 minutes 3 days a week. If children finish their work early, they are allowed to read, unless it's math time, in which case they have to do something "mathy." The daughter in question is quite bright and sometimes finishes early and sneaks in 5 minutes or so of reading that way. But the real reason she's raced through so many books is that I've guided her toward books she just can't put down, and she chooses to spend her break time and sometimes even recess reading, and reads all weekend even though I don't require this.
Clearly this unsettles her mother somehow; I have some pop psychoanalysis I could offer but I'll refrain here. And the situation has escalated since the conference, but I just don't have the energy to write it out...or more accurately, I want to choose to spend as little energy on this ridiculous woman as I can get away with.
It sounds like you got the kid addicted to reading, good for you! ...My pop-psych analysis of her mom is that she (the mom) is just so unused to the idea of reading for fun all day long that she questions you as some sort of balm for her discomfort... though you're right, it's silly to spend energy analyzing a woman who is, when you get down to it, being pretty damn irrational. Her daughter sounds wonderful (if a little sensitive to her teacher's disapproval) and will probably ace the literature-grammar part of the SATs when the time comes. Maybe you can tell her mom that her daughter's reading is a scholarship waiting to happen.
(btw, totally great to talk to you & i want to hear about the art teacher among other things after Dec 1 when i'm done moving!)
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