The Oasis concert during the summer got me thinking about parent-teacher meetings and the number of times I’ve said to myself, “don’t look back in anger” as the parent has stood up, a little shaken, and wandered away to find the next available spot.
I used to be nicknamed the “parent whisperer” because I could always handle them well. Not lie, or just tell them what they want to hear, but I had a knack for getting them to see that the narrative their child was spinning at home wasn’t entirely true.
As the adage goes: there are three sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth.
Then I became impatient, or disenchanted, or burned too many times; or all three.
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Teaching is rife with cynicism and feelings of disenfranchisement these days. It’s why teachers at ever-increasingly younger ages are leaving in droves to take a three-year career break, mental health leave, or an extended working holiday in Dubai so they can come back and pay off their mortgage, buy a yacht and open their own coffee shop that only sells soy milk lattes.
I did take a one-year career break, but I came back still bitter and that bled into my parent-teacher meetings. Now I have a tendency to tell the unvarnished truth; whereas, previously, I was emollient, circumspect, cunning, even. Unfortunately, I have had my principal drop a hand on my shoulder the next day more than once to report that Ms So and So isn’t happy with what I’d said.
My last howler, I couldn’t even believe I’d said it myself. I looked at myself with the same ill-disguised what-did-I-just-say befuddlement that the parent had.
“They’re always darting their eyes my way to check if I’m watching them, then they disappear to the bathroom for 20 minutes every class. They also always seem to be sick and going down to the office, or putting on the waterworks in the corridor. I think they’re sly.”
“Right. Okay. Right. Thanks.”
They climbed out of their seat, punch-drunk and sort of shuffled away, crabwise, while flicking their eyes back to me a few times, hesitating, considering coming back.
I fully say mea culpa; I handled that incorrectly, even though I stand over what I said.
That being said, I find that many principals lack the resolve to support their staff when faced with a vituperative parent.
The day before a parent-teacher, I got hauled into the office because Ms So and So had rung in. They were unhappy with what I’d written on our disciplinary software that parents have access to (which is a bad idea and leads to many avoidable conflicts when it just should be used for internal record-keeping).
“Did you read what I wrote?”
“No.”
“Then why am I here? It was clear-cut, not open to interpretation, and I didn’t make any personal remarks.”
I don’t expect wagons to be circled, but in garden-variety situations, the principal should be a semi-permeable membrane between parents and teachers.
The next evening, the parent quibbled over semantics.
“They told you to calm down, not chill out.”
“Can we agree that both are rude when I asked them in a neutral tone of voice to stop talking over me?”
They agreed. But it didn’t really matter: the hostile air precluded any meaningful discussion of why the child wasn’t succeeding in class (my part to play in that notwithstanding). In effect, parent-teacher meetings are now an ongoing spectre throughout the year, liable to surface at any time, so we tend to play it safe, keep the peace and let students do what they want for fear of principal’s hand + shoulder = trouble. The result of this is that the one designated meeting per year that should be so important and effective isn’t because it is diluted by a tide of petty grievances throughout the year. This, of course, doesn’t apply to every parent. But as the other old axiom goes: you ruined it for the rest of us.
My most memorable parent-teacher was years ago (pre-Covid, so, you know, ancient history). It still serves as a cautionary tale for how any relationship can sour. I almost felt like Chamberlain after Hitler broke the Munich Agreement and invaded Czechoslovakia. These parents were the rare couple that always came together, and they were always a delight to talk to. We’d laugh, we’d reminisce, we’d plan to summer together in Corfu (that last one didn’t happen). Their child was one of my most accomplished students. Then, one year, when I had them for a different subject, things changed.
I was minutes into the meeting when I realised that I had been led by the arm down an alley. And then the knives came out. Smiling like a self-assured Bond villain, the mother leaned in.
“They don’t think they’re succeeding in your class.”
It’s craven, but I took the low road and threw their previous teacher under the bus. In my defence, I’d had their child for two months; their previous teacher was an enemy of mine, as well as a fraud who played for popularity. I didn’t feel too guilty about it, as they’d shaft me in an instant.
“Sometimes, we teachers give students higher grades than they’re at to keep morale up. This is an exam year now, so I have to mark more realistically and push them.”
I’ve done a lot of post-Covid reflecting and I’ve tried to be more sympathetic to parents. The good ones really do help a lot. They try to listen, meet you half way, offer up their own objective assessment of their child. I think the secret for both sides is that we have one goal in mind: to identify one thing about the child, positive or negative, dispassionately talk about it, and try to make it flourish or ameliorate it.
Lobbing anticipatory grenades and skulking defensively has broken down communication too much.
- The Secret Teacher column is written by a variety of serving teachers whose identity is known to The Irish Times
