Parent Teacher Conferences

I'm trying to figure out why I get so intensely anxious about parent teacher conferences, what exactly led me to mechanically eat a whole bag of pretzels on the train ride home in order to blunt or replace the subtle gnawing dread in the pit of my stomach about tomorrow's day-long parental extravaganza...

I guess it's that Parent Teacher Conference is the time when I most feel the burden of their trust.

It's also the time when I feel the most like an impostor. Sure, I've learned to talk the talk and even walk the walk most of the time. When it's just me and the kids I feel fine, they know the deal... But their parents...

It's not that any parents I've encountered have ever been unkind or unwilling to listen or too demanding or accusing or confrontational or anything like that - the reality is closer to the opposite. In general they are humble and deferential and come with a great respect for Teacher, School and Education.

It is this reverence, perhaps, that is the most unsettling... I am afraid they will see through me, that they will find out as they penetrate me with their questioning eyes that I am a mere mortal, practically a child myself. I'm afraid I won't live up to their expectations, that they will realize how un-credentialed and inexperienced I am, how thinly veiled is my ignorance about the world. I am afraid they'll find out, when it comes down to it, that I don't know crap about crap.

Part of my discomfort is feeling ill-equipped to offer any meaningful answers...They look down at the strings of numbers whose meaning, even for me with my impending graduate degree, is somewhat obscure and difficult to discern. What they see is red or black ink staring back at them, 1's or 2's or 3's or 4's telling them their child is less or more, enough or not enough, and though of course any teacher tiptoes around these words, right there in black and white, they see "good" or "bad."

And then they look back up at you plaintively and ask "What should I do?? How can I help my child??"

My canned advice comes out sounding feeble and flat. Read as much as possible at home... practice the times tables... do the homework...

It doesn't feel as if I'm answering the right question. It's as if I came upon them starving in a desert and offered them a Tic Tac.

The report cards themselves are opaque and archaic (hand-written, mass-produced by the DOE for distribution among all of New York City Public Schools) and don't even align with what we're actually teaching them... how can I assign a grade for grammar when that's not even part of the curriculum? What do they mean when they say "Calculates equations with efficiency and accuracy?" Am I meant to be timing them? It sounds as if the person who designed the report card is envisioning pupils in rows plugging away at their long division, and if that's the case, perhaps that person should poke their nose inside a classroom sometime this side of 1950...The criteria for each subject seem almost random, like it was all somebody could think of at the time.

Communication is another sticking point. It takes a lot, to try and explain and justify and comfort -- some of the conferences I feel more like a therapist, trying to convince students and parents alike that low grades do not represent personal failure, but rather an opportunity for improvement. The conferences in Spanish I pretty much do myself, because there's a limited set of things the conversation will touch upon and I'm able to communicate a good 60% of what I mean to say. (Translation is available but I prefer not to wait and to have the conversation directly if I can manage it). And the ones in English, most of the parents probably understand another 60% of what I say.

I've also noticed a stark contrast with my first grade Parent Teacher Conferences. Those parents I knew better because they picked the kids up from school every day and I had to have more contact by default, since first graders only have the vaguest of understandings about most things... In first grade I felt I had more to offer, more suggestions for the parents about the process of learning to read and helping kids get number sense ... telling time, counting change, practicing sight words, learning the alphabet... these were things, concrete things, they could DO.

With many of my Big Kids, especially the ones who walk home alone, this might only be the second time I lay eyes on their parents... (Evidence of yet another institutional shortcoming of P.S. OO, with its fortress walls and uniformed guards and draconian, unwelcoming visitor policies and almost hostile treatment of parents and guests) But not only do I not know the 5th grade parents as well, I have less to say to them. The average PS OO parent can't help with math homework any longer once it gets to prime factorization and five-paragraph essays and determining symbolism. I sometimes wonder what it's like to work on writing pieces in a language your parents can't really read or understand...

But the biggest part of my dilemma about communication is not just how but what. Sure, for some kids a low grade is a much-needed kick in the pants. But that's a minority of students...

I have a big problem with the way we grade. My problem is that the grades haven't caught up with the pedagogy... As teachers we differentiate, differentiate all day long, we teach according to our students' needs, recognize students' unique learning styles and address the different modalities. We are held accountable for acknowledging that every student is different and are expected to reflect that understanding in our teaching. So where are the differentiated assessments? Why do we not differentiate our evaluations in the same way, taking into account what has been proven a zillion times over about the huma brain - mainly, that no two are alike?

How come A--, my newcomer who works her ass off every day and went up seven reading levels in four months is getting big, fat, bright red "one" in Reading... In contrast with my above-average intelligence but kinda lazy native New Yorker who went up one solitary reading level, but still gets to ease by with a comfortable "on grade level" 3.

Not to mention the paradox that, if the "on grade level" grade is based on the average performance of 10-year-olds, let's say the middle third of the lot... doesn't it make the assessment inappropriate for the other two thirds of the lot?

Knowing my poor C--, who still adds on her fingers and just can't seem to wrap her head around the times tables, though not for lack of trying, will take the same test as B--, who could probably teach the math curriculum better than I, is just frustrating. The end result in terms of teaching, unjust and distasteful as it might be, is that B-- is bored most of the time and often ignored, and C-- is floundering as I overwhelm her with "quick-fixes..." Prodded by the pressure of the ever-present Deadline, I glaze over gaps in fundamental understanding by training her to memorize steps out of context, frantically trying to fluff up her performance and mask her limited understanding by the time the big bad test arrives...

My trouble is that in my heart, I know the grades are bullshit. They're not fair and they don't reflect true learning and they don't take into account significant progress that has been made and they gloss over the fact that people learn, and demonstrate their learning, in different ways.

But to these immigrant families, the grades are not bullshit. For many of them, these grades are the reason to go to work each day cleaning houses and driving taxis and making deliveries, the reason for having left home and relatives and everything they ever knew. The report card holds the evidence that they and their children are getting closer, making progress towards that Better Life they're seeking.

I know how easily, and almost arbitrarily, I assign the grades that come to mean so much. In the raw, they don't really matter to me.

But at the same time, it would feel disloyal to the struggles and striving of the families to act as if they aren't important. The fact that I don't care about them must remain a secret because the significance of these grades goes beyond identifying a kid's strengths and weaknesses, their aptitudes or idiosyncracies. The report cards are not really about me at all... the grades represent purpose, hope, dreams, prayers... I'm not just validating the kids' work, but also the hard work and decisions and sacrifices and difficult choices of their families. In a sense, by the power vested in me by the state of New York and the dominant culture of the US of A, I'm grading them on how well they're living out their American Dreams.

In a sense, I have to continue to spout the party lines so that the families can continue to have faith in the system. I am forced to defend a system I see as so flawed and arbitrary and at times harmful and poisonous, because no parent wants their child's teacher to tell them, "This will not work. The chances are slim. There is just so much working against your child." These kids and their families, they don't really have a choice about buying into the system because it's really the only system available to them. For them, public education HAS to work; they have no other choice but to believe that it will. To tell them my true feelings would serve no purpose, would ultimately be a disservice. Instead, I tell them to work hard, keep on striving, you're almost there, you can do it if you try. Because, in a certain light, it's the only possible truth to say or hear.

Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself, reading too much into Parent Teacher Conferences.

But maybe not.