You never forget your first…
…parent teacher conference.
I thought that I would lighten up the mood a little by leading with an amusing anecdote. I explained to the sixth grader’s parents how their son would arrive early to my classroom each day and spend the ten minutes or so prior to the start of my math class socializing with me or whoever happened to walk through the door. The instant the five minute warning bell rang the student would abruptly end any conversation he was having and hightail it to his desk and wait silently for class to begin four minutes and forty-five seconds later.
The moment I finished my story I expected to see smiles plastered on the faces of the couple seated across from me at the table but instead I was greeted with the most stern and dour looks I had ever seen. For the remainder of our meeting I was able to transition to an all-business mode and I finished my first ever parent teacher conference on a more positive tip compared to how it started.
Throughout my eight years of biannual conferences, I think that I’ve almost seen it all. Students crying because of their low grades in my math class, a parent crying because of the conference she had before mine, an enraged father who had just discovered that his son had forged his signature on a test, a mom who set me up on a date with her coworker, and the absolutely nicest Japanese couple in the world who didn’t understand a word of English but kept saying thank you after everything I said.
With the lone exception of that very first one, I can honestly say that I enjoyed every parent teacher conference that I conducted over the years. I liked getting to know some of the parents year after year and I am still friends with some of them to this day. I think the most interesting part for me was getting to see the personality of the children on display in the parental unit(s) for the brief fifteen minute duration of our meeting. My teacher colleagues are going to say that I am crazy but I kind of miss conferences.
This past Saturday morning, Fehmeen and I attended our first conference as parents. Being on the other side of the table was even more interesting to me than I ever could have imagined. Hearing about what your kid does and how she interacts with her peers and teachers was equally unnerving and insightful. It was nerve-wracking because she is my little girl and in my eyes she is perfection personified and it was eye-opening for exactly the same reasons.
We were told that Emma needs to be in everybody’s business — courtesy of her mother and her nani — and that she has issues with cleaning up what she was working on before moving on to the next activity — a trait she no doubt inherited from yours truly. We were assured that she is doing well considering her age and that this is her first experience with a non-adult peer group.
Fehmeen and I left the meeting happy and proud of our baby, excited about future conferences that will follow for the next eleven to twelve years, unless they have conferences in high school then we have to add four more years to that total.
But we will always remember our first.
The Adventures of ALS Boy 