So this is what it feels like from the other side

[oloriel]

I've been asked to attend a parent-teacher talk.

I don't know about you, but I hated those as a student. I was not a bad student - lazy, but clever enough to make up for it; too shy to speak up in class, but good enough in written tests to get decent grades nonetheless - nor particularly troublesome (despite being a bit, hm, too physical). But you just never know, do you? You never know whether your teacher won't tell your mom that you didn't do that one stupid homework assignment, or that you never raise your finger in class, or that you claimed to have your period to escape having to play soccer, right? (They always complained that I didn't speak up in class. Because I knew all the stuff and never said it. Because everybody would roll their eyes if I had the right answer yet again, because there was a time I was actively mobbed for being "Miss Know-it-all". Later, because the right answer felt too trite to raise a finger for, and I thought I must have understood the question wrong because it couldn't be so obvious. And because I was afraid it might be wrong after all: The one thing worse than being Miss Know-it-all is to err when you're Miss Know-it-all. And -- They never ask why, do they? They just say "Christiane's oral participation needs to get a lot better." and don't understand that it was way easier for me to accept a somewhat less great grade than it was to bear the mockery and mobbing. -- To be fair, I never tried to explain it either to my teachers nor to my parents. I expected them not to understand, and I expected to know what they'd say ("But your report card matters more than some stupid remarks by your peers!"), but I never put it to the test. -- Shut up, Lyra, this is not about your school days.)

So when I knew one of the official parent-teacher days was approaching, or worse, when one of the teachers invited the parents for an individual meeting, I felt a great sense of fear and foreboding.

As I now know, I feel that sense of fear and foreboding even when I'm the parent. Oh God, does Felix refuse to do his homewo -- oh wait, this is Kindergarten. Does he torment the other kids? Does he refuse to participate in, or worse, disturb group games? What are they going to tell me? What is my precious child doing wrong?

Actually, this is supposed to be a routine meeting - 6 to 8 weeks after their kids started Kindergarten, all the parents are invited to parent-teacher-talks. So it's just as possible that it's completely harmless.

And yet.

I'll have to ask my mom whether she always dreaded those parent-teacher meetings when I was a kid, too. She attended them religiously, even the ones where you didn't have to go, where she had to take a day off work in order to cover all the talks with my brother's and my teachers, so as a student, I thought she enjoyed them. (And enjoyed tormenting us with what she learned there, afterwards. "Christiane, why don't you participate in class? T., I'll have to check your math homework every evening!") But she probably didn't. Probably she went because she felt it was her duty, because not attending made you look like a Parent Who Doesn't Care, a Parent Who Doesn't Cooperate, No Wonder The Kids Turned Out This Way.

I guess I should just find it enlightening. Parents hate parent-teacher talks too. And yet again, I find myself understanding my mother a lot better now...

Comments

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I can't find my parents in that description. They kept their teacher personality out of the parent business and I am TBH kind of glad for that because it was difficult enough to be a teacher's kid. When I had a bad teacher they'd guide me into finding out WHAT was bad about him or her and how to deal with that myself - to a certain limit of course. Against clearly unfair or even damaging treatment - my brother had a teacher who wanted to flunk him completely out of spite - they would raise their voice. I think only once they overruled my opinion when I wanted to take French instead of Latin with 11, just stating that "you will thank us for it" and indeed - much later, when I was nearly 20, I found out that the French teacher was one of the worst in school AND that for all subjects I would be interested in university I needed a degree in Latin.

Parents, not children, are the end-users of the educational system, and have near-total power over it, if they choose to use it.

I don't know if it has to do with our different school system but that? Is not a secret here. Rather the opposite. The attitute that is grossing here is actually quite the reverse: "YOU are the employee, as soon as the child is in YOUR hands, it is YOUR responsibility and whatever goes wrong at home is not of your business".

