Parent-Teacher Conferences

Another fall, another set of conferences at the kids' school. Oddly, this year I just wasn't in the mood. Maybe it is the "canned" nature of these that I finally find so wearisome. I always attend; it seems like a sacred parental duty. But after 5 years of these, I am coming to see that very little actually gets accomplished there. The teachers flip through a stack of saved work from the kids, talking about their strengths. We smile and nod. Of course our kids are perfect, yes thank you.

Still, I should be thankful that there is generally so little to report. That is actually a good sign, that all is going well for the kids. And that is probably useful to have confirmed now and then.

This year, perhaps the meetings were more useful than usual. And the kids were more anxious than ever to get "a report" of what their teachers said about them, so it is good that I went and had something to say.

Margaret in 1st grade:
Jeremy irreverently pointed out tonight that Mrs. G is like a good fairy Godmother, on drugs. Too true, but then, who else would you wish for to teach 1st grade? She is all smiles, all love, all positive vibes. She adores Margaret so much that it makes her tear up. So, you can pretty much guess the kind of critique she gave of Maggie's progress. Still, that doesn't necessarily make it untrue, so we will still be very proud of our 6-yr-old.

Maggie's reading is "amazing" to her teacher. She also loves her writing. We got to read through her "Weekend Reports" from the first 9 weeks of school. Quite entertaining. She can't confine herself to the few lines allowed, and often had to continue on the back of the page. She isn't shy about spelling - she just makes a guess andn plunges on to get the story out. Oddly, though, while she might murder the spelling of more common words like friend or home, she nailed other words spot-on like Pochahontas, Minnesota, Spartans.

Her teacher reassured us that Maggie's reversals of letters and numbers (writing them backwards) is nothing to worry about, all the way up through 3rd grade. She did wonder a bit about Maggie's pennmanship, which is generally atrocious. She speculated it might just be delayed fine motor development. On the other hand, there were examples of her work that were quite neat. Perhaps it is just that we have not ever really encouraged her to spend time practicing, like so many girls do in play time.

Her math on her report card is all marked "meets expectations" which looks like a failing grade compared to the "far exceeds expectations" for all the reading skills. Mrs. G. assured us that her math skills are fine and that she rarely gives any mark above "meets expectations" for the 1st quarter. So, we shall see.

The only negative thing Mrs. G mentioned was that she sometimes seems to have difficulty approaching other kids, socially. Sometimes, Margaret gets rebuffed, perhaps because the other kids misunderstand her, and she is easily intimidated by that and backs off alone and upset. Sad to hear, but it fits with the stories we occasionally get from Maggie about "No one would play with me today on the playground." Fortunately, these stories are the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps social butterfly Maggie is just coming to terms with the fact that she lives amongst the bizzarre West Michigan Dutch culture but will never be a real part of it herself (which is okay with me).

James in 4th grade
I had my severe reservations about Mrs. M for James this year, but I decided to see how it went, since that was the strong recommendation of his 3rd grade teacher. Thank goodness I tried it out. From what I can see in a 15-minute interview, she is perfect for him. She is the height of organization, rules, order. At the same time, she does not appear to be inflexible.

I came right out at the beginning with my biggest concern about James - his noticeably increased inability to keep up with homework/assignments. I told her we are quite certain that he has ADD, but are very reluctant to pursue treatment (which as far as we have seen in Grand Rapids, is medication, take it or leave it). She was highly supportive of this. In fact, she looked concerned that we might even consider medicating James (which we won't, at least for now).

"James is such a bright, creative child. He has great ideas and big thoughts. I would hate to see any of that curtailed by a medication," she told us. Wow, a teacher supporting us in this?

"Well, his pediatrician told us several years ago that we would know it was time to address the issue when James's teachers started complaining that he was driving them nuts, so we just wanted to see if he was, and if you are seeing the same things we are seeing at home."

Yes, she is seeing the same things, but it isn't driving her nuts. Bless her heart. In fact, we discovered, when James leaves for the Gifted/Talented pullout program 2 afternoons a week, he misses the regular classroom work. She had at first been sending it home with him to get finished. When it didn't come back, or not in any timely fashion, she decided to find other times to have him finish it at school rather than set him up in a habit of missing homework. (We hadn't known he had these things to finish, as they weren't listed in her list of homework for the week.)

She did wonder why his spelling tests were so uneven. I told her that was simple. If he studied the list just once the night before the weekly tests, he would get 100%. But sometimes, getting him to spend that 15 minutes studying was like pulling teeth and I just decided it wasn't worth it that week. Then, he would miss a number of words. She obviously doesn't like this approach, but we all cope as we have to, right?

She also mentioned that he works incredibly slowly, often being the last one done with seatwork. I told her that doesn't surprise me at all. He struggles to complete his homework, and not because it is hard. A task like writing 4 sentences seems insurmountable to him. He can't stay on task. (Maybe he should ask Maggie if she would loan him a few sentences.) She seemed to react well to our reports that he is actually worse at home. Instead of sending us packing for medication, she told us that she will be more vigilant in keeping him on task in the classroom with verbal reminders. We'll see - it doesn't work for me, but...

On the other hand, she raved about his reading ability. She was impressed with his reading comprehension, higher order synthesis, and factual recall. (No surprise to us there, but nice to hear from her.) She also sees a brilliant math mind, though one currently hampered by an inability to stay focused/attentive to any type of drill problems.

Further, she was very forgiving of his shortcomings. For example, she said she had been excusing his slowness all month because he has been on an antibiotic and she knew that might make him sleepier. Wow, that was thoughtful of her. It actually hadn't even occurred to me, that he might feel just lousy being hit by multiple medications, including one that he is still reacting to (allergic). Maybe she taught me a bit about backing off my own expectations. If so, I guess that was worth the whole evening of conferences this fall. So, I guess I will be going again in the spring.


Thanks to God for the kids having great teachers this year. It is nice to know they are in good hands.