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

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Three-year-olds are at the lifetime peak of their brains' language-acquisition capacity - if every member of their family speaks a different language, they will learn every language and not mix them up, regardless of whether the languages are related. And Felix is the son of a linguist; expect to continue to be astonished at what he can do.

English spelling is a mess, and it gave my daughter fits. She could spell better in Gaelic than she could in English, and we don't even speak Gaelic; it was absurd. She's currently teaching herself Russian, and she adores Cyrillic because every letter makes only one sound.

"my kids have to do better! Which is probably assumption of privilege as well (We Are Superior So We Act Better)"

I was brought up to the idea that We Are Superior Because We Act Better. I've never been able to find it again, but I once ran across some nobleman's letter to his son, the gist of which was "Since you have been so fortunate as to receive advantages far above the ordinary station of life, it would be disgraceful and ungrateful if your achievement was not similarly above the ordinary." That's acknowledgement of privilege, and of the duty that comes with it, noblesse oblige.

LOL, I'd be a terrible snob if I wasn't such a 'class traitor'. Maybe I am one anyway, because I do look down on people who think they can buy their way into good society, not realizing that their manners are giving the lie to their social pretensions all along. There's a whole social class of boorish and ostentatious poseurs with more money than sense: they may have lots of privilege, but they're still trash:

"I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their deeds did not claim a place at the table. I have known few men who were noble, for nobility is scarcer far than heroism. But true nobility can always be recognized...noblesse oblige is an emotion felt only by those who are noble.
-Robert A. Heinlein

My parents never let us run rampant in adult spaces. First there'd be the Hairy Eyeball, that frosty look that meant "straighten up and fly right" and if that didn't work, we'd be removed from public view for a little talk about expectations of proper conduct. I used the same method on my daughter, and it worked quite well.

Kindergartners are prone to hit and shove. That's basic bio-programmed behavior for little primates, especially strong and active males. The customs of civilization require learning more subtle, cooperative methods of social interaction, but that takes time and support - mostly by fostering empathy: "Look, your friend is crying because you hurt him - what can you do to help him feel better?" "Would it be okay for a bigger boy to shove you? How would you feel if that happened?"

" kids with only the most basic general education (if any), an excellent knowledge of those parts of the Bible their father considers relevant, a mishmash of errors, and the firm belief that Anything We Do Is Right Because People Like Us CANNOT Do Wrong. And nothing else."

Oh, do we ever have a PLAGUE of precisely that here in the US! But a lot of the schools are run like prisons, complete with sleazeball 'prison culture', and a lot of our government is run by adults with only the most basic general education, etc.

*wry grin* I'd like to restructure the whole world. And maybe we can, y'know? Here's hoping!