We’re officially in parent-teacher meeting season. It runs roughly from October until around March. Or at least it does in this house. Though that may just be because I have a ridiculous number of children.
But sure look, we’ll run with that.
I’ve heard, seen and learned a lot on the battlefields of various school corridors over the course of years of parent-teacher meetings. I’ve passed war-weary parents doing the various subject teacher rounds, and we’ve exchange knowing nods, often accompanied by grimaces, eyerolls, beams of joyous pride or a straight-out, “I’m going to kill him/her when I get home”, depending on the revelations of the afternoon.
But one thing remains a constant. And it’s true of both the primary school and secondary school experience.
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The single most annoying thing about parent-teacher meetings is the parents who hog the teacher.
We all know the type, the ones who blatantly disregard any polite advance requests to keep the meetings short, and instead spend an excessive amount of time talking while the queue outside the room grows ever longer. Perhaps it’s just eagerness. Or perhaps there’s an excellent reason. But on behalf of frazzled parents everywhere whose other children are being minded by an unsuspecting grandparent/neighbour/random person who knocked on the door trying to convince you to change electricity supplier, please make an additional, separate appointment so we can all get home in under three and a half hours.
Parent-teacher meetings are a learning space. A place for us to discover how our children are getting on at school, academically and socially. We all like to think we know already, and sometimes we do. But perhaps our natural bias towards our children can make it difficult to hear what a teacher wants to say to parents.
So how do some teachers get around this?
Is what they say always what they mean?
Welcome, gentle reader, to parent-teacher meeting tales – from both sides of the school desk.
If your child’s teacher describes them as “spirited” they actually mean your child is “totally feral”, one teacher explained to me. While “needs guidance on how best to channel his leadership skills”, actually translates as he’s “a bossy know-it-all”, another shared.
One revealed how the word “progress” can be ultimate tool in diplomacy. “He’s made progress working with others,” in essence means “he struggles working with others”, she explained.
But sometimes teachers just can’t hide what they think, even if they try to dance around it a little, as one parent shared. “My eldest son did not like school. He had a great year head. Fast-forward a couple of years, his sister has the same year head. I go to the parent-teacher meeting and he [the year head] looks at me, looks at the book and very calmly says, ‘Jesus Christ, you wouldn’t think they were from the one gene pool’.”
There are the times parents find themselves wondering if the teacher actually knows their child at all.
As was the case for one parent who, it turned out, was absolutely right in her suspicions. By the end of the meeting she realised “the teacher was talking about another kid, who had the same first name”.
Better or worse than the teacher who asked the child’s parent “Which one is she again?” Who can tell?
But sometimes it’s the parent who’s left questioning what they know. Like the one who admitted to being totally delusional about what was about to happen at her child’s parent teacher meeting. “We thought we were going to get a glowing report, but no. Mortified.”
And then there are the parents who find themselves transported back to childhood once they step inside the classroom. “I got in trouble for having the incorrect pencil grip”, when filling out a form, a parent explained, citing the “PTSD of being at school.”
And the one whose child’s teacher was once the parent’s teacher. The teacher hadn’t quite recovered from this experience. “Teacher once spent entire meeting telling my daughter how bad of a pupil her dad was.” He shared details of his successful career with her the following year, mind.
We all know the wondrous joy of a young child with a passion for sharing stories of their life. Yes, it’s all fun and games until, as one parent recalled, “my child’s teacher very gently patted my arm and said ‘she tells us EVERYTHING’. I nearly died.”
But my favourite tale is perhaps the one that reminds us that no matter what side of the desk we’re on, we’re all human. A tale from a mother of four whose son’s teacher just crossed his arms, sat back and asked parenting advice for his brother who had two kids ‘who were always killing each other’.”
Like I said, parent-teacher meetings are a learning space.
