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Bracing myself for tomorrow's parent-teacher conferenceSubmitted by Emile on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 4:27pm.
I have my regular, end of tri-mester, parent-teacher meeting with my 4 year old's pre-K teacher tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. Last week T said, out of the blue, "I'm tired of my nonsense." Cue alarm bells in my head. I said, "what nonsense, what are you talking about?" And he said "I use too much glue, I scribble-scrabble, and I don't pay attention." He said this in a very quiet voice with his face buried in an arm-chair. Just came back from the meeting. I told her the story, and asked her in a calm polite way if she could be more encouraging when she has to correct T. And she said yes, of course, and she would advise the other people in the classroom. Very simple, very easy. Why did I get worked up about having to bring this up? Your reply was very helpful, so thanks for that. (Ironically, though, this actually is a Catholic school.) well in that one case, kids were rewarded for sitting still and writing neatly, while none of the kids were rewarded for doing well in academics. that's what i meant by catholic school. yeah, teachers care about kids, it's not the kind of job you take if you don't like kids. of course there are a few exceptions, but for the most part teachers are cooperative and receptive. i'm glad it went well. i'd be following up though. just to be sure you're always on the same page. |
your sister overreacted. pulling a child out of school because he said those things is dramatic.
you don't have to wait for a conference for shit like this. especially if you know that this child is needy and clingy, with a tendancy to take things literally and seriously, you could have set your mind at ease speaking to the teacher while her memory was fresh, to find out what was actually said. by now, she may not even remember. often when a kid is taking something a teacher said too much to heart, all it takes is telling the teacher, "hey when you say ____ my kid hears ____" and then also telling the kid that you know he's doing his best and it's alright to scribble, etc, sometimes. i've had this type of thing with my kid's teachers and telling them was all it took to change the way they spoke to her. with the exception of one brain stem who thought she was teaching a catholic school, that is.
i'm sure the T's teacher didn't mean to have this big an impact on his self-esteem and will appreciate being informed of the situation.