It's the season for parent-teacher school conferences. At least, that's what the pages and reams of papers and permission slips and questionnaires coming home this past week have been telling me. You too? I'm a little rusty at this: my kids went to a Waldorf school until this year and the conferences there involve reverently lighting a candle and then talking about the etheric nature of the child involved, and oh yes by the way he's doing wonderfully, do you want to see his paintings?
So this year in public school it's going to be different. And many people think kids should also attend, but I disagree.
The idea behind having kids attend the conferences is to "make them accountable" and to ensure that things don't get "lost in translation." (that was a movie, right?) And while I think those are worthwhile ideals, I also think that any parent doing a halfway job is already going to be effectively communicating with their kid, and maybe too that the kid is going to already feel accountable for their work. But I have kids who do well in school. Maybe it's different when there's more of a struggle.
It seems to me that involving the kid directly in the conference removes the element of communication between parent and teacher. Parents should be able to speak to teachers freely about their kids, feeling that the two of them are on a team to assist the child in his school journey. Involving kids directly in the conference process would, to my mind, make the parent feel more defensive and would likely create a parent-kid vs. teacher effect, which totally negates the point of the conference and removes the openness aspect of the experience. And again, parents should already have established an element of communication with their child so as to both know already how that conference is going to proceed and also have enacted a plan to assist wth whatever needs to be worked on.
Hmm, or is this more of my Happy Bubble World? I know some of you are teachers, and most all of you are parents; surely there are some opinions out there about this? I'd love to hear them. (and could you also please exlain why schools always smell that way?)
