Parent Letter

The season of Parent/Teacher conferences is upon us. I will get the pleasure of sitting at a table for five wonderful hours AFTER a full day of teaching tomorrow night. They're feeding us "dinner" for about fifteen minutes before hand starting around 2:45 and ending at 3:00. I would be infinitely more excited about this if I could get over that large number FIVE that keeps dangling in front of the word HOURS in my brain.

To help prepare for said conferences, I had my students write letters to their parent/guardian/loved ones/etc. today in class. These letters were modeled in a way that forced them to follow a certain pattern of "this is the grade I got, this is why I deserve it, I do this well in class, and I need to improve this in class" kind of thing, so that when I kindly tell a parent/guardian/loved one etc. that their charge needs to shut up, it can come from the student first and me second. Genius.

I scanned over them as I entered points into the gradebook tonight. Most of them are standard and predictable and spot on. Some of them are spot on in the most ironic way ever. Quotage:

"Three things that I do well in class are writing, reading, and talking." (This student isn't kidding about the 'good at talking' thing.)

"Dad says that if I get all A's throughout the whole year he will buy me an iTouch but this is midterm so it doesn't count so instead we should go and get ice cream on midterms." (I want ice cream! Also an iTouch. Will he buy me one too? - also, it surprises me HOW MANY of my students are bribed for good grades. I wasn't ever bribed for good grades. Damn my stupid self motivation.)

"I need to improv in this class by not taking out of turn and. . . my spelling a lot." (Only a small sampling of an error-filled letter. Yes. Spelling is a good place to start, my dear.)

"I feel I deserve (my grade) because I have been working hard to become the teachers Pet." (Snort. See? Brutal honesty.)

My favorite, though, was from a student who flat out refuses to work in my class. Obviously, judging by the state of said student's letter, they are not altogether impressed with me either:

"I didn't listen to the teacher and this class sucks. Its to hard and I want to change classes so I dont get any low grades." (My thoughts? Sweetheart, you don't get good grades in ANY class no matter how hard it is if you don't at least attempt to do something.)

"Three things I do well in class are play around and do some of my work and just sit there. I can improve by doing nothing." (Again with the brutal honesty. I kind of wonder what will happen if said student's mother shows up tomorrow. . . )

Ah well, can't win them all. Fortunately I have no desire to acquire early teen-aged friends at the moment.