Parent teacher conferences

Parent teacher conferences were this week, and they all went well. Adam and Ellie's were on Tuesday, and in the car on the way home I told them that although I was pleased by their good grades, I was most pleased by the fact that both their teachers said that they were helpful, kind and nice to others. Kate was obviously listening, because on the way into her conference on Wednesday she said 'Will my teacher say I'm nice? Will she?' and that was what she was most concerned about.

We arrived on time for Kate's conference; and then proceeded to wait for twenty minutes while the dad before us harangued Kate's teacher. His daughter knows her numbers, she knows them, and how can she get a 4 (excels) instead of the 3 (competent) that was already on her report card? What does she have to do to get a 4? Why didn't she get a 4 this semester? Shouldn't she only have to know to 30 this semester instead of 100, and 60 next semester, and 100 in the final semester? Wouldn't it be fairer to mark her that way? But she knows them, she knows all of them. What if he proves she can count to 200, would she get a 4 then? What can he do at home to encourage her and enable her to get a 4? She has lots of extra curricular activities that she does, and he thinks she has too much free time, and he thinks that twenty minutes of homework every day is not enough. So what extra stuff should he be doing at home to enable her to be getting 4s on her report card?

His daughter, meanwhile, was playing with toys in the corner with Kate. I was glad she got at least twenty minutes that day to play with toys, because I was fairly sure her dad was going to take her home and do math problems with her in consequence of her not getting a 4 on her report card.

Let me just remind you, this is KINDERGARTEN!

So when it was my turn I sat myself down at the teacher's desk and said 'Let me make this easy for you. I don't care about academics and won't care about academics until she's in second grade at least, I don't think kindergarteners should have any homework at all, and all I want to know at this point is does she play nicely with the other kids?'

Kate's teacher burst out laughing and we had a nice chat. And Kate is doing just fine, thank you very much. Even if I haven't bothered to see if she can count to 200 yet.