My mom once told me this anecdote from a parental conference, she diplomatically tried to tell a mother that her son was not able to deal with constructive criticism, at all and would rather react aggressive and refuse to listen. The reaction of the mom: "WHAT?! MY SON? I don't believe this. I refuse to listen to this nonsense" and leaving the room.


I also think that as a parent I should be involved, but only to a certain degree. As a paedeatrician whose blog I read once wrote: raising one child does not make you an expert in childcare. And I think that's the same for education. And in the end it's my child that has to go to that school every day, not me.

For example, right now the method on elementary schools to teach children to read is completely different from how I learned to write - by listening and then writing "as you hear". I thought it was completely nonsese, but a befriended elementary school teacher told me how many successes she had with that method. So while I am still doubtful about it, I will certainly not just brush the experiences she had away.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

she diplomatically tried to tell a mother that her son was not able to deal with constructive criticism, at all and would rather react aggressive and refuse to listen. The reaction of the mom: "WHAT?! MY SON? I don't believe this. I refuse to listen to this nonsense" and leaving the room.

HAH! Well, at least it's clear where the boy got it!

I also think that as a parent I should be involved, but only to a certain degree.

I do think that the parents should be involved in that they ask how school is going, listen to what their kid tells them (if s/he is still willing to tell them anything!), take it serious but with a grain of salt, and then decide whether or not they need to do anything about it. They should also try to offer help with homework/ vocabulary/ projects, if they can.
They should NOT try to do the teachers' job for them, listen ONLY to their kid's side of the story, or blame the teachers for things they can't help, and that they may not like themselves.
(Like whatever Lehrplan they have to follow right now. I may think it's bullshit or at the very least inefficient - that's how I feel about the "write as you hear" theory, for instance - but a) I'm not an expert on teaching or even orthography acquisition and b) if that's what the teacher's got to teach, the teacher can't help it, either...)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"I don't know if it has to do with our different school system but that? Is not a secret here. Rather the opposite."

Here in the US, things vary a lot by state, and even by county, so it's hard to make any true generalization, but in many places there's a great deal of class politics going on in the public schools. The upper- and upper-middle-class parents know that they're the ones with the power, and make it clear to the school system that they know it. The lower-middle- and lower-class parents know that they have no power, and the school system makes sure they don't forget that. (The true middle-class barely exists in this country any more.)

The dividing line is based on litigation, just as it is with the police here. If you can afford a good attorney, and would look and sound good in court, the Powers That Be will do whatever they have to do to avoid risking a lawsuit. If not, they don't care.

"The reaction of the mom..."

LOL, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

I wanted the parents of my kids to be involved to a certain extent, and in some places I taught, the policy was for them to be more involved than I would have preferred, i.e. volunteer classroom assistants. I was the lead teacher, so it was for me to train the volunteers to work in my classroom, but I was also younger than most of them and not yet a mother, so I had to deal with them very delicately.

There are a number of ways to teach writing, like there are a number of ways to teach arithmetic. The questions I would raise about the 'New Reading' are the same as those raised by the 'New Math' of the 60's, and the Look-And-Say method of teaching spelling, both of which turned out not to be such great ideas after all, despite some initial success. It's great if some gifted teachers are having success with a method, but in order to be appropriate in public education, it has to be demonstrated to be more successful when used by average teachers than the standard method is.

My money's on Phonics as the most-successful go-to method. The procedure for teaching Phonics is clear, simple, and time-tested, so I say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Other peoples' mileage may vary, of course.

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Here it's not that easy to just sue the school and also all schools are public and state-funded - there are some private schools but you can really count them on one hand and only very, very rich people can afford to send their children there. The difference is also that teachers are employees by the state here and more or less impossible to fire. You would have to prove that a teacher seriously hurt a student or broke a major law to get him or her fired, so there is not this lawsuit power that parents have. Generally I'd agree that the upper class parents are more aware of what they can do.

That's really a point where I say: this is not my field of expertise, I have to see what's in for my child when she's old enough and deal with it accordingly.