Clueless
CPS doesn’t call them “Parent-teacher conferences.” CPS calls it “Report Card Pick-Up Day.” The parents have to come into the school between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. to get the report card and talk with the student’s teachers. There are no classes this day, which happens twice a year, right after report cards come out.
It’s a day when, first and foremost, I can sleep in. I don’t have to struggle to manage a class. I get to talk with parents face-to-face, which is something I am exceedingly good at. I’m not being immodest. Well, maybe immodest, but I’m not exaggerating. My mentor teacher during my student-teaching days complimented me on how well I handled some of the most demanding parents in the state (this was in rich district, where many parents would punish their children for getting an A instead of a full A). My fiancée overheard me on the phone one day telling a parent about a time I referred to her son’s actions in class in a slightly less than professional way (I said he was acting like a dick, which he was). When I explained what her son had been doing, she completely agreed with me. Lisa was floored that I could finesse such a situation and come out smelling like roses.
So report-card pickup is usually a good day. I’ve been trying to figure out why this one was such a downer, and I think I have it boiled down to one phrase I kept saying over and over all night long: “if your child would just come to class . . .”
While this is the first time I have spoken with some parents, there are some that I have seen before. One such parent was the mother of “Kirk,” who was astounded when I called her last month to tell her Kirk had missed an entire week’s worth of my class. “I don’t know how that can be, I drop him off at 7:45 every morning.”
Well, the student advocates did some sniffing around, and caught Kirk coming into school just before 8 a.m., MAYBE sticking around for his first class (mine) or, more likely, sneaking out another door. But Kirk is clever. Since his mother comes back to school at 3 p.m. to pick him up (she’s worried about his safety), he makes sure to be outside the school waiting for her at 2:55.
And it’s not like Kirk is having trouble in my class. When he shows up, he’s quiet, he does his work, he gets good grades. But since he rarely shows up, he can’t do the work, and he ends up failing.
There are many students who make my day with their absence. Kirk isn’t one of them. He seems intelligent and well-socialized. I have absolutely no idea why he chooses to miss so much school.
Kirk’s mother has known about his sly school-skipping for weeks, but whatever she does at home to discourage him obviously isn’t working. When I was talking with her this evening, I could tell she kept waiting for me to give her some kind of magic solution to her son’s behavior. Believe me, I wanted to delve into her parenting practices, find out what she was doing and not doing to influence her son’s life, to point out to her that she is expecting her son to act like an adult when he clearly is not capable of doing so (I want to say this to a LOT of parents).
But I don’t want to attack my best ally in the fight to save this kid’s future. Besides, I’m not the school counselor or social worker. I am neither credentialed, qualified, nor paid to assist parents with their child-rearing skills. So I make my phone calls, document my conversations, and feel more like a truant officer or secretary than a teacher. When Kirk fails, when he misses so many days of school that his mother is taken to court, my butt, at least, is covered. It’s cynical and sad and unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.
It’s a day when, first and foremost, I can sleep in. I don’t have to struggle to manage a class. I get to talk with parents face-to-face, which is something I am exceedingly good at. I’m not being immodest. Well, maybe immodest, but I’m not exaggerating. My mentor teacher during my student-teaching days complimented me on how well I handled some of the most demanding parents in the state (this was in rich district, where many parents would punish their children for getting an A instead of a full A). My fiancée overheard me on the phone one day telling a parent about a time I referred to her son’s actions in class in a slightly less than professional way (I said he was acting like a dick, which he was). When I explained what her son had been doing, she completely agreed with me. Lisa was floored that I could finesse such a situation and come out smelling like roses.
So report-card pickup is usually a good day. I’ve been trying to figure out why this one was such a downer, and I think I have it boiled down to one phrase I kept saying over and over all night long: “if your child would just come to class . . .”
While this is the first time I have spoken with some parents, there are some that I have seen before. One such parent was the mother of “Kirk,” who was astounded when I called her last month to tell her Kirk had missed an entire week’s worth of my class. “I don’t know how that can be, I drop him off at 7:45 every morning.”
Well, the student advocates did some sniffing around, and caught Kirk coming into school just before 8 a.m., MAYBE sticking around for his first class (mine) or, more likely, sneaking out another door. But Kirk is clever. Since his mother comes back to school at 3 p.m. to pick him up (she’s worried about his safety), he makes sure to be outside the school waiting for her at 2:55.
And it’s not like Kirk is having trouble in my class. When he shows up, he’s quiet, he does his work, he gets good grades. But since he rarely shows up, he can’t do the work, and he ends up failing.
There are many students who make my day with their absence. Kirk isn’t one of them. He seems intelligent and well-socialized. I have absolutely no idea why he chooses to miss so much school.
Kirk’s mother has known about his sly school-skipping for weeks, but whatever she does at home to discourage him obviously isn’t working. When I was talking with her this evening, I could tell she kept waiting for me to give her some kind of magic solution to her son’s behavior. Believe me, I wanted to delve into her parenting practices, find out what she was doing and not doing to influence her son’s life, to point out to her that she is expecting her son to act like an adult when he clearly is not capable of doing so (I want to say this to a LOT of parents).
But I don’t want to attack my best ally in the fight to save this kid’s future. Besides, I’m not the school counselor or social worker. I am neither credentialed, qualified, nor paid to assist parents with their child-rearing skills. So I make my phone calls, document my conversations, and feel more like a truant officer or secretary than a teacher. When Kirk fails, when he misses so many days of school that his mother is taken to court, my butt, at least, is covered. It’s cynical and sad and unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.
posted by Christopher at
10:39 PM
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