Once again, it's my favorite time of year- parent-teacher conferences!!! The kids' school offers conferences on Thursday evening and Friday morning. Friday is my day off so I have always gone Friday morning. Well, this year with two kids and 10 different teachers, I made Gene come with me Thursday. The school has two gyms (the smaller one is used as a cafeteria) so 5th and 6th grade teachers are in one gym and 7th and 8th in the other. The teachers sit at a table with 2 chairs in front and you line up and wait. And for the chatty teachers, you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and it takes all of your self-control to not just walk out and go get ice cream instead. It's an awful system, but it works.
Thursday morning as we were driving into the school parking lot for drop-off, Logan told me I'd probably be disappointed with his grades. I was teasing him and asked if he'd been playing too much Minecraft and not studying enough? He completely flipped out and yelled "STUDY! I DO NOT STUDY!" Then he muttered a bunch of stuff about how ridiculous I was being to think that he would study and then it was his turn to get out of the car. I drove to work, part laughing, part stunned and part a little scared of seeing his report card. We never have had a follow up conversation about studying, but I'm going to have to guess that my general definition of "study" that was encompassing all aspects of homework is NOT Logan's definition. His report card was excellent other than his science grade and that was due to one late assignment and few grades overall.
For meet the teacher night in early September, Gene went to Kaylin's classes and I went to Logan's. We switched for conferences. Gene said that all of Logan's teachers said he was great to have in class. He participates and isn't disruptive and does a good job. (Haha, they will never know that he absolutely does not study!) Kaylin's teachers said the same things I've been hearing since 3rd grade. She's very quiet in class, very smart and understands all the material. If she doesn't have an A in the class it is ALWAYS because she failed to turn in assignments. She does the assignments, she just can't seem to locate them when she needs to.
My biggest annoyance of the night was when I got home and showed Kaylin her report card. Her first comment was "An A in gym? I wear Crocs every day and sit on the bleachers with my friends. I guess I'll keep doing what I'm doing." Obviously, that's a terrible attitude, but how can I argue? Seriously, if they are going to give her an A when she doesn't participate at all but she's not disruptive, she might as well keep doing what she's doing. The gym teachers probably don't even know her name. Whatever. Another thing to add to my list of why I don't believe report card grades mean anything.
I'm glad conferences are over for a few more months. I had no surprises about the kids and no teachers physically touched me in any way beyond a handshake. Success!
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