As a high school English teacher, I think I speak for all teachers, except maybe the good ones, when I say that I don’t get the point of parent-teacher conferences. It seems a little outdated, seeing as we have phones and faxes and email and texting and a postal system and there’s a million different ways to find out how your child is doing that don’t involve you schlepping out in the weather in the middle of the night, away from your kids, to wait in line several times over a table of stale cake while some parent argues with the teacher about whose fault it is that his kid isn’t showing up to class.
To their faces, there are really only three basic speeches that I give the parents:
The first is, “Your kid is awesome, and here are five solid minutes worth of adjectives to describe how awesome your kid is. In fact, I wish I had a whole classroom full of kids exactly like yours. Actually, I feel like I do, because everyone copies his work.”
The second speech is, “Your kid isn’t interested. Frankly, I’m surprised he even told you about parent-teacher conferences.”
“He didn’t. He said it was visiting day, and all the parents were coming, and that I should bring food.”
The third speech is the “Your kid isn’t living up to his potential” speech, which is what I say even if I don’t think the kid has potential, but it’s not my job to tell his parents that. Let them find that out in a few years, when he moves back home. My point, today, is that maybe he needs something to help him unlock his potential, like a tutor, or sitting next to an awesome kid with legible handwriting.
There’s also a fourth speech, which is the “Your kid interrupts and undermines me and gets 90s anyway,” but I’ve never had to give that one, because none of those parents ever show up.
Ideally, after that original speech, the parents ask follow-up questions, and we get into a meaningful conversation until the parent realizes he has like 12 other teachers to see. But I do sometimes get parents who aren’t particularly helpful. Like there was one parent whom I told, “Your son isn’t interested in doing the writing assignments,” and he said, “I know.” So I said, “Your son isn’t interested in the reading, either,” and he said, “I know.” So I said, “What do you think we should do about this?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And I said, “I don’t know either! Because if a kid doesn’t work, I have exactly two threats. I have, “You’re going to get a bad grade,” and I have, “We’re going to call your parents.” Your son doesn’t mind getting bad grades, and calling his parents won’t help either, because apparently, you know!”
I didn’t say that, but part of what I dread about PTA is the constant fear that I will.
It also doesn’t help that half the kids at the school live in the dorm, and I’m telling the parents things they can do nothing about. I tell the parents, “Your kid doesn’t show up to class,” and they say, “Ok, what do you want me to do? I see him once a month.” And I’m like, “So do I!”
So they ask, “What do you do about it?” And I say, “Well, I tell the principal, and I give the kid a zero for not coming.” And they’re like, “Does that help?” and I’m like, “No, because (a) if he doesn’t come, he doesn’t know that I’m giving him a zero, and (b) all the zero does is lower his grade and get the parents to come in, but the fact that you say you can’t really do anything runs that entire system into a brick wall.”
I think that parent-teacher conferences were really designed for dealing with little kids. The parents come in to talk to the teacher about what they can do to gently guide their kid back on track without the kid knowing, because the best alternative is a phone conversation with kids in the background, making noise.
“Your son makes too much noise in class.”
“What? I can’t hear you. I have like 10 kids in the background, yelling.”
So you come in and talk it out. It’s also basically a forced appointment, because if you relied on phone calls, you’d never get around to calling, because again, you have little kids.
When the kids get to high school, though, the teacher’s job is really just to share the material in an interesting and meaningful way to the kids who will listen. It’s really up to the kid to change himself. We’re done gently guiding him; we need to tell him things. When he gets a job, his boss isn’t going to use lollipops to gently guide him toward what he’s supposed to do. He’s the only one who can change his behavior, and he’s the only one not at this conference. You have a teacher who sees the kid for 40 minutes a day talking to parent who sees him once a month about how they can get him to do better. That’s like discussing politics with your barber.
Meanwhile, the kid—the only one who can actually change what he’s doing—is not allowed at this meeting. He’s hovering off to the side with the other students, waiting for the parents to leave so he can pounce on the stale cake. Now he shows up.
Maybe I should put out cake.
By Mordechai Schmutter
Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He also has six books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].
