parent teacher conference

On Friday I had my first parent teacher conference with Kaylin's 2nd grade teacher. I arrived at 7:55am, hoping I'd make it to work on time (8:30.) I left the classroom at 8:35. Forty minutes! That's twenty minutes longer than my previous longest ptc.

We started off with the report card. All A's except a B in effort. Then the state pretest. The hope was that the students would score in the 60s. Kaylin's scores were in the 90s. Kaylin's doing well, understands the material, is good at writing and is very creative, BUT...

Kaylin spends too much time daydreaming. She DOODLES on her papers and doesn't follow instructions. (At this point the teacher pulled out a paper where Kaylin wrote her name huge on the side rather than in the upper righthand corner. The look of disbelief on her face at this crazy act was priceless.) Then the teacher went on and on about how Kaylin does not "conform to the normal behavior of a 2nd grader." An example she gave was that one time Kaylin came in from recess soaking wet. Kaylin admitted she knew she'd get wet and have to sit in wet clothes, but jumping in the puddle was too much fun not to do. The teacher looked at me with such exasperation and went on and on and on about how "normal" 2nd graders don't do this!

Yeah. I'm guessing that when Teacher was 35, she didn't jump around in leaf piles at work. She didn't come in from a rain storm soaking wet and covered in mud and laughing her head off. She probably never even hosed a coworker as they walked by! Probably I'm the wrong parent to appeal to sooooo earnestly about conformity and normalcy! I have absolutely NO desire for my kids to be anything but who they are! Why on earth would I care if my kid plays in a puddle??? Most importantly, how can I teach my kids to respect authority when authority is an idiot???

Maybe Logan will have this teacher. His organizational skills and cleanliness will be a joy for her to behold :)

I haven't mentioned anything about the conference to Kaylin because I want to be positive. I'll play up the good grades and good behavior and discuss the importance of organization. I'll then try to convince her to stop doodling as this is what seems to annoy her teacher the most. However, I strongly suspect Kaylin already knows... Sound familiar